Page 44 of The Wrong Brother

Emma clears her throat and looks away from me toward the mirror again, visibly flustered now.

I lean back against the chair outside the fitting rooms while Kate continues piling clothing into Emma’s arms with terrifying efficiency. Luckily, my little niece has good taste. I only add one or two pieces into the mix, enjoying seeing the two of them laugh and critique. Emma even starts to loosen up, showing off particularly ridiculous outfits or murmuring happily over ones she likes.

And somewhere between winter boots and evening dresses, another realization settles unpleasantly into place: Kate needs this.

Not Emma specifically, but a woman. A female presence beyond exhausted teachers and aging caretakers. Kate hasn’t truly had a mother-figure in her life since she was taken from her. And I’m not someone who can have a woman in my life, not one I can trust raising a girl who feels like a daughter to me.

No, the only woman who could truly love a man like me is too dangerous to bring into Kate’s life. And love is a myth.

But watching her chatter excitedly with Emma now, asking opinions about earrings, rolling her eyes dramatically over ugly sweaters, laughing openly, I feel something sharp twist in my chest.

Guilt.

Perhaps I’ve kept Kate so isolated from my world that I've also isolated her from things she needed.

Emma steps out again wearing a dark green dress this time, smoothing nervous hands down the fabric automatically. My body reacts instantly.

That’s problematic, especially so soon after what happened between us yesterday. Fast and hot, but I should be satiated.

I feel far from it, seeing her in this dress.

Kate gasps dramatically. “Oh my God.”

Emma looks toward me despite herself. I hold her gaze calmly. “Buy it.”

“That wasn’t an opinion.”

“It was a decision.”

She huffs softly. “I’m starting to realize you’re very opinionated about clothing.” She waits until Kate skips out into the store and adds, “You’re very bossy.”

“You are very argumentative.”

“Only because you keep acting like some terrifying Russian sugar daddy.”

I stare at Emma for one long second before stepping closer, trying not to put my hands on her body. On those curves wrapped in satin. “If I were your sugar daddy,” I murmur quietly enough that only she hears, “you would already own this entire store.”

Her breath catches.

Good.

The saleswoman hovering nearby suddenly looks deeply uncomfortable. Also good.

Emma glares at me afterward, but the flush lingering across her cheeks betrays her.

And as we continue through the store together, I find myself watching her less like a business arrangement and more like a problem I want to solve.

Chapter 11

Emma

Colorado stretches endlesslybeyond the tinted windows of the jet in rolling gold fields and dark pine forests climbing toward distant peaks dusted faintly with early snow. The sky feels bigger here somehow. Endless.

I stare out the window as we move closer and closer toward Denver, only twenty minutes out now. Summer is ending.

I can see it everywhere; the trees have that tired look they get right before autumn swallows them whole. Some leaves are already beginning to yellow at the edges. Burnt orange flickers through clusters of aspens like the season is testing itself carefully before committing.

It makes my chest ache unexpectedly hard. Colorado used to feel like possibility, somewhere I could stay, somewhere far away from the mess of Miami.