Page 4 of The Wrong Brother

Heat floods my face instantly.

Her friend snickers behind her, coming briefly into view. “Maybe they make it in a more forgiving cut?”

I want the floor to swallow me whole. Same feeling as middle school dressing rooms. Same feeling as college parties.

Same feeling standing beside polished political wives while Andrei introduced me as his girlfriend, and I wondered if everyone noticed I was too soft around the edges to belong there.

I cross my arms over my chest, which at this point is ready to spill out of the wine-red top.

“I was just taking it off—” I mumble, already reaching for the curtain.

“Why?”

The voice is male.

Low.

Smooth.

The blonde woman straightens immediately.

I look up and forget how breathing works for a second.

He stands a few feet away like he stepped out of a magazine spread—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a striped black-and-white suit, the jacket open to reveal a cerulean shirt that shouldn’t work but does. His hair is striking: pale blond threaded with silver at the temples.

He glances at the blonde woman with lazy displeasure. “You seem confused,” he says mildly. “I asked why she should take the dress off.”

When he repeats the question, one finger delicately slides the glasses down his sharp nose, revealing eyes so pale they almost look silver.

And those cheekbones.

The woman flushes. “I was only?—”

“You were being rude in my store.”

My store.

Oh.

The blonde sputters slightly. “I didn’t realize?—”

“Out,” he says calmly.

Everything happens all at once, like a well-oiled machine. The saleswoman steps out of the fitting room and suddenly seems to tower over the blonde woman and her friend. The woman’s mouth is open, her eyes wide as she stares at—What was his name?

I heard it on the street, but words seem like way too much effort with this man’s cool eyes flicking back toward me.

In just a moment the two rude women are gone, as if they had never existed. The chime of the door sounds, and it feels like I can breathe once more.

The man’s gaze slides back to me. It makes my pulse skip strangely, especially when he steps closer, eyes drifting over the dress clinging to my body. Not leering, but assessing. I recognize that look because it’s the same one I used to wear at work.

“It fits beautifully,” he says.

I almost laugh because that is objectively untrue.

“The back doesn’t close,” I point out, internally mortified at the attitude in the words

His mouth curves slightly.