Page 28 of Brother in Law with Benefits

"Yeah."

She sits up. Puts space between us. Not much, but enough to look at me clearly. "Okay. Tell me."

"The Brazil contract. They finalized the timeline." I hold her gaze. "Late September. Eight weeks."

A long silence. I can see her processing it — the careful, controlled way she takes in information she doesn't like, the same way I imagine she processes a bad scan result before she has to walk into a room and deliver it steadily to someone else.

“So there's no moremaybe."

"Sophie."

"It's fine. This was always the deal." Her voice is tight, controlled. She starts reaching for her shirt.

"It's not fine."

"Yes, it is." She pulls on the shirt. Won't look at me. "We agreed. You leave, I stay. That was always the arrangement."

"What if I don't want the arrangement anymore?"

She stops. "What are you saying?"

"I don't know." I sit up. "Mom asked me today why I don't stay. Turn down the contract. I don't have an answer to that."

"Because you can't—"

"Can't or won't?"

Something flickers across her face. Hope, and then fear, which is a thing I've done to her, put that fear where hope was. "Don't," she says quietly.

"Don't what?"

"Don't say things like that unless you mean them." She finally looks at me, and her eyes are wet. "Don't make me hope for something that's not going to happen."

"What if it could happen?"

She shakes her head. Gets up. Starts gathering the rest of her clothes, movements sharp and efficient in a way that's its own kind of tell — Sophie gets more organized, not less, when she's trying not to fall apart.

"You're going to get on that plane, Grant. That's what you do. I'm not angry about it. But I need you to be honest about it instead of—" She stops. Her voice is not as steady as she wants it to be. "Instead of making me believe something different."

"Sophie." I stand. "Wait."

"I can't." She's got her jeans on. She's not crying and it's almost worse than if she'd cried. "I need to go. I need to think."

I reach for her. "Don't leave like this—"

"I have to."

She's at the door. She pauses.

"Don't tell me you're thinking about staying," she says, "unless you mean it. And don't promise you won't hurt me unless you'resure." Her voice is very quiet. "I've had promises from Guilligan men before."

Then she's gone.

I sit on the edge of my bed in the empty room and listen to her car start in the driveway. Listen to her drive away.

The Brazil email is still open on my laptop downstairs.

I have eight weeks to figure out what kind of man I'm going to be.