Page 21 of Claimed By My Ex’s Brother

My cheeks go hot. What exactly is he playing at here? Some cold, clever, predatory part of him wants me to understand that no matter how fast I run, he can step back into my path whenever it happens to suit him.

The whole thing is absurd on its face. I have been waitressing at Sablo barely eight months. Assistant roles go to polished women who juggle three calendars and never sweat through a single meeting, not to a cocktail waitress who fucked the boss and still has syrup under her nails.

“I really cannot,” I start to say, but he lifts one eyebrow and the rest of the sentence dies in my mouth. It is a small, patient, arrogant gesture that says he hasn’t heard the word no in a very long time.

“I’m not qualified for this,” I try again. “I have been here eight months. You need an assistant who knows what she is doing, not someone who was carrying cocktails three hours ago.”

“You kept your dignity last night,” he says.

“Carrying trays is nothing like assisting you.”

“You kept your head while my brother and his fiancée did everything they could to break you. You served them with a smile you didn’t owe them, and when they put you on the floor, you looked up at me with blood on your face and told me you were fine.” His voice stays level and certain. “They humiliated you, and you still would not give them a single tear. That is the part I noticed.”

My throat pulls tight. He saw that. He saw the thing that nobody sees, the hundred small humiliations I swallow every shift and never once let show. Recognition from most people would land as nothing. Recognition from a man carrying this much weight behind his eyes lands somewhere I was not braced for.

“You are not afraid of the work,” he goes on, and taps one finger against the bar as his voice drops lower. “You are afraid of what happens to your control, and to your body, when I’m close to you.”

A hot thrill runs through me that I don’t want anywhere near me. He’s my ex’s brother, the man half this room whispers about, and letting him one inch closer could bring down the fragile little life I have stacked so carefully. And still that weathered, filthy confidence of his dissolves my good sense like sugar in hot water.

“You think very highly of yourself,” I say, even as my pulse argues the opposite.

“I have earned the right to.” His gaze drifts to the flush climbing my neck and lower. “After what I did to you last night, I would say so.”

Heat floods my face and pools lower. “You cannot say that in here.” Dozens of eyes are still fixed on us, pretending very hard not to be.

“I’m discussing your employment,” he says, unbothered.

“That is not what it sounds like.”

He straightens, and his tone turns to plain business. “I will pay you five times your current salary.”

Whatever rebuttal I had lined up dies on the spot.

“Money doesn’t fix everything,” I manage.

“It will fix your problems,” he says flatly. “You need money, Delaney. I’m offering you a great deal of it.”

So, he has seen my payroll file. My salary, the hospital debt garnished out of it, all of it laid open on some screen for him to scroll through like he owns it. The strange part is that he doesn’t mock any of it. He states my situation the way a builder reads a blueprint, as though he is already tracing a route out of it for me.

Five times my salary. The number unfolds in my head against everything it would touch. The debt shrinking at last instead of holding steady. A cushion under Milo and me for the first time in years. That paleontology museum across the river he has begged to visit for months, the one I keep telling him we cannot spare a whole day for.

Every instinct I own is screaming at me to refuse this. My unpaid bills and a small boy who loves dinosaurs are screaming a great deal louder. For once I could stop choosing which debt to feed and which to starve. For once Milo could ask for a toy or a trip and hear me say yes without doing sums under my breath.

“Do you investigate everyone you hire?” I ask.

“Only the ones who sneak out of my bed before I’m done with them.” My breath catches on the words. “And you are, after all, saved in my phone as a person I’m responsible for.”

“Fine. I accept the job.” I lift my chin at him. “But this is only work.”

His mouth curves as though he has just won a small bet. “Of course,” he says. “Though if you ever wish to negotiate the filthier services, my door stays open to you.” His gaze travels the full length of me, slow and warm. It stops, unhurried, everywhere his hands have already been.

“You can keep dreaming.”

“I already did. Last night, with my cock in your mouth, in a fair amount of detail.”

Filthy teasing seems to be his favorite pastime, and I would resent it far more if the memories didn’t come flooding in right on cue. Him buried in me, bare and shameless, fucking me over the edge again and again until I lost count of how many times I came.

“Pack your things,” he says. “Be at my offices at two o’clock. Yuri will send a car.”