Page 2 of Her Dirty Secret

Mom, who is facing me, looks up, but Aunt Char jumps a little in surprise. She turns around with a hand to her chest.

“Goodness, Emily, you startled me,” she replies.

“They’re in the kitchen, dear,” my mother supplies.

I set my purse down on a side table and move toward my mother.

“Shouldn’t they be doing all this?” I ask, planting a kiss on her cheek.

Aunt Char waves a hand. “Nonsense,” she chides me. “We’re here. Why wouldn’t we help?”

With a shrug, I turn to head into the kitchen to give Bryce a hard time for resigning them to manual labor. Honestly.

As I swing the door open, I catch Bryce’s huge frame wrapped around Sera in a corner of the kitchen.

“And this time, Em isn’t going to spoil it,” Bryce is telling her. He goes to kiss her, and I just can’t help myself.

“Em isn’t going to spoil what?” I ask unnecessarily loudly with the most innocent expression I can muster.

Sera looks up at me and bursts out laughing, letting her long, wavy light brown hair fall into her face. My brother’s head whips around and he glares at me.

“Shitty timing, as usual, sis.” And with that, he proceeds to ignore me, planting a far too steamy kiss on Sera. They go at it like teenagers, clearly not caring that I’m standing right here.

“You know, this is your party,” I remind them. “You might want to help out a little. People will be here soon.”

It takes a second, but they finally peel apart.

“If you insist,” he replies, planting his giant, muscled self in front of me. I don’t know why he thinks he can intimidate me like he does everyone else. I know exactly where to punch him to make him drop to the floor and cry like a girl.

With a smug smile, I pick up a stack of plates and cups. He does the same, following me back out to the living room.

As we lay everything out, I can’t help poking at him a little. “Seriously, you gotta be more careful with the PDA,” I tell him. “Would you want Mom to walk in on you guys feeling each other up like that?”

Bryce smirks down at me. “Jealous much?”

If I was teasing before, I’m annoyed now. “Uh, no.”

He crosses his arms over his slab of a chest and raises an eyebrow at me. “Emily Hoyt, I think you are jealous,” he teases me.

Something about my big brother and that tone of voice makes me want to stomp my foot. But I resist. Barely.

“Don’t worry, little sis,” he assures me, wrapping his huge arm around my neck. I give him a look that forbids the coming noogie, and thankfully he relents. “Someday, you’ll find someone who is just as crazy about you as I am about her.” He looks back at the kitchen wistfully.

It melts the fight out of me. “You two are ridiculously, adorably perfect for each other,” I grudgingly admit. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not just fine on my own.”

“Of course you are,” Aunt Char offers, coming back through the room with Mom behind her. “Emily has always been a free spirit. She doesn’t need a man tying her down.”

Mom shakes her head. “Says my never-married sister.”

Bryce and I chuckle as they head into the kitchen.

“At least someone in this family gets me,” I shoot at him.

Bryce narrows his eyes at me. “Oh, believe me, I get that you don’t want to be tied down to anything traditional. The dozen times you’ve turned down working in the family business to pursue your ‘music career’ pretty much got that point across.” He says it with a smile. And I realize I’m just being a grouch. Because if anyone gets me, loves me, accepts me for who I am, it’s my steadfast big brother. He’s always been the reliable rock of the family, even more so than Dad was. Dad was just as moody as I am. At least I know it’s genetic. Not that that helps much.

But before I can apologize for being so snippy, there’s a knock on the door. Bryce goes to answer, but I wave at him to continue setting up, and I head down the hall and into the foyer.

I open the door to a completely average-looking middle-aged man and a tiny redhead. The man extends his hand.

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