Page 18 of In Love After Office Hours

Willem only shrugged. “My annual checkups say otherwise.” But he also changed the subject, not in the mood to be nagged by his younger sisters. “When was the last time either of you spoke to Nic?” Nicolaas was the youngest in their family, and as the troubleshooter for the business, he was more often traveling around the world than not.

“Just yesterday,” Fleur answered. One of the conditions Willem had required before allowing any of them to leave the nest was that they were to strictly keep in touch with each other.

“Maybe a week ago for me,” Anneke murmured. “But I did get to speak to Jaak.” Of her three male siblings, Jaak was the most easygoing, almost callously so when it came to women. “He’s still in Phuket, last time I heard.”

Willem sighed. “As long as he’s still alive.” Although he did not approve of Jaak’s hedonistic lifestyle, he had also never interfered, knowing that his brother was old enough to make his own decisions, right or wrong.

His sisters, however, were a different matter. Looking at them, Willem liked to think that he had raised both of them well – or at least as well as he could, having been thrown into the deep end by a pair of self-centered adults who had only known how to make babies but not how to care for them.

“How are you and your husband?” he asked Anneke.

She shrugged. Although she was twenty-eight, she looked a lot younger mostly because of her petite frame and dimpled looks.

“You do know we will have to talk about him soon, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure why we should.” Anneke’s tone was unusually tight. “It’s only a matter of time before our divorce pushes through.”

Sensing that her two older siblings were about to butt heads, Fleur knew it was time for another change of subject. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “What if Shane saw Serenity’s gift on your desk?”

Willem frowned at the interruption, but courtesy bade him to answer, and so he said simply, “She won’t.”

Fleur blinked. “You’ve stopped seeing her then?”

Willem shook his head. “What I mean is that Shane won’t see it because I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

It was Anneke’s turn to frown. “You mean you’re going to hide it every time Shane comes to visit?”

At the same time, Fleur asked, “You mean Shane still doesn’t know you’re her baby sister’s honorary bo—-” Anneke shot her a warning look. “—-dyguard,” she finished. She had been about to say ‘boyfriend’ but since it was Willem’s birthday today, she decided to be generous and not make any waves.

Willem looked at his sisters oddly. “Why do you insist on making this an issue when it’s not? Shane is just competitive with her sister, but they don’t hate each other.” Even now, he remembered the first and only time he had tried to bring up Serenity with her older sister, remembered the way Shane’s rosebud lips had turned down in an unpleasant manner. He had taken his cue from there and had not made the same mistake again.

“You two have been competitive with each other growing up,” he reminded them. “It’s the same with Shane and Serenity, and I would rather not be one of their bones of contention.”

Fleur and Anneke looked at each other, both of them wondering how it was possible for someone as intelligent as Willem to be so incredibly dumb when it came to women. The two of them had been competitive growing up, but Shane and Serenity were different. Shane was jealous of Serenity, and her jealousy grew as, with every year, it became more obvious that her younger sister was destined to outshine her in every way.

Fleur started to speak when Willem’s phone rang, and when she saw the way her oldest brother’s face softened, she closed her mouth. Serenity was calling, and knowing how long their phone conversations could take, she knew it would be quite a while before Willem would put the phone down.

“Serenity says hi,” Willem was telling them.

“Hi.” Fleur and Anneke again answered in unison.

Willem’s gaze narrowed. One of these days, he would ask how they could be so nice to Serenity and yet be such bitches to her older sister.

Not wanting Willem to accidentally hear what she had to say, Fleur quickly pulled out her phone and texted her sister.

Fleur: He’s so blind.

Anneke: I know. He’s hopeless. But I also know you and I’m telling you now – YOU CANNOT INTERFERE.

Fleur: You know me too well.

Anneke: That, and because I think it’s too early anyway.

Fleur: Because she’s too young?

Fleur paused after typing the words. Fifteen and twenty-nine, she mused. It could have been worse. It could have been a twenty or thirty-year gap. Or maybe not. What was age anyway to two people in love, even when they didn’t know it themselves?

Her phone beeped then, and she looked down to read her sister’s reply.

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