Page 90 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
Jack’s gaze sharpens. “No. She might be wary. But not resentful. I’ll make sure of it.”
I nod, but the truth is, there’s no guarantee. Relationships aren’t assignments you can complete with the right answers. They’re messy, unpredictable things, and I’ve been in enough storms to know you can do everything right and still end up soaked.
We linger there, our laptops open, coffee cups cooling beside them, sketching out a day that’s part normal routine, part blueprint for a new life. The apartment feels different now, like we’ve started pulling threads together into something solid. But there’s still the edge of danger. His father already knows aboutEmma, which means this information could be leveraged in ways we can’t predict. Derek’s silence lately feels less like retreat and more like the quiet before another strike.
Jack reads my mind. “She stays out of all of that. No matter what happens with them.”
I press my hand to his arm, grounding him. “Then we make sure she knows she’s wanted here.”
***
Later, I’m in the spare room again, standing in the same spot by the window, picturing a girl I’ve never met unpacking her life into this space. Will she look like him? Will she want to? I imagine her setting down a backpack, glancing at me like she’s still deciding whether I’m an intruder or an ally. It doesn’t matter which she chooses at first. I’ll earn the rest.
44
JACK
The apartment is tranquil except for the low rush of traffic that never really stops. My coffee sits beside the laptop, cooling to the exact temperature no one wants. On the screen, an email sits open like a dare:From: Catherine Shaw, Subject: Emma – Photos.
My father’s assistant. Not my father. He never sends the first message. He hires people to do it, then claims the last word. No body text. Just a single attachment labeledEmma.
I double-click. The first photo fills the screen: a little girl in a red coat in front of a park bench, winter light washing her hair almost white. My chest tightens, sharp and involuntary, before I force it back under control. The next: older, nine, maybe ten, caught mid-laugh over a birthday cake, candles bending in the draft. The last: a school portrait. Straight collar, neutral backdrop, chin lifted the way a stranger told her to lift it. The timestamp says it’s at least a year old. Her hair is darker now; her eyes… not mine and somehow too familiar at the same time.
I’ve never seen these before. I never had the chance. Claire and I met in Oxford when I was there on a short expansion deal. She was working at the university library. It was one night.When she told me about the pregnancy, she was calm and precise in the way people are when they’ve already decided. She didn’t want marriage, a new passport, or a long-distance fight over definitions. My father brokered an arrangement: monthly support, legal clean lines, no contact unless she requested it. I was eighteen and drowning in work; I let him draw the borders and I lived inside them. I told myself distance was responsible.
Now, I’m seeing my daughter’s face via a file my father’s assistant pushed at 7:03 a.m. My thumb taps a flat rhythm against the trackpad, four beats, pause, four beats, until the muscle in my jaw protests. I study the portrait again, forcing myself to stay with it. The mouth. The tilt of the eyebrows. The part of her I recognize and the part I don’t. It lands with a weight I can’t redistribute.
Movement in the doorway pulls me up. Ivy, hair pulled over one shoulder, leans against the frame and takes me in the way she always does, no rush, no questions until she knows which ones matter.
“Your coffee’s cold,” she says.
“I forgot about it.”
She comes to the table and sets her mug beside mine. Her palm slides to my shoulder, steady pressure, nothing performative. Her gaze flicks to the screen. “Is that her?”
I nod once. “First time seeing her older than one.”
“You’ve never…”
“No.” The word tastes like dust. “Claire wanted distance. My father kept it neat. I didn’t push.”
Her thumb traces the hinge of my neck, a small circle that saysI hear the part you didn’t say.Then she straightens. “I’m going to keep working on the room.”
She leaves me with the photos and the old, tidy excuses.
The phone buzzes. Local number. “Wilson.”
“Jack.” Santiago’s voice comes low, like he’s speaking in a hallway with cameras. “We’ve got our mole. And you’re not going to like where.”
“Tell me.”
“The leak’s not in your build crew, it’s in the foundation’s admin wing. Procurement. They’ve been feeding Derek’s people copies of supplier contracts, delivery schedules, budget notes. That’s how he knew which vendors to pressure and when.”
I close the photo window and pull up the internal org chart. “Name.”
“Tom Garvey. Hired eleven months ago. Résumé looks spotless until you scratch. His last two references trace to a shell company that shows up in two of Derek’s old plays.”
The muscle in my jaw fires again. “You can pull him in quietly?”
