Page 7 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

But the man was the proudest husband and father-to-be anywhere, and Brody couldn’t begrudge his brother that happiness. Especially not when he’d spent so many years being the most miserable son of a gun Brody had ever known.

“Come on in, I’ll show you around. Didn’t realize you were coming with a kid in tow.”

He waited to see if she would say there was a husband coming too.

“Gus knew,” she said.

Well, he hadn’t, and he didn’t know why it felt notable. Or why it mattered.

You know. It’s because you think she’s hot, and now she’s off-limits.

“Well, he didn’t mention it. That’s all.” He’d suspect that Gus had left it out to throw him off on purpose, but his older brother wasn’t like that.

Gus could be a dick, but he was straight up.

“Unless you were involved in the preparation of the cottage, I can’t imagine that it would be your concern.”

“Well,” he said. “This way.”

She walked on ahead of him, and Benny had already trotted up to the porch.

“You got any bags?” he asked.

“A couple.”

“Got a moving truck coming or anything?”

She shook her head. “We basically did everything we could to downsize before coming. But we lived in a pretty small apartment, so there wasn’t a whole lot.”

It was strange, the idea of this woman living in a small apartment. She felt like money to him. There was that rich simplicity to the way that she dressed, a style that didn’t take trends into account at all. Then, there was the sort of haughty manner with which she conducted herself, the way she acted like she was too good for the likes of him.

And the way he kind of liked it.

Because it made him want to take her down a peg or ten, and he knew exactly how to do it.

He hadn’t really thought that he would get off on the fantasy of the uptight girl. But she made him want to undo every button on one of her twin sets. See if he could get her to mess up that sleek hair.

Well, fantasizing about undressing a woman while her kid was standing right there was a low, even for him.

He went to the car and grabbed the duffel bags, and a small suitcase that he found, and hefted them up before following her to the porch. “My brother’s wife, Nelly, did a little bit of landscaping for you. She thought you’d like it.”

He indicated the fresh flowerpots on the porch.

“I do,” she said. “It’s nice.”

“You don’t live here, do you?” Benny asked, his eyes suddenly going round.

“I live on the ranch.”

“You’re not my mom’s new husband or anything, are you?”

He couldn’t help it, a guffaw of laughter escaped his lips. Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. She was not laughing.

“No, Benny. What would’ve given you that idea?”

“Tim at school said that his mom has new husbands in the house all the time. I thought maybe you were going to do that.”

She looked genuinely confused. “I’ve never done that. Why would I start now?”

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