Page 60 of Ruthless Love

“I’ll think it over,” I say, wavering. “But I’m still taking my chances with Alan for the moment. He might have harem sex right in front of me, but at least he won’t mess with my head. Besides, I’ve always been my brother’s keeper. Right, Daddy?”

The daggers I hurl at him are as lost as my words. He’s already out the door. Using me is only the second skill set of his. Ignoring me has always placed first.

Chapter Thirty-Four

EVIE

After spending three days with Alan, I now understand that with or without his thick ankle bracelet binding him to the suite, there’s no stopping the man from drinking and whoring to his heart’s content. And his heart has an endless need for contentment.

It’s impressive. And a nice distraction from the nonstop texts and calls from Austin.

Blocking his ass would have been easy enough, but the sick, twisted idiot in me always stops my finger just before it presses the little button marked block. Somehow, I like keeping count. Thirteen calls. Twenty-two texts. Even five emails. Four to my work email account, which is public knowledge. And one to my personal account that I didn’t think anyone had except for spammers, extended family, and the Longs.

To keep from obsessing, I throw myself into dealing with the mounds of emptied high-end wine bottles interspersed with an equal number of bottles of inexpensive booze. I’ve taken for granted how much Alan needed someone to rein him in. And how much I’ve missed and needed him the past few years.

I collect as many bottles as will fit in my hands and make a trip to the bathroom trash can, which is its own overflowing mound of frat-house art.

“That’s what room service is for, sis.”

Alan’s head is a mop of overgrown blond ringlets that women probably imagine their children being crowned with, along with those bright blue eyes that I’ve always envied. Their color is a striking shade with a drop of bright green that people always think is too bright and rich to be real. Today they’re bloodshot, but manage to sparkle as he smiles at me. He takes a swig from a half-empty bottle of thirty-year-old single-malt Scotch and gives me a wink.

In return, I give him a tight squeeze around the waist, and resume cleaning up after him, neatly lining up the bottles next to the receptacle. “There’s no way I’m letting housekeeping in here like this. You’re still technically the CEO of an almost billion-dollar company. One snap of a maid’s cell, and the photos would pretty much throw your chances of getting that life back out the fucking window.”

My nervous hands need something to do, and so I’m arranging the bottles by height when Alan snags my attention with the gentlest touch on my shoulder.

“Didn’t you get the memo? That’s never happening.”

I don’t make eye contact. “Did Dad’s lawyers tell you that?”

“Is that why you found me? Trying to rescue me again?”

“I didn’t find you, exactly. I mean, I could. We’re still tethered by our phone-finder app. No, I told Dad where I was going, and he mentioned you were here. I just needed to get away.”

“Evie, you’re talking to the ultimate escape artist. You’ve always been there for me, so let me be here for you. Did Dad—”

“No,” I say quickly, quieting my own alarm. “He ... wants me to marry someone. Someone I don’t love. And the person I thought I loved made a fool of me. I just needed to get away.”

Eager to jump out of the unbearable spotlight, I shift gears.

“But what about you,” I ask. “Whatever Banks Multimedia attorneys told you might be wrong. I could check their homework, find a loophole they missed. And I’m sure they missed something. They’re a bunch of overpaid assholes.”

Alan’s hand squeezes mine, and my eyes take their time meeting his. I could never take his beautiful, sensitive tears.

“I don’t want it back, Evie. I’ve spent my whole life suffocating in Dad’s shadow. We both know you would’ve been the better CEO.” He pockets his hands and squares his shoulders, but his voice is soft, almost a whisper. “This is your chance, Evie, to get what you’ve always wanted. To be validated as the H-M-F-I-C.”

I cock my head, thinking too hard on what the acronym means.

He jumps in, saving me from the noticeable strain. “Head Mother Fucker in Charge.”

My light laugh comes out in a breath. “No, I’ve nev—”

His hand lifts to stop my protest, while his easygoing smile relaxes me. “No. You never. You never defied our father. You never stood up for yourself, though you did it for me time and time again. And you never resented me when that asshole shoved me ahead of you. But he’s gone from Banks Multimedia, Evie. In my absence, the place is practically on autopilot. But you could do something with it. Take it where I never could.”

The crease in my brother’s brow tells me he senses my hesitation.

No matter what my ambitions were in the past, I gave up on the Banks legacy continuing with me long ago. I’m arrogant enough to know I can do it. But for the first time in my life, I’m hit with the fact that I don’t want to, and maybe I never did. All I ever wanted was to be seen as good enough. Relevant. As good as Alan—the fuck-up king of self-abuse that I love with all my heart.

“Even if I did want it, and I don’t, Dad would come back from retirement before he’d let a woman take the helm.” I shrug in apathetic defeat. “I don’t want to fight with him anymore.”

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