Page 68 of Charming Deception

Maybe I really am.

Chapter 16

Jameson

“One day, if I’m broke,” I muse aloud, “will we still hang out?”

Cole cocks an eyebrow at me. If that alarmed him, he doesn’t show it. “Brother. I’ve been broke. The food’s not as good and the women aren’t as fancy, but they fuck just the same.”

I swallow a groan.

When Cole got home from LA yesterday, I didn’t bother telling him that I asked his sister to be my fiancée, more or less on order from my brother. Though Cole’s family is nothing like mine, he knows mine now, so maybe he’d even understand. Even he calls Graysen “the boss.”

Not to mention that he was disappointed as hell to hear she’d moved out. Maybe if he knew I’d gone as far as to propose to win her back, he’d forgive me for not talking to him about it first?

One can hope.

But there’s nothing to tell, really.

She said no.

And that answer clearly isn’t changing anytime soon.

He slaps my shoulder and gets up, stretching. We’ve been lying out by the pool after eating dinner and shooting a few hoops, but it’s getting late.

“See you at breakfast?”

“Yeah,” he says. “We can eat before I leave for the airport.”

He’s heading out of town again, just like that.

“Okay. Good night.”

“G’night,” he says.

I watch him cross the patio and disappear into the house. I usually travel more myself. Right now, though, I’m feeling pretty damn antisocial.

Without that fairy-tale engagement to splash across the internet, I don’t want to risk igniting any gossip because I’m seen in public in the vicinity of a female and someone takes a photo of it. Graysen’s way too worked up about the whole thing right now.

I just need to lay low and work this out. I’m still convinced I can win Megan over, somehow, but maybe that’s just my stubborn pride talking.

She’s already shot me down an embarrassing number of times.

Is this my life now?

I drop my head back on the cushioned chair with a groan. The bruised purplish sky in the west fades to black as I sip my still-not-quite-there whiskey and slowly absorb how much my life has changed since Granddad died.

I didn’t want it to.

I’ve tried to pretend it didn’t.

Just like when Dad died.

But pretending doesn’t alter reality. It just delays the inevitable truth: that sometimes terrible shit happens and you just have to let your heart break so it can go about healing.

When Granddad died, we knew it was coming. Just not so soon. His health was failing, but he had the best care a man could get. We thought we’d have more time with him.

The tragedy was that we didn’t.

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