Page 27 of You Complicate Me

He raised that sarcastic brow at her. “I don’t know. Am I?”

She shook her head and patted his hand sympathetically. “Poor clueless bastard. You’ll know soon enough how totally unprepared you are for these people.”

He scoffed. “Oh, come on. They can’t be that bad.”

“Let me leave you with this thought, my friend.” She crooked her finger at him until he leaned in so that she could whisper in his ear, “I’m the normal one.”

He leaned back and frowned down at her. “Okay, now I’m a little freaked out.”

Grace nodded. “Welcome to my world.”

Chapter Thirteen

Michael pulled her aside at the entrance of the resort’s restaurant, a four-star establishment called Serendipity. Grace introduced Nick and frowned sternly at him when Michael winced as they shook hands. Nick shrugged and winked at her, completely unrepentant.

After brief pleasantries were exchanged (none of which involved threats to disembowel her baby brother if he hurt his sister, thank God), Nick pressed a kiss to Grace’s temple and excused himself.

She tried, and failed, to keep her gaze off his butt as he ambled into the restaurant. Really, what the man did for a pair of black dress pants was damn near criminal.

Michael cleared his throat and Grace lifted her guilty gaze to his. “Really, Gracie? You’re banging Sadie’s brother? Since when? You don’t find that a little weird?”

Grace had a pretty good idea that banging Nick would be anything but weird. Spine-melting, life-altering, multi-orgasmic, all-kinds-of-awesome hot, yes. Weird? No. Complicated, for sure, but never weird. “I met him on the flight here. And, no. I don’t find it weird. It’s not like we’re blood relation or anything,” she said, repeating Nick’s early take on their situation.

Michael frowned at her. “He’s going to be our brother-in-law.”

Her chin lifted. “Yes, I’m aware. What’s your point?”

“Just that it’s weird. Incestuous, sorta.”

She narrowed her eyes on him and gave him her best dead-eyed lawyer stare. “You know what I find weird? The fact that my little brother who’s never even had a serious girlfriend before now is getting married.” She paused for effect. “Married. At nineteen. What’s that all about?”

He shifted his weight as he always did when she gave him her lawyerly stare. “Jesus, Gracie,” he muttered. “You still talk to me like I’m a kid. I’m a grown-up, damn it.”

Grace gave him a good once-over. OK, she’d admit that at a quick glance, he looked like a grown-up. He was, after all, a good nine inches taller than her, and his green eyes sparkled with intelligence. But on the flip side, his sandy blond hair still stood up in the front thanks to the terrible cowlick he’d inherited from their father, and under an ill-fitting suit jacket that looked like it had never met an iron, he wore a white T-shirt with “Suck it, Trebek” printed on it.

Yeah, no way was Michael Montgomery a mature grown-up who was ready to be someone’s husband.

“You are a kid, Michael,” she hissed. “I just don’t want to see you make a terrible mistake.”

He shook his head, visibly shutting her out. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“What do you mean you’re not talking about this with me? You used to talk about everything with me.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“Okay, ouch,” she said, absently putting a hand over her heart. “So now that you’re a big adult about to be married you don’t need your older sister anymore?”

His lips turned up slightly. “I wouldn’t say I don’t need you for anything. I was going to ask you to be my best man, but now…”

Her jaw dropped. “You were? Oh my God, Michael, that’s huge.”

“So what do you say, Gracie?” he asked sheepishly. “Will you be my best man?”

“Of course I will,” she said, grabbing him and pulling him to her for a hug. “I love you, Michael.”

“I love you, too, Sis.”

And it wasn’t until he walked away that she realized he’d totally distracted her from her point, which was that he was too young to get married.

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