Page 37 of You Don’t Kiss Your Brother's Best Friends

That seemed to satisfy her a bit. The alabaster shoulders exposed by her dress had rolled forward the second I’d entered the room. Now they relaxed again.

“Okay then, I guess,” she shrugged, giving me the once over. “Any particular reason she looks like a drowned rat?”

She laughed, elbowing Kayden, before closing a possessive hand over his shoulder. After an awkward pause, he laughed too.

“That storm outside is crazy, isn’t it?” Kayden asked me nervously.

I tried to tone it down, but I’m pretty sure my look was murderous.

“There’s a lot of crazy going around,” I shot back.

He couldn’t even look at me now. He looked down at the floor.

“It’s supposed to break tonight,” Kayden continued. “Tomorrow morning you’ll come with us, early. I want to be at the markets when they open.”

“The markets?” the brunette asked, confused. “You’ve been here a week, and you still haven’t finished shopping for everything?”

“There are still a few specialty ingredients we haven’t picked up yet,” Andre chimed in. “They’ll be ready tomorrow. Special requests.”

“Oh.”

The woman looked thoughtful for a moment. Maybe even conflicted.

“I should probably come too, then,” she offered. “I mean, if you need the help—”

“No,” Kayden said, almost too quickly. “No, Evelyn, we’re fine. Emily’s all the help we need.”

The brunette’s eyes lingered on Kayden for a moment, then shifted to me. Her mouth was pouty, her body language, defensive.

“Fine, then. Raif and I need to receive the arrivals, anyway,” she argued. You know, the ones who came ontime, rather than early.”

The woman he’d called Evelyn leaned subtly into Kayden again, marking her territory in the sly way only another woman would understand. At this point I was too angry to care. Too tired, too wet, and too hungry.

“C’mon,” Andre said again. “Let’s get you settled.”

I shot them all a last, scathing look — Bishop included — before following Andre down the hall and up the staircase. We stopped first to grab my bag, where we encountered the man called Raif again. But he was so preoccupied with his tablet, he barely gave us a glance.

“What are wedoing?” I hissed, as Andre led me along

“Not now.”

“But—”

My sentence was cut off as he pulled me down a different upstairs hallway; one with much heavier doors. Just like the manor’s front doors, each had a rectangle of smoky black glass beside it. Andre produced my keycard, opened the door, and ushered me inside.

When he didn’t follow me in, I got worried.

“Andre…”

“Jocelyn, listen to me,” he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. He glanced over his shoulder and down the hallway. “Because I don’t have much time.”

“If these are your guests, they’re real fucking assholes,” I spat.

“They’re not guests. They’re the forward people, the ones who arrive before the guests.”

I glanced around in confusion. My bedroom was small and sparsely furnished, and looked more like a hotel room. It had a built-in bathroom and everything.

“What kind of room is this?” I demanded. “And why does my room have a keycard?”

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