Page 3 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
“I mean really asked her, not assumed you already know.”
“Don’t start with the therapist tone, Jack. I know my fiancée.”
“You know what she lets you see.”
He exhales sharply and leans forward, knuckles white around his glass. “You think you’ve got her all figured out?”
“No. But I know the signs when someone’s already halfway out the door.”
His laugh is bitter and brittle. “You’re unbelievable.”
I don’t answer. Sometimes silence lands harder than argument. Our families built their fortunes side by side, old money, old alliances, and the shared belief that legacy isn’t inherited, it’s built. When our father proposed the merger, it wasn’t sealed with a handshake. It was negotiated over scotch and inked into a contract. Ivy’s father, a media mogul with a sinking empire, needed our name. We needed his syndication network. So they built a solution: Ivy and Derek. Picture-perfect. Photogenic. Marketable. Every detail of their union was carefully staged, a merger masquerading as a love story, tailored for headlines and legacy preservation. What Ivy never realized was that her marriage had been arranged long before she said yes, that her vows were less about love and more about leverage.
The first time I saw her, she was sitting across from our father in that boardroom, draped in a soft gray dress that whispered against her skin when she moved. Her chestnut, hair was pinned in a sleek knot, with one loose strand trailing her cheek like an afterthought. Her lips were glossed but unsmiling. Her eyes found mine, unflinching, curious, and in a single glance, something inside me locked into place.
That was it. The flicker in my chest. The jolt down my spine. A low, unwelcome heat curled deep in my gut, the kind thatlingers long after you’ve told yourself to forget. Her gaze didn’t waver or soften, it held me in place, like she knew exactly what I was thinking. Like she dared me to think it harder.
She said, “Careful, Jack. You look like a man who’s about to start a war.”
That line embedded itself beneath my skin. Still hasn’t left. Everything else faded, the contracts, the agenda, the false politeness of legacy negotiations. All I could see was the curve of her mouth, the elegant line of her neck, the way she exhaled like she was keeping something wild on a leash. In that moment, I knew with startling clarity that if I ever got close enough to touch her, I’d never walk away unscathed. I’d burn, and I’d do it willingly.
She was meant to be a strategic match. But nothing about her felt manufactured. Ivy Stone was elegance with an edge, composed but unscripted, thoughtful but sharp. When our father laid out the terms of her future, she didn’t flinch. She simply narrowed her eyes, absorbing it all in silence, calculating the emotional cost like someone who had learned not to show the math.
Even then, she was undoing me. I tried not to let my eyes follow the line of her legs beneath the table. I failed. Tried not to imagine the sound of her letting go. Failed again.
She wasn’t mine to want. But that didn’t stop me. It never has. Our father chose Derek to be the face of the family’s future. Not because he was the most capable, but because he was the most controllable. He fit the mold, polished, obedient, eager to impress. He didn’t have to lead. He just had to look the part. Ivy was the final piece. The bow on the box.
I stepped back. Not because I didn’t want her, God knows I did, but because I knew I wouldn’t be able to let her go once I touched her. And because I was told not to.
Don’t interfere, Jack. This deal is bigger than you. Bigger than her. That was our father’s warning, delivered with a glass of scotch and a stare meant to silence me and I obeyed. Told myself it was protection. That it was noble. But desire doesn’t honor logic. And silence, mine, was never nobility. It was fear, wearing the mask of control.
After Derek disappears toward the back of the club, I toss a few bills on the table and slide out of the booth. I push through the crowd, the music brushing past me like static, and step into the cold. The night air snaps against my face. I tug my collar higher, shove my hands into my coat pockets, and walk. Aimless. Letting the city soak into me.
Somewhere between Madison and 63rd, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it at first. But the ringing persists. I already know who it is. Derek.
I answer on the fifth ring.
“She’s gone,” he says, voice unraveling.
I stop walking. “What do you mean?”
“She’s not in the apartment. Her closet’s still full. Shoes by the door. But she’s not here.”
I press my back to a nearby building, eyes closed against the rush of thoughts. “Maybe she needed space.”
“Space?” His voice sharpens. “Do you think she knows?”
He’s not asking about a single truth. He’s asking if she saw everything.
“I think she saw something she couldn’t unsee.”
There’s silence. Then the line goes dead.
I start walking again. Cross Lexington. Head east. By the time I reach 63rd and Park, the building rises in front of me like a monument, stoic, pristine. A fortress made of glass and history.
I look up at the window I know too well. It’s dark. No lights behind the glass. No silhouette pacing the floor. Just absence. She’s not there.
I stare, long enough for the cold to settle deep into my bones. I stare like the window might flicker. Like she might appear, arms crossed, unflinching, calling my bluff with that gaze that never blinked first. My chest tightens.
