Page 93 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
We run through the project, event theme, budget, venue soft holds. I anchor myself in details, but every now and then my mind flickers back to the box waiting in Jack’s drawer. My pen hesitates once over my notes before I force it steady. When Madeline asks about entry lighting, I hear my own voice describing soft pools at ankle height and a wash at shoulder level, just like I planned, but part of me is still in the kitchen with that sticky note.
“Good,” she says, tapping the table. “And the venue communication? The last planner… disappeared.”
“Won’t happen with me,” I say. “You’ll have a weekly summary email and a live link to the timeline.”
She relaxes a fraction. We finalize deliverables, set a follow-up for Friday. When we shake hands, her grip has warmed.
Outside, the wind slices between buildings. I angle toward the garage. A man stands across the street, leaning against a lamppost. Dark coat, collar turned up, hands sunk in pockets. The lamplight catches the glint of a silver watch when he shifts. He isn’t staring, just glancing with the kind of practiced disinterest that reads as intent.
I don’t slow. The key fob flashes my car awake. The lock’s clack is loud in the empty garage. I slide in, drop my folder, and glance in the rearview. He’s still there. Not following. Not approaching. Just, there.
Maybe I’m jumpy. But the box was too heavy. The handwriting too careful. And the doorman didn’t call up first.
I breathe out until my grip eases on the wheel. Then I pull into traffic, make one stop at a stationery store for Emma, a soft-cover notebook, a good pen, and a sheet of star stickers I will pretend are for labeling cables.
Back home, the doorman nods. No packages now. The elevator is slow. The hallway smells faintly of snowmelt. Our door sits ahead, the tiniest smear near the deadbolt like a thumbprint wiped away. Inside, the coffee warmth is still in the air, but the weight of the drawer is heavier in my mind. I take out the frame. I think about the man by the lamppost. About the note. About a toddler in a knit hat with ears and a woman in a pale blue coat whose life never brushed this city, until now.
Footsteps approach, Jack’s stride. He stops when he sees the frame. His hand finds the counter edge.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“Delivered this morning. Addressed to me.”
He studies the photo, flips it, reads the note. The quiet sharpens.
“This is Derek,” he says finally.
“Or someone who wants to sound like him.” I tell him about the man outside my meeting, short, precise details. It feels like giving him coordinates.
He nods, phone already out, Santiago’s name queued. Before he calls, he squeezes my hand once, an unspoken vow.
“We’ll handle this,” he says. “And we don’t change the wedding playlist because some coward likes anonymous notes.”
The almost-smile we trade is enough. When he disappears into the office, I slide the frame back into the drawer. My reflection ghosts over the glass. We are planning a wedding. We are building a foundation. We are clearing a room for a girl crossing an ocean into a life she didn’t choose. And someone wants us to know they’re watching.
I tuck the notebook into the Emma bag, right on top of the headphones and charger. Then I look toward the office door, where Jack’s voice is already turning into the kind of order no one ignores.
46
JACK
Ididn’t get here by accident. Ivy in my kitchen, hair twisted up with a pencil, sleeves pushed above her elbows like she’s preparing to take on the world, and winning.
The life I’ve got now is built on the same stubbornness that once kept me from her, the same precision I used to build walls instead of bridges. I’ve grown into someone who knows the difference. Ivy’s mine now. Not because I pulled her from someone else’s grasp, but because she chose me, and keeps choosing me, even when the ground shakes under our feet.
And tomorrow, Emma, this daughter I never thought I wanted, is going to be mine, too. I don’t know what that will look like, not really. But the thought doesn’t scare me the way it used to.
The photo stays on my desk. Not because I want to look at it, but because I need the reminder right where I can see it while I make calls. Claire’s pale blue coat. The knit hat with ears. Emma’s small hand on her mother’s sleeve. And the sticky note, smoothed flat beside the frame as if it were a document and not a taunt:Family belongs together.
My phone is on speaker. Santiago’s line pops once with background noise and then settles. I angle my chair so the glass wall of the home office lets me see the kitchen, lets me see Ivy move, measuring flour with the edge of a spoon like she’s coaxing order from the day.
“Say it again,” I tell him.
“The foundation breach is contained,” he says. “It wasn’t procurement, that was misdirection. External IT contractor, embedded by your former CFO’s admin six months ago. Derek’s people used those credentials to skim donor drafts and build-out schedules. Access cut, tunnels closed, endpoints getting scrubbed tonight.”
I watch the way Ivy pushes a piece of hair back with her wrist, leaving a faint flour print at her temple. It makes something in my chest loosen. “We’re clean?” I ask.
“As clean as a day gets,” he says. “But Derek’s still moving. The courier that brought the frame, three layers of shell accounts. Top company looks legit. Second layer is a P.O. box in Jersey. Third was formed four weeks ago by a holdings group tied to a litigation consultant Derek used last year.”
