Page 60 of Billion-Dollar Attitudes

My mother nodded. "I like her. She knows what you're like."

Amber smiled and followed me onto the porch, setting the bowl down on the picnic table. My two brothers, my sister, and my uncle were all sitting at the round patio table, playing rummy. My father was standing at the BBQ grilling, and my brother-in-law was holding the baby. My two brother's wives were out of town with the kids, so it wasn't as chaotic as usual.

"Look who the wind dragged in," my brother Gary said, shaking my hand.

"I thought I heard your bike," Tristan added, shaking my hand.

"Hi, big brother," Elsa said, standing and giving me a hug. "And who is this?"

"This is Amber," I said.

Amber smiled. "Hi."

"She's quiet," Uncle Ron grumped.

Tristan laughed. "She won't be for long around us."

My sister patted the empty chair next to her. "Come sit next to me. I'll protect you from these idiots."

Amber chuckled and glanced at me before squeezing past my uncle and sitting down next to Elsa. Elsa pointed to my brothers. "The one with the trucker hat on that he never takes off is my older brother, middle child, Gary. And this is my younger brother, the baby of the family, Tristan."

"Don't believe anything Ryder tells you about us. We are angels."

Amber smiled. "Oh, sure. Just like Ryder is a perfect angel."

"Hey." I looked back at them. "I am a perfect angel. Two seconds at the table, and your already ganging up on me."

They all laughed. Elsa patted Uncle Ron on the back. "And this is Uncle Ron. He's perpetually grumpy."

"You play rummy, girl?"

Amber glanced at Elsa, who smiled, waiting for her reply. "You ready to lose, Uncle Ron?"

Everyone turned to Ron, who grumbled and then looked up at Amber, slowly turning his frown to a grin. "I like you."

Everyone cheered, and Amber laughed, taking the cards handed to her. My heart flip-flopped in my chest as she looked up at me and winked. I didn't expect her to fit in so quickly, or at all for that matter. My father shoved a beer in my hand. "Where'd you find her?"

I shook my head. "She fell in my lap, I guess."

We watched as she teased Tristan, rustling his hair. My father nodded. "She'll fit right in."

He slapped me hard on the back, and my heart sunk a bit. I realized that maybe doing what we were doing might just affect more than her place in her father's company and my company's bottom line. There was a strange emotion stirring in me, and as much as I wanted to push it away, seeing her there with my family was really hard to ignore. Maybe she wasn't just the big-hearted princess I had made her out to be. Perhaps she had just never had a chance to show me her other side.

Then again, I had been a hell of an actor the night before. So it was most probable she was doing the exact same thing. Either way, I was going to enjoy my day at the water. Because I knew that, most likely, things would go back to the painful push and pull we were going through when we got back home. I just hoped that no one got their hearts broken in all of it. Not me, not her, and not either of our families. Then, it just might not have been worth it.

Chapter Ten

Amber

“You gonna come let me kick your butt in beach volleyball?" Ryder asked smiling at his mom and me.

His mom shook her head. "No. I'm all out of energy. I'll watch from up here."

I chuckled and shook my head. "I'll take a seat too. But, shockingly, I'm not too good at sports."

Ryder smirked and winked as he took off his shirt and ran down into the sand with the others. I sat down in the lawn chair next to his mom, laughing as they began, already taunting each other. Martha laughed wildly, sipping her iced tea. "These kids are so crazy. I don't know how I don't have more gray hair."

"I'm assuming they were a handful growing up?"

---