Page 14 of Another Christmas from Hell

“Am I, though?” she asked with a pitying look that he really didn’t fucking appreciate at the moment.

“You really are,” Bryce drawled because the last thing that he was, was in love with the little pain in the ass that he avoided like the fucking plague.

“Okay,” Rory said, looking thoughtful as she placed her hand over her husband’s where it rested on the soft swell of her belly, making Bryce swallow hard as he thought about his niece and nephew sound asleep in their beds in the other room and wondered what it would be like to-

It didn’t fucking matter, Bryce told himself as he returned to glaring at his sister.

“When’s the last time that you went on a date?” Rory asked on a bored sigh, making him frown.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Bryce asked even as he had to admit that it had been a long fucking time since he’d asked a woman out and even longer since he’d taken a woman to bed.

With the grueling schedule that they’d been keeping for the last few years merging Highland Construction with Shadow Construction after his sister married the asshole that really needed to learn how to keep his hands off her, they’d started to make a name for themselves and took on jobs that no one else could handle. It wasn’t exactly a surprise that he didn’t have time to date, he-

“And how many girls did you date in high school?” Rory asked, clearly trying to piss him off.

“I was too busy keeping you out of trouble,” Bryce pointed out, not liking where this was going one fucking bit.

“And you did a great job,” Rory said, blinking at him as her husband chuckled and pressed another fucking kiss against her neck, earning a killing glare.

“Get to the point,” Bryce bit out.

“You don’t really date, but when you do, you go for women that you’re not interested in, barely acknowledging them, and when they want more, you bury yourself in work until they take the hint and move on,” Rory said, shrugging it off.

“I’m selective,” he said evenly.

“You’re in denial,” Rory said, and before he could argue, she continued. “Why is it so difficult to admit that you like Cayley?”

“Because I don’t,” Bryce said, wondering why it was so fucking difficult for her to believe that he wasn’t interested in Cayley. He’d never showed any interest in the little pain in the ass other than staying as far away from her as humanly possible, no matter what Cayley said earlier.

He wasn’t in love with her.

He was sick and fucking tired of having to watch over her. When they were kids, she used to run wild, letting Sean talk her into doing some of the stupidest fucking shit imaginable and no one to keep her out of trouble. Their fathers grew up together, had been best friends since elementary school, so when her mother passed away when she was little, his father suggested that they buy the old house down the road from them.

John was a great guy, a good father, and a hard worker, but he had no fucking idea what to do with a little girl like Cayley. Before Bryce’s mother took off, she used to watch Cayley, which never made any sense to him since she couldn’t be bothered with her own children. Not that he could really call what she did taking care of Cayley. She did the bare minimum for the little girl that used to follow him everywhere, leaving him with no choice but to watch over her so that his brothers didn’t use her as bait to lure the Jamerson’s dog out of their yard by covering her in peanut butter.

Again.

He’d never stopped watching over her and he honestly had no fucking idea why.

“You know what I think?” Rory asked, sounding thoughtful, which should have been his first fucking clue that this wasn’t going to end well.

“I’m sure that you’re going to tell me,” Bryce said even as he couldn’t help but wonder why his sister thought that he-

“It’s the Bradford curse,” she said, making him sigh heavily.

“There’s no such thing as the Bradford curse. It’s just bullshit that the men in our family have been passing down from generation to generation to fuck with our heads for their own entertainment,” Bryce explained, wondering why anyone in his family still believed in that bullshit tale.

“Sounds like you’re afraid,” the little brat said in a taunting voice that had his eyes narrowing dangerously on her.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he bit out.

“Then prove me wrong,” Rory said with a careless shrug.

“And how do you suggest that I do that?” Bryce drawled, suddenly fucking exhausted.

The days of barely getting any sleep and working sixteen-hour days were catching up with him. He needed a vacation, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Rory and Connor had given him one year to pull off the Dawson project and he honestly wasn’t sure how he was going to pull it off. He-

“Spend time with her,” Rory said, drawing his attention in a big fucking way.

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