Page 54 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

‘Yes and no.’ Carmen shrugged. ‘They’re English, and they were best friends before they met my brothers.’

‘You feel left out? You don’t fit in?’

‘I don’t want to fit in,’ Carmen declared. She glanced over to him. ‘Did you get on with your brother’s wife?’

‘Not really,’ Elias admitted, and even if it was a huge understatement, it was more than he’d ever revealed before. ‘I never told him, though.’

‘But I thought you were close? I’ve told my brothers what I think of their partners.’

‘And how’s that working out?’ he said drily.

‘Not very well,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t see the point in being warm with them.’

‘Warm?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I don’t want to develop friendships based on the strength of their marriages to my brothers.’

Elias had long since considered himself closed off, but Carmen really was an island, with every drawbridge pulled up and defended.

He couldn’t stop himself wanting to prise her open, just a chink—just enough to know her a little more. But that meant opening up himself...

‘I didn’t tell Joel that I didn’t like his wife because it didn’t really matter at first. When I first met her she was working for my mother,’ he told her. ‘I had a big project on—the ranch—and my mother was an interior designer.’

‘Was?’

‘She hasn’t worked since Joel died. Now her main focus is keeping his name alive and staying in with his widow...’

‘Staying in?’ Carmen repeated. ‘I don’t understand...’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘So, they stay in...?’

‘They stayinvolved,’ he snapped, certain she must be pretending. He glanced over. ‘You have selective comprehension, Carmen. You choose when to understand, don’t you?’

‘Sometimes.’

Carmen smiled, and when she smiled like that it remained in his head, even as he turned back to the road.

‘So she worked for your mother?’

‘Yes. I had to go to Europe to do a big assessment, and by the time I got back from my trip she and my brother were about to get engaged and everyone loved her...’

‘But not you?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘I found her to be...’

‘What?’

‘Fake,’ he said. ‘But she was engaged to my twin and working for my mother...’

‘What about your father?’

‘He adored her and still does.’ Elias found he was being more honest than he’d intended to be. ‘I did try to tell Joel once. It didn’t go down well...’

‘Did you fight?’

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘It wasn’t pistols at dawn.’

---