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I knew academically that my brother and Jamie had slept together, but that didn’t make the reality of it any easier to digest. For Jamie either, it seemed, because she started to back up. My hands went up, ready to stop her from colliding with me, but when they wrapped around her shoulders, everything my sister said went in one ear and out the other.

“That right?” Shut up! a small voice said inside my head. Shut the fuck up! “Hay Bale looked after you good, did he, Jamie?”

Then she looked up at me.

My mouth went dry, my hands snatched back as she frowned and then spun around.

“I thought I told you…” That line between her brows smoothed away and she blinked. “Hunter.”

“The guy most voted to completely screw up a date?” I raised a hand and smiled weakly. “One and the same. So I know you’ve got a girl’s night planned and you probably really don’t want to talk to me right now, but I needed to apologise for last night.”

Jamie crossed her arms, waiting me out.

“Hi, my name is Hunter.” I saw we were getting quite the audience because there wasn’t much else happening at the pub. “And I’m a dickhead.” Her brows jerked up as I went down on one knee. “I shoot my mouth off, thinking that I need to bestow my little ‘pearls’ of wisdom on everyone around me. I think that my idea of truth is so important, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or feels.”

“Did you put him up to this?” Jamie asked Millie, but my sister just shrugged, then nodded for me to continue the speech we had practised.

“I literally call them truth bombs, not realising…” The fact it was only now I was starting to digest the content of Millie’s speech said something about my character, but better late than never I guess. “Realising that bombs destroy shit, even people. I didn’t want to lie to you.” Millie’s brows drew down. I was going off script, and it was sounding too much like I was trying to justify myself. “In my head, I saw you finding out how we felt and assumed you’d feel… betrayed. Yeah, betrayed.”

“If I say I forgive you, will you get up and shut up?” Jamie hissed, eyeing the crowd that was watching this all go down.

“Would you mean it?”

I got to my feet and walked closer, searching her face for the answer.

“A double rum and Coke and whatever he’s having,” Jamie said to Millie, her and Annie moving to make the drinks then sliding them across the bar. She grabbed hers and a beer for me, then handed it over. “Maybe we could talk about this a little more privately?”

Privately? Well, Jamie didn’t slap me in the face and tell me to piss off, so that was automatically better than I had anticipated. I grinned down at her and said, “Sure. Lead the way.”

Chapter 33

Jamie

“So you wanted to talk?”

Bloody Hunter. He took a sip from his schooner once we got outside and into the largely deserted beer garden.

“So how much of that was Millie and how much of that was you?” I asked.

The way his eyes slid sideways, taking in the outdoor chairs with way too much interest told me everything I needed to know.

“The intent was me.” His jaw flexed before his focus slid back to me. “But if you’re asking if I quizzed my sister on how to best apologise, then yeah, that happened. I’m going to be installing her wardrobe for her as payment for her input. But don’t go thinking this was us trying to manipulate you.”

He sighed, and it was strange to see him looking so serious.

“I get it. You needed to know what was going on, but that didn’t have to happen then. I’m a simple man.” I snorted at that. “Millie says I’m too simple. If something’s going on, I want to know right away, and I just assume everyone else feels the same way. I won’t make that mistake again.” He mimed twisting a key to indicate his lips were sealed. “So, wanna pretend that date.” He shook his head. “That whole night didn’t happen? We can go back to the way things were.”

Except we couldn’t. He’d opened Pandora’s box and there was no way to stuff that knowledge back in. The fact he was willing to pretend he could had me shaking my head.

“With me beating you at pool again?” The look of relief on his face was everything, going some way to settle the restless feeling fluttering in my chest. That and the slow smile that accompanied it. “We could play a couple of games.”

“For what stakes?”

The keen gleam in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. No matter how this fake date thing went down, he was still intent on winning at all costs.

“I’ll see what else Millie needs doing around the house, and when I win, you can do every single thing.”

“When you win…” His eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that, but what do I get if I manage to beat you, you bloody shark?”