Page 4

All it takes is one look from my brother, Weston Rose, with disgust narrowing his light, hazel eyes and dread makes a crash landing in the pit of my stomach.

He bites out, “Wear a white dress and do something with your hair. I need you to look like you give a fuck about yourself tonight.”

No greeting, no fake concern for my well-being. Just a demand.Alwaysa demand.

At twenty-six and six years his junior, I’m used to his authoritative air. It doesn’t make it any easier to be around him.

“Why?”

He scoffs like he can’t believe I have the nerve to require more information and pulls the toothpick from the corner of his mouth.

I drop my gaze to watch him roll it between his fingers before his grating, nasally voice intensifies the headache pounding at my temples.

“There’s an event for The Society tonight.”

With the sweating water bottle still pressed against my head for relief, my face falls in a frown.

“Starts at nine, but I need you to get to the house by seven so we can make the one-hour drive out to the estate together.”

“No. I don’t want to.” I didn’t know what my father did at his society meetings for years, and now that my brother is following in his footsteps, I want to remain in the dark.

The less I know, the less I have to pretend to forget.

My brother’s grim tone cuts into my thoughts and he covers the hand I have resting on the table, the force of his grip crushing my knuckles.

I don’t bother wincing. It’s never fazed him and I’m too preoccupied with the headache migrating to the spot directly over my right eye to care.

“You say no like you have a choice. Youoweme, or have you forgotten?—”

His sentence dies when I snatch my hand away and the movement sends the slippery water bottle flying from my grasp. The plastic crackles as it returns to its original shape, no longer strangled by my palm. I shoot a furtive glance around the restaurant to check for eavesdropping bystanders, but all I see are people consumed in their meals and companions. Bending down, I pick up the bottle and set it on the table beside my plate.

“It’s the least you could do after I helped you land an apartment last year.”

He says it like it’s my fault. Like I chose to be a twenty-five-year-old without so much as a state-issued ID or bank account trying to move out on my own last year.

He says it like I’m living in the lap of luxury instead of a cozy studio in The Highlands with my roommate, Indigo.

But it’s always the same with him. I don’t think he knows how to be anything other than cutting and controlling.

Throw conniving in for bonus points and you have my older brother’s MO in a nutshell.

The devil works hard, but my brother works harder. “Besides, we need to present a united front now that dad’s gone.”

Irritation pricks my skin with heat, and I heave a sigh.

Weston takes that as acquiescence, draining the remaining liquor in his glass in a single gulp.

Then he pulls out two twenties and places them under the corner of his plate before shoving away from the table.

His glacial stare lands on me again while he gestures toward my untouched club sandwich. “I hope you know I’m not paying for that. Tired of covering your ass,” he gripes, standing. “See you tonight,baby sis.”

With my gaze fixated on my glass of sweet tea, I don’t look up again as he leaves the restaurant in a cloud of Acqua di Gio.

I don’t know if I want to retch from the nausea roiling in my gut or let tears cascade down my cheeks. I’ve always hated being an angry crier. It sends the wrong message—what’s boiling inside of me is rage, not sadness.

It’s hard to swallow past the emotion in my throat, but I do it.

Not in public. Never in public. It’s a reminder I give myself often. If I learned nothing else from being a Rose all my life, I learned to keep shit to myself until I was in the privacy of my own home.