Page 88 of Boss of the Year

“You seemed to enjoy my brother.”

It shouldn’t have been an insult or an accusation. But it felt like both.

I looked up. Was Lucasjealous?

He cleared his throat. “It’s expected. Charming the wives, making small talk, ensuring everyone feels important. Part of the job.”

The casual way he said it made something in my chest ease. The woman had meant nothing. “Oh.”

“Were you jealous?” The question was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it over the water.

I shook my head a little too hard. “Absolutely not.”

“Marie.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “You’re a terrible liar, sweetheart.”

Heat flooded my cheeks. “I…okay, fine. Maybe I was jealous. Just a little.”

His smile broadened, though it was barely visible in the dim light. “Good. So was I.”

Our mutual confessions out in the open, we lapsed into a more comfortable silence. The lines of stress around his eyes and the tension in his shoulders seemed to relax again.

I didn’t examine further why that seemed to give me peace as well.

“Tell me something more about yourself.”

I frowned. “Like what?”

“How about your family? You said there were six of you, but you’ve only really talked about Joni. Who are the others?”

I sighed, also noticing how the very mention of my siblings seemed to make me tense again too. “Oh, they’re all older than me and Joni. The oldest is Matthew?—”

“Isn’t he the one who ran off with Nina Gardner?”

I splashed the water. “You’re very well informed.”

“More like my stepmother is a gossip. And that was a scandal that half of New York was talking about for months. Leaving her husband for a cop?—”

“My brother was a defense attorney,” I corrected him, somewhat defensive myself. “Criminal justice lawyer now.”

“Either way, it was a damn ballsy move,” Lucas replied. “Not that I blame him. Calvin Gardner was basically gum on the bottom of my shoe. And there’s the other sister who married the duke, right?”

I nodded, now blushing. It was a little ridiculous how much notoriety my family had accumulated, three of us attracting partners well beyond our social stations. Joni and Nathan weren’t engaged or married, but I had no doubt the announcement would come any time now, and when it did, we would see yet another round of headlines in thePostor some other horrible tabloid making veiled accusations about the “upwardly mobile” Zola family, or worse, us being gold diggers.

It’s what they would say about you, a small voice reminded me when I thought about being with Daniel. Or Lucas.

Who was it, really, that I was thinking of now?

“Well, they are very happy now,” I said.

“But there are two others, right?”

I nodded. “Kate’s the one who owns the men’s vintage shop in Riverdale, but she’s in LA right now, working as a stylist. And Lea…” I drifted off. What was there to say about Lea?

“What happened with her?”

I drooped. “Everything.”

He already knew a little, but this time, I told him the entire story. How my sister had married young, the forbidden romance with the convict working in our grandfather’s auto shop. How Mike had turned out to be a devoted husband and father of four who worked hard to support his family every day of his life, but hadn’t been able to escape the demons of his past.