Page 159 of Morally Black Betrothal

I’d had no luck, but Brendan had a bit more. Enough to arrange a meeting this morning.

But that was hours ago, and I hadn’t heard anything since.

And so…I’d baked.

“This is bullshit,” Selena muttered as she tore apart one of the lemon zucchini muffins. “How long does a meeting take? How do we know he’s even doing anything?”

I took a deep breath and shoved the rolling pin harder into the dough covering the frozen slab of butter. “Because he said he would.”

Brendan had been tight-lipped about his plans when he left me with a kiss and two words: “plausible deniability.” In other words, the less I knew, the better.

I wasn’t sure what to think about that. But my conscience wanted Kylie back more than it cared about right from wrong.

“And you believe him? Just like that?” Selena scoffed. “You barely know him, Simmy.”

“I know him well enough to marry him.” I focused on pounding frozen butter into a pat rather than meeting my sister’s accusatory gaze—or be called out in my lie. “I know him well enough to trust him.”

That, at least, was the truth.

For the first time in my life, I was starting to understand what people meant by found family.

Since my mother died, I’d just assumed my family was over. Dad fell apart. Selena went off the deep end. I’d been functionally alone in this world for years, forced to clean up others’ messes despite never having the freedom to make my own mistakes.

Until I’d met him.

In a few short months, Brendan had turned out to be more reliable, even in a crisis, than the people who shared my blood.

He wasn’t my fiancé. He was barely even my boyfriend.

But my heart wanted to call him family just the same.

“Do you really think he’ll get her back?” Selena asked, her voice unexpectedly small as she continued to make a mess of her muffin.

“I do.” I started folding the dough around the now-flattened butter. “Brendan keeps his promises.”

“How can you be so sure?”

I paused, considering. How could I explain something I felt so deeply but had no logical reason to believe? “I just…know him. I trust him.”

Selena studied me. “You really are in love with him, aren’t you? I thought you might be when you wore Mom’s dress, but then I saw the pictures and figured it was for the money. Now, though…”

I frowned as I studied the dough. My instinct was to say yes. She was expecting me to say yes.

But just days ago, Brendan had all but said that wasn’t what we were.

So, I didn’t know where I stood other than the fact that I believed he would bring back my niece.

Selena, however, had already moved on to another thought. “You know, if you’d never gotten involved with the guy in the first place, none of this would have happened.” She started flicking crumbs across the counter.

My hands stopped mid-roll. “You’re kidding, right? You came to me in debt up to your neck, and he is the only reason you were going to get out of it.”

“I could have gone to Dad.Youwouldn’t let me.” She shrugged. “Or maybe you should have asked your man to be a little more generous. Fifty grand was never going to cut it with the Huntingtons. That’s pocket change to people like them.”

There were times when, if I didn’t see my own face on my twin, I wouldn’t have believed we were related at all.

I went back to rolling out the dough a little more roughly than necessary. The lamination probably wouldn’t flake correctly, but at least I wouldn’t throw the pin at my sister. “Right now, Brendan is out there literally saving your daughter’s life, and you have the gall to blamehimfor your mistakes? You borrowed money from a crook to be a crook yourself. What did you think was going to happen? What were you even thinking?”

“I was thinking I needed to do something with my life,” Selena shot back. “Not all of us can get by on tips and volunteer work. I have a child to support.”