Page 1 of My Ex’s Billionaire Brothers (Forbidden Hearts #5)

ANYA

I smooth my hand over the soft, slate-gray tablecloth as I set down the last champagne flute for dinner. My reflection stares back at me from the polished surface of the silver tray, and I notice how tired my eyes look tonight. It’s past seven, and Calvin still isn’t home. Again.

My phone buzzes. A text from him says, Be there in five. I’m starving.

Typical Calvin. Cybersecurity waits for no one, he likes to say. Neither does roast chicken, but I stopped making that argument last year. It never changed anything.

I sigh and place the phone back in my pocket, then make a final pass around the dining room. The crystal chandelier above me reflects shards of light along the walls. The water glasses have begun to sweat, so I wipe them dry again.

Calvin likes to keep the apartment warm.

God forbid I touch the thermostat. “I can afford it, you know,” he always teases.

He only says it because of my apartment when I met him.

Me and three other roommates, each struggling to make ends meet.

We could hardly afford air conditioning, much less rent.

But that all changed after he had me move in with him. I haven’t struggled for anything since.

I guess everything looks ready enough. My plan was to have dinner on the table a half hour ago, but he said he’d had a “meeting run long,” so here I am, trying to keep everything from going cold. Not that the food will get cold, with the thermostat set to eighty.

“It’s summer,” I told him. He didn’t seem to care.

The front door opens with its usual echo, and Calvin strides in. His eyes skim the neat arrangement of the living room, the flickering glow from the fireplace, and finally land on me. I flash him a weary smile.

He’s dressed in a navy suit with a perfect white shirt and a silver tie, his blond hair immaculately groomed.

He always looks like someone preparing for a press conference, which, to be fair, is half-true.

He’s been exploring a potential run for local office, and the Carvers are nothing if not ambitious.

He’s old-school handsome—Calvin has been mistaken for a Kennedy a few times since we’ve been together.

“There you are,” I say gently, approaching him.

“Yeah. Busy day. Let’s eat.”

“I’ve got it ready,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “Roasted chicken and vegetables, with a side of wild rice?—”

“Whatever it is, it smells good.” His tone is clipped, curt. He shrugs out of his suit jacket and tosses it over the arm of a chair. Before I can smooth the wrinkles out of it, he’s walking toward the dining room, phone in hand, texting.

I swallow hard. It’s going to be one of those nights again.

We settle at the table, and I watch him for a moment, trying to find the right way to break the ice. We build our plates and start eating, but his late nights always leave my stomach in knots, and I don’t have much of an appetite left.

When he finally sets his phone aside, I ask softly, “Everything okay?”

He exhales, reaches for the water glass. “My brothers are in the news again. Or at least, they could be soon if Brenna doesn’t keep their names out of it. That damn nightclub…”

The three eldest Carver brothers—Calvin has seven brothers total—are the ones who own and operate a place called Sins. It’s not just a nightclub. It’s a high-end kink club. And it’s the bane of Calvin’s existence.

I met his older brothers only once, at a big family Christmas dinner two years ago. There was Gage, with his solemn green eyes, tall frame, and protective aura. In mere minutes, I felt safer standing near him than I ever do around Calvin’s fancy colleagues.

Or even Calvin himself, if I’m honest.

I remember Hunter’s playful grin, how he teased me about my accent, making me laugh so hard I nearly snorted eggnog.

The man lives to make people smile. And then there was Theo—quiet, polite, with that refined air that only intrigued me more.

But then he whispered a dirty joke about some creative uses for the gravy, and I blushed so hard I thought I’d die.

They all struck me as people who really see who you are. It was a nice change from most men I meet. They had me so flustered at that Christmas dinner, I spent most of it blushing into my plate.

I push that memory aside because now’s not the time for reminiscing. They could be stirring up trouble for Calvin. “Did something happen at Sins?”

“It’s only a matter of time before something does. Someone could leak pictures or something about a Carver brother owning that place. I mean, it’s a kink club, Anya! Can you imagine how that looks for me? When I run for office next year, and that gets out…it’s not exactly a wholesome family image.”

“But people go to all kinds of clubs?—”

He levels me with a tired stare. “I’m not running for hall monitor, Anya. If I run for state senator, I’ll get killed with this. It won’t matter that I personally have nothing to do with it. The Carver name will be tarnished just by association.”

My name too, soon enough . “You could always try to talk to them. Or I could.”

He scoffs. “They keep telling me that I’m overreacting. But I know how these things blow up in the media. One scandal is all it takes to poison a campaign.”

Calvin’s family built a billion-dollar empire on old money from oil, steel, and timber ventures, going back to the 1800s.

The Carver name is a staple in American industry—and the philanthropic world, if you believe all the charity dinners.

The family has already weathered scandals, according to Calvin. He’s not sure if they can take another.

I have to cheer him up. “Well…speaking of big plans, we haven’t talked about wedding stuff in a while, but I’ve got it all under control. Nothing for you to worry about. The caterer is booked and so are the flowers. There’s this gorgeous place by the waterfront?—”

“Yeah,” he cuts in, setting his fork down. “Actually, about that…” His tone worries me.

“Do you want input on the flowers? You said I should pick everything myself.”

“We should talk about the wedding,” he says flatly, “because there won’t be one.”

“You mean…like, you’d prefer a more private ceremony? You want to elope, or do something intimate?” I ask, voice timid. “We could do a destination beach wedding, or skip all the fuss and just?—”

“No.” His tone is sharper. “I mean, it’s not happening at all. My political consultant said it’s…inadvisable for me to marry you right now. Or at all, if I want to pursue a real future in politics.”

At first, I just stare. My chest tightens, and my throat feels like I’m swallowing glass. “Brenna… she told you we can’t get married? You’re not serious. You—you’re just stressed out or?—”

He glances away. “I’m sorry. I know this is sudden. But she laid it all out. She said, and I’m quoting here, ‘Anya is sweet and smart and fun, but you don’t marry the fatty if you want the White House.’”

I’m sure I didn’t hear that right. “What did you just say?”

He avoids my eyes. “Her words, not mine. You know how blunt she can be.”

I can’t even speak. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Something goes still inside of me.

My heart.

The words stick in my throat until I force them out. “Your consultant thinks I’m too…too fat to be your wife?”

Calvin rubs a hand over his face. “She said the optics wouldn’t be ideal. And, well, since my mother was a socialite with her own scandals, and my father had his own failed political ambitions, the entire family has always been under scrutiny. I need a wife who is perfect.”

I slowly push my chair back from the table. My appetite is gone. I doubt I’ll ever be hungry again. “You don’t even have the decency to say you disagree with her?”

He grimaces but doesn’t speak. That silence is worse than if he’d shouted.

I stand, legs shaking. “You proposed. You told me you loved me.”

“Anya,” he begins, but his voice wavers. “It’s not that I don’t care about you. It’s just…my priorities have changed. I need to think about my career.”

“I quit my job, Calvin. For you, remember? You said I didn’t need to work, that you wanted me free for your schedule, your events.

” I press a palm to my forehead. “I have no savings left. I used it all to pay for wedding deposits that you dragged your feet on. And now you’re telling me to just… what? Leave?”

“I’ll give you some money, Anya. I’m not heartless. But you need to be out by the end of the month. That’s…that’s what we have to do.”

Tears blur my vision. I spin on my heel and leave the dining room.

I can’t look at him, can’t speak. I climb the staircase, each footstep echoing like the hollow beat of my life falling apart, and lock myself in my bedroom—no, his guest bedroom that he converted into a bedroom for me so I had a place to sleep on his late nights.

That way, he wouldn’t disturb me when he crawled into bed after midnight.

Was this room just a way to keep me at a distance?

I collapse onto the bed, tears soaking into the baby-pink comforter. My chest heaves as I try to regulate my breathing, but heartbreak scrapes through every cell of my body. He used to call me “beautiful,” used to brag about how he loved my curves.

Lies. Every time he said it.

I cry for I don’t know how long, but my head aches. If the wedding’s off, if he’s throwing me away like a piece of trash, then maybe I should just bail on him first.

And go where?

Go back to working as an office manager in some random firm? I was good at my job, but I hated it. There’s only so much sexual harassment a woman can take.

Move back to Castle Beach, and let my parents see how I failed so spectacularly in Boston? I just can’t. It’s one of those little towns everyone complains about their whole lives but never leaves. If you don’t do everything you can to escape it, you get sucked back in. I can’t let that be me.

Calvin was supposed to come down south with me for the Fourth of July. We were going to have a big family meet and greet. I’ve met his relatives—I send cards to them on their birthdays, I handle family weekend plans…

I thought he loved me enough to want to know my family too.

Another lie.

Anger sparks to life. The knots in my stomach, the pain in my chest, my mind poking holes in all our memories…I want to make Calvin hurt. I want him to know what this feels like.

I want revenge. I want to do something reckless. Calvin might not give a shit about me, but he cares about being embarrassed, and I can use that.

I sit up, wiping my tears. My breath is shaky, but determination fuels me. I rummage through my closet, pushing past the pastel frocks Brenna said would look good on camera, and grab the little black dress I bought on a whim.

It makes me look paler than usual, but I don’t think anyone will care. I wore it once to a fancy gala with Calvin, but he told me after that I looked “too voluptuous” in it, whatever that means. He wanted me in clothes that hid my body, but I’m done hiding.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’ll get in over my head. But what’s the alternative? Stay here, in this hot house, crying in my pillow until the end of the month?

No, thank you.

A slash of red lipstick and a pair of ankle boots later, I exit the bedroom.

I hear muffled voices in Cal’s office. He’s on a call.

Part of me wants to fling the door open and snap a biting remark at him, but I don’t want him to know I’m leaving for the night.

I want him to hear about it from someone else, and I have no doubt he will.

The city streets glimmer with headlights and streetlamps. My heart thumps like crazy. Maybe this is crazy, but I don’t care. Not now. The rideshare driver doesn’t say much, which is just fine by me. I’m in no mood for small talk.

We finally pull up to the building. It’s unmarked, a simple black door on a downtown street, but the line of people out front, dressed in all sorts of edgy, provocative attire, gives it away. I swallow my nerves, pay the driver, and step out. A cool breeze skims across my legs.

A large bouncer at the door glances at me, eyes flicking over my body. “No collar. Is your master here?”

“My what?”

He sighs. “Are you on the list?”

Oh hell. I hadn’t thought of that. “No, but?—”

He smirks. “That’s alright. You understand what kind of place this is, right?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

He chuckles under his breath. “They’re going to love you. Have fun in there. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I exhale in relief as he opens the door, letting me slip inside. Walking into Sins is like stepping into one of my fantasies. And I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.