Page 32 of My Ex’s Billionaire Brothers (Forbidden Hearts #5)

ANYA

I wake to quiet. Real quiet—the kind that wraps the walls in cotton and makes yesterday feel like a fever dream.

I called them my boyfriends. Calvin showed up, not once, but twice.

He hurt Hunter, menaced me. Hunter and my father literally threw him out of the cottage.

My parents left us here to work things out. And we did. A few times.

Is this really my life now?

My suitcase rests beneath the vanity where Hunter pushed it after our midnight fun.

I pad to the window. Gage is already outside in mesh shorts and a faded Navy tee, running slow laps around Dad’s freshly straightened fence line, long strides steady, jaw set, morning sun flickering off sweat.

The sight puts odd wings in my chest—hope flapping side by side with apprehension.

Mom and Dad pull up at ten on the dot. I meet them at the porch, wearing last year’s tee and denim cut-offs that might still pass for modest under Mom’s measuring gaze. She climbs the steps first, hugging me so tight her raspberry perfume fills my sinuses.

“The morning kids parade was lovely,” she declares, smoothing invisible lint from my shirt. “One of the majorettes fainted, but an ice pop fixed her up.”

Dad follows, carrying a bakery box. He pats my shoulder, gaze flicking toward the side yard where Gage finishes his lap. Worry lodges behind his eyes. He nods once, polite, then strides inside without comment.

I exhale. Step one—survive Dad’s silent glances.

The kitchen turns into a marathon, just like every other holiday.

I don’t know why Mom insists on hosting the family for everything.

Granted, we have the nicest house in the family, but Uncle James has the biggest one.

We wouldn’t have to all be cramped in here together, and Mom wouldn’t have to make too much food every time.

Plus, Dad wouldn’t have to clean up afterward.

But it’s tradition, I guess.

Mom assigns tasks like a five-star general. Clearly, she’s been looking forward to ordering my boyfriends around. My boyfriends. It’s still weird to think about.

Brisket emerges from its overnight butcher-paper wrap—dark bark glistening.

Ribs sizzle, chicken brines in a cooler.

I’m on watermelon duty, carving red crescents while Hunter, drinking an electrolyte shake, adjusts the smoker’s airflow and jokes about barbecue angles of attack.

His temple sports a butterfly bandage, but the swelling is nonexistent.

He winks each time he catches me staring guiltily.

I have no idea why that makes my heart thump, but it does.

Theo appears freshly showered—hair parted just so, navy polo tucked—offering to calculate exact oven cycles for cornbread muffins.

Mom hands him her kitchen timer without hesitation, as though he’s always run Markoff cookouts.

She trusts them not only with me, but with the food she’s serving the family. That’s how I know she likes them.

Gage slips inside after his run, presses a quick kiss to my cheek, and heads straight for the sink to scrub forearms before dicing onions.

Dad hovers at the doorway, coffee mug steaming, watching Gage’s knife work with a bewildered mix of skepticism and respect.

It’s like he’s deciding how to feel about this, minute by minute.

Every clatter of knife on board and hiss of searing fat tells me this morning peace is pottery-fragile. All I can do is breathe and slice melon triangles precisely one inch thick. I can’t change anyone’s mind about this. They have to do that themselves.

Mom keeps a commentary going as she and I arrange deviled eggs.

The red-white-and-blue bunting strung over Magnolia Avenue was crooked, the Shriners in tiny cars were already tipping the whiskey, and the high school band blasted “Stars and Stripes” slightly off tempo.

She raves about how our cottage looked from the parade route.

“…fence so straight your dad keeps admiring it.” Dad grunts at that, but I catch the hint of pride even through his worry.

Once the brisket’s glazed and wrapped, Mom folds her apron, checks her watch.

“They’ll start rolling in after twelve,” she says—meaning the cousins, aunts, uncles, random plus-ones.

Outside, Gage and Dad hoist folding tables onto the lawn.

They speak, but from the kitchen window I can’t hear.

I tell myself Dad’s dark glances at breakfast are simply pre-company nerves—that’s all.

I’d love it if that were true. I’m not na?ve enough to believe it.

Twelve-oh-eight, the first SUV crawls onto the gravel. By twelve-thirty, the yard is a patchwork of lawn chairs and borrowed coolers bearing iced tea, craft beer, and at least three potato salads. The Carver brothers spread out like event staff.

Hunter charms Cousin Laura with jokes about tea-soaked fortune cookies. Theo imports Gage’s diced onions into Mom’s coleslaw and somehow convinces my health-nut Cousin Miles to try full-sugar sweet tea. Gage mans the grill with Dad, tongs clicking, quiet words exchanged between smoke plumes.

People stare, of course. They whisper about the scandal , but Mom claps hands, calls for volunteers, and soon half my relatives are too busy arranging red-and-blue napkins to speculate in front of me. It’s a start.

Then the lilac Cadillac convertible arrives—slow, deliberate—as if the driver knows every eye has turned. An elegant scarf wrapped around her hair, giant sunglasses, and a pair of white driving gloves, as if she’s driving straight out of a sixties romcom. She’s right. Everyone is staring.

Aunt Gertrude Delacourt swings open the door, dainty heeled shoes hitting gravel. She plants her cane, tilts her chin, and surveys the yard as though deciding which rose bush to prune, except we are the rose bushes. Everyone hushes, parting to form a path to the porch.

My palms sweat. Aunt Gertie has opinions—written in stone, laminated, and hand-delivered with a side of judgment. She once told my Cousin Beth, at Beth’s own wedding reception, that the dress looked “too hopeful.”

This could go nuclear fast.

I meet her halfway, forcing a smile. “Happy Fourth, Aunt Gertie. Let me introduce?—”

The cane lifts slightly. “I know who they are, dear.” Her sharp gaze traces each brother, as though she’s reading a list of their sins in her mind. She turns to me. “Where’s Calvin?”

I inhale through my nose. “It…that didn’t work out.”

Three packs a day has left her voice as rough as the gravel in the yard. “Why?”

That single syllable says everything she’s thinking, and it’s all I can do not to shrink myself into nothing to avoid answering her question. Silence deepens to suffocation.

Before I can come up with an answer, Gage steps forward, voice calm. He towers over her, a lawn gnome facing down a giant. It’d be funny if I weren’t terrified.

His voice is calmer than it has any right to be. “Our younger brother never deserved her. He proved that time and time again.”

Aunt Gertie purses paper-thin lips. “And that’s to say that you three somehow deserve her?”

Theo inclines his head, respectful. “Too soon to tell, I fear. But I know we’re privileged to be in her life.”

Hunter, grin flickering earnest, adds, “And we’ll spend every day proving it.”

The old woman’s eyes narrow—searchlights probing. Finally she turns to me, voice lower. “If these boys give you trouble, send them my way. I can always use some free pig feed, and my pigs have an endless appetite.”

I bark a laugh at her joke. But she lowers her sunglasses, revealing that it was no joke—she’s deadly serious. I nod solemnly. “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

Judgment complete, she slips her arms and her cane through the crooks of Theo’s and Hunter’s elbows. “Now,” she announces, “what’s an old lady gotta do to get fed around these parts? The two of you?”

Hunter grins down at her. “We’re spoken for, thanks, but I’m sure we can still feed you.”

“Get to it.” She leads them off like prize draft horses toward the deviled eggs.

A collective exhale ripples the lawn. Conversations restart, volume rising to normal barbecue chatter. Relief loosens my spine. If Aunt Gertie issues a pass, the family will follow. I hope.

Uncle James and Cousin Erin debate whether the ribs should be sauced or dry-rubbed.

Mom beams each time Hunter refills iced tea without being asked.

Theo discusses quilting patterns with Aunt Lou—that one surprises me.

I would have figured Gage would be better at that conversation, considering his penchant for knitting isn’t that far off from quilting.

But each of my boyfriends has depths to them that I don’t know, and I look forward to learning everything about them.

I want that more than anything. I let myself breathe easier, drifting from group to group, answering the occasional nosy question. My family, the most judgmental people I have ever known, is making an effort to understand us. To understand me. That I’m not the good girl I always pretended to be.

That I’m not perfect in their eyes, and that’s okay.

And the entire time, I feel Gage’s gaze cross the yard to mine, feel the comfort of knowing he’s near—until I see Dad murmuring at him.

The conversation ends with Dad’s quick nod toward the house.

Gage wipes his hands on a towel, meets my questioning gaze across the lawn, and offers a tight smile as if to say, It’s fine .

He follows Dad up the back steps, through the sliding door, down the hall toward the small office that used to be the guest bedroom.

A cold prickle spreads across my shoulders. Dad’s office is where he’s delivered every big lecture of my life—skipping church youth group, speeding ticket at seventeen, moving to Boston without a job. The door clicks shut behind them.

What happens next depends on one look, one word, one conversation behind a closed office door.