Page 43 of Rules Of Engagement: St. Louis (In The Heart of A Valentine #17)

Christian

I stood in the doorway of our bedroom, watching Naomi arrange her jewelry box on the dresser we’d chosen together last month.

“That’s the third time you’ve moved that box,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

“I’m trying to find the perfect spot.” She adjusted it another inch to the left, then stepped back to admire her work. “There. What do you think?”

“I think it looks perfect wherever you put it.”

She turned to smile at me, and I was struck again by how right this felt. How natural it was to have her things mixed with mine.

We’d decided to make the house our official shared home three months after the engagement. Not rushed, not pressured, just the next logical step for two people who’d stopped being afraid of what they wanted.

“Your turn,” she said, nodding toward the box I was carrying.

I set my collection of vintage law books on the built-in shelves, sliding them between her photography books and the cookbook we’d bought in Italy. The mix looked right, professional, personal, two lives blending without losing their individual character.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Naomi said, wrapping her arms around my waist from behind.

“Having second thoughts?”

“Not a single one. You?”

I turned in her arms, looking down into her face. “It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

She stood on her toes to kiss me, softly. When we pulled apart, she was smiling, and every time I saw that smile, I was filled with emotion.

“We’re keeping both my condo and your penthouse for now, right?”

“For now,” I agreed. “No rush to sell anything. We have time to figure it all out.”

That had been our approach to everything since the engagement: taking time, ensuring quality, and building a solid foundation, rather than rushing toward some arbitrary finish line. It was working. Hell, it was more than working.

Naomi picked up an envelope from the nightstand and handed it to me. “This came for us today.”

The return address made me smile. “Brandy and George?”

“Open it.”

Inside was a hand-drawn invitation decorated with dice and playing cards.

“You’re cordially invited to Game Night at the Community Center - Second Saturday of the Month - 7 PM - Pool, Spades, Dominos, and More!”

“Remember when they first told us about this?” Naomi asked, reading over my shoulder.

“How could I forget?”

I folded the invitation and looked at her. “Want to go?”

“To game night? With our actual neighbors, as our actual selves?”

“That’s the idea.”

She pretended to think about it. “I’d love to. But I should warn you, I’m competitive at spades.”

“But not UNO?”

She gasped and swatted me. “Was that a dig at my card-playing capabilities?”

I laughed and drew her close. “Of course not, baby. No dig, you just suck.”

Her mouth widened, and I couldn’t maintain my guffaw.

Three days later

We were sitting in a corner booth at Soulful with the smell of my Aunt Bernice’s famous fried chicken wafting around us.

Family dinner had moved to the restaurant tonight because Dad insisted we start mixing things up.

What he really wanted was an excuse to eat Aunt Cherry’s peach cobbler, which she only made at Soulful.

“Boys,” our father said. “I need to tell you something.”

The tone made all three of us go quiet. Dad didn’t do serious unless something was really wrong.

“Everything okay?” Elijah asked.

“Your health is fine, right?” Xander added.

“My health is fine. That’s not...” Dad rubbed his face, looking older than I’d seen him in years. “This is about family. I need to tell you all something.”

My stomach dropped. Since we’d found out about Titan in Miami, I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. For more secrets to surface from Dad’s complicated romantic history.

“Is this about Titan?” I asked. “Because we’re still working on building that relationship, and?—”

“It’s not about Titan.” Dad took a deep breath. “Well, not just about Titan. Boys, you have another brother.”

Xander’s fork clattered against his plate. Elijah went completely still, and I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was.

“Another brother?” Xander asked.

“His name is Jeremiah Valentine. He’s thirty years old, he lives in Detroit, and...” he rubbed his lips together. “I want you to meet him.”

We were all shocked. Another brother. We were still trying to figure out how to integrate Titan into our family, and here he comes with another secret revelation.

“Dad,” Elijah said, “how many more brothers do we have?”

“That’s it. I swear to you that’s all of them.” He scratched his head. “I think.”

Our eyes widened.

“I mean,” he said, “The ladies, they love me, I?—”

“Dad?”

He held his hands up. “Titan and Jeremiah. No more surprises.”

My brothers and I glanced at each other.

“At this point, we’re going to have to do a genealogy test to make sure,” I said.

Dad looked at each of us in turn. “I’ve spent the last few months getting to know Jeremiah, trying to figure out how to tell you boys about him. He’s a good man. A teacher. He deserves to know his family.”

I stared at my father, processing this information alongside everything I knew about Titan. Two brothers we’d grown up without knowing existed. Two men who shared our blood but not our history, products of Dad’s inability to commit and his tendency to keep secrets.

“Does he know about us?” I asked. “And Titan?”

“He knows about all of you. Titan too. They’ve actually been in contact.”

“They know each other?” Elijah’s voice rose.

“They’ve known about each other for a while. Jeremiah reached out to Titan a few months ago. They’re... figuring things out together.”

While we’d been struggling to build a relationship with Titan, dealing with his walls and justified anger about being kept from us, he’d been connecting with another brother we didn’t even know existed.

“Before you feel slighted by Titan, understand that he feels like he has more in common with Jeremiah because they’re both estranged from me. So it was easier for him to have a conversation with Jeremiah.”

While that did make sense, it didn’t make it any better.

“And they both want to meet with us?” Xander asked.

“Jeremiah does, very much. Titan...” Dad paused, rubbing his face. “You know how Titan is. He’s still working through his feelings about all of this. But Jeremiah thinks if we all got together, it might help.”

I thought about our last interaction with Titan in Miami. The guarded conversations, the flashes of longing underneath his armor, his struggle between wanting family and expecting disappointment.

“What do you think?” I asked my brothers.

“I think,” Xander said slowly, “that we need to meet Jeremiah and figure out how to include both of them in this family. Even if it’s complicated.”

Elijah nodded. “Maybe having Jeremiah there will help with Titan. Maybe seeing all of us together will show him he really does belong.”

“That’s it then,” I said. “Let’s reach out to schedule our first brother reunion.”