Page 21

AIDEN

A s happens most nights, Tristan and Sienna can’t decide what to eat for dinner. They’re sprawled out on Tristan’s white— why? —couches, flicking through the menu on their phones. Alexis sends it around every Sunday morning, with dishes for the week.

“Poaching her was the best decision you’ve ever made, Tris,” I tell him as I scan the dessert options for tonight—rhubarb and strawberry crostata, chocolate brownies for Tristan, our resident chocolate addict, and something called an opera cake that I’ve never had before.

“It’s all wasted on the man who wants chicken caesar salad and spaghetti.” Sienna cuts our middle brother a glare that could strip paint.

He ignores her and frowns at his phone. “I have a long run tomorrow morning. I need to carb load.”

Sienna throws a napkin at his head, which he catches in the air without looking. “You do not need to carb load . You’re not an athlete, Tristan. You run a bourbon company. I need comfort food. Mac and cheese. Steak. Maybe some jalapeno poppers. Do you know what I had to dissect this week?”

“Not before dinner, please,” he groans.

Sienna rolls her eyes. “We should let Emory pick, anyway. She’s the guest of honor.”

My head jerks up from where I’ve fallen down an internet rabbit hole of French pastries. “Guest of what?”

“It’s family dinner,” Sienna says. “She’s family.”

She’s not family, she’s trouble. A disaster with a smoky, sultry voice that could make a man need to jerk off twice a day just to get any work done.

Ask me how I know.

“She’s a fucking menace,” I growl.

Sienna frowns at me. “Her family won’t speak to her because of the marriage,” she says. “Except for her brothers and her cousin. She used to go to Sunday dinner at home, but now she’s not allowed.”

There’s a pit of discomfort in my stomach.

Emory’s been living here for a week, and she never complained about that.

Of course she didn’t. We’re not friends.

I get mostly one-word answers to the questions I ask her over text, and the rest of the time, she’s tormenting me or making me hard, sometimes at the same time.

“So you invited her?” Tristan grins and flops lazily into the cushions. “If given the choice between winning money from you and watching Aiden suffer, it’s hard to say what I’d choose.”

Sienna snorts a laugh, and they high-five.

“Sienna. She’s not a lost puppy. She’s a grown woman who can feed herself. She doesn’t need you to take pity on her.”

My sister rolls her eyes again, because she’s twenty-five going on fourteen. “I’m not taking pity on her. I like her. She kicked my ass in the gym today. She’s a fast learner. And she’s fun. I needed another girl around here.”

Our argument is broken up by a knock at the door. Sienna hops up to answer it.

“You are deeply fucked,” Tristan whispers.

I press the heel of my hand to my eye. “Not now, Tristan, please.”

He laughs and taps at his phone, probably adjusting the odds of Emory and I murdering each other before the year is up.

“Tristan.” Emory appears in the archway leading to the living room. Her eyes spark when they land on me. A smirk pulls at her full pink mouth. “Golden boy.”

Sienna cackles a laugh. “Golden boy. I love it.”

There’s a tug in my chest at Emory’s teasing. For the first time, it seems like an inside joke from our texts, not an insult.

“Wine?” Tristan asks, hopping up, turning on the Tristan charm.

“I’ll get it,” I say hastily, and he gives me a weird look, probably because I just complained about her coming over.

Emory follows me to the kitchen, which is all white and blue, with paintings of the ocean on one wall.

“I assumed your houses would look the same.” She pokes her head into the fridge, where Tristan has neatly organized his snacks and beverages. “Like prefab homes.”

I snort and pull wineglasses from Tristan’s bar cart. “My ancestors are rolling over in a grave somewhere at the thought.”

Emory crosses herself before she tips back the white wine I pour, and my eyes snag on her lips.

“You did something.” I gesture at her mouth.

She raises a brow. “Lip gloss.”

“Looks—” I pause. “Nice. I guess.”

Her tongue darts out to lick a droplet of wine, and my body responds like she stroked my skin. “Been thinking about my mouth?”

I think about your mouth all the time.

Every time I wrap my hand around my dick, I think about your mouth.

“No idea what you’re talking about.” I fold my arms over my chest.

Her gaze flickers over my arms, then my stomach, then my waist.

“Been thinking about my body?”

“Of course not.” Her hips swing as I follow her back into the living room. She’s in a bewitchingly swishy dress. It falls to mid-thigh, the fabric soft and floaty.

“Em, can you help me with this?” Tristan points at his tablet. “I want your view.”

Em.

Tristan’s doing his thing with her. Soon, he’ll be making her laugh. If Whit were here, she’d be under his spell. He can’t help it. Neither of them can. They got all the charm, I got the stutter. I’d never resent them, but I do wish I could be more like them sometimes.

I made her laugh. At the bar the other night.

“First she needs to pick dinner.” Sienna waves her phone in the air.

“Oh.” Emory bites her lip and perches next to Tristan on the couch. “I don’t think that’s really—”

“Come on,” Sienna urges. “You’re the guest. You pick, and then Tristan and I can finally stop arguing.” She tosses her the phone.

Emory scans it and her face lights. “Oh, spaghetti, please. We always have Italian on Sundays.”

Tristan crows in triumph. Sienna groans but snatches the phone to let Alexis know.

“What?” My wife’s brows tug together.

“Sibling rivalry,” I say with a small smile. “They fight over dinner every Sunday. It’s their thing.”

“I get it.” Emory takes a small sip of wine. “My aunt makes fantastic lumpiang Shanghai every Sunday, and Leo and I fight over the last one.”

She says it casually, but there’s a tinge of sadness in her voice. Sienna’s right. I hadn’t really considered what Emory was giving up to come here. Her apartment. Her brothers. Her father.

Tristan passes her the tablet, and she bends her head over the screen.

“What is this?”

“Sales data projections.”

“Tristan, it’s Sunday.” I rub at my temples. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “He’s relentless when he’s—”

“Who did this for you?” Emory asks. She tucks her legs under her, setting her wine down and hunching over the tablet.

“I did it. In Excel. It’s pretty basic.” He points at the screen.

“Laptop?” she asks shortly. “Sorry. Do you have a laptop I can use?” Her gaze flicks to Tristan, who is looking at her like she just popped out of a cake in the nude, carrying a calculator.

He passes it to her and scoots closer on the couch, leaning over her shoulder to point at the numbers.

Sienna is eyeing me with a weird look on her face. “Careful, Aiden,” she whispers. “I can see you wanting to growl at them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her lips curve up. “You just have this look on your face,” she says mysteriously. “Let them get to know each other.”

Emory’s tapping at the laptop. “Okay. Here. The projections will give you better data if you run the model like this.”

Tristan’s eyes widen. “That’s…incredibly detailed.”

She gives him a look that screams duh. “What’s this for?”

Tristan gives me an uncertain look before he says, “Old Kingdom. Grandfather banned us from making it.”

“For the moment,” I cut in. “Once we have the land, we can build a new stillhouse. With or without Grandfather’s approval.”

“Why that land?” She cocks her head.

“The water on it.” I drag a palm over my face, wishing for the hundredth time that I could remember the recipe and feeling like a complete fucking failure for forgetting.

“It would be easier with the company’s support, though,” Tristan says. “I think if we can show that it’s profitable, we can bring Grandfather around. The thing is, right now, it’s not profitable.”

“It doesn’t need to be.” I frown.

“But it could be,” Tristan says.

“Profit’s not the point,” I say. “It wasn’t for Dad—”

“Well, maybe it should have been,” Tristan exclaims. “It’s a company, not a charity.”

We glower at each other, our first real fight in I don’t know how long. I knew it sometimes chafed Tristan that he wasn’t in charge, but I wince at the thought that our disagreements over Dad run this deep.

Tristan is adamant that Dad isn’t the man I thought he was, and I can’t help but feel like speaking the words is a betrayal of his memory.

“It could be more profitable,” Emory says, her eyes on the screen. “You’re pricing it like your other vintages, but you could price it more dynamically.”

We both turn to her. “What do you mean?” I cross my arms over my chest. I don’t like having a Hunter intruding in our private affairs.

“Right now you’re just applying a flat markup.

” She taps at the keyboard. “You should price it like other luxury items. Based on perceived status. Hype. The more people want it, the higher you raise the price. You can follow trend predictions and demand before you release a new vintage, then price it based on that.” She points at the screen.

“I revised the model so it prices dynamically based on how popular that year was. Look.”

Tristan peers over her shoulder. “Holy shit,” he mutters before he lets out a short laugh. “How do you know how to do this?”

She gives him a small smile. “I was a math major. I thought about getting my PhD, but then I decided to work with my family instead.”

“For the casino.” His eyes are rapt on her face.

I turn away. Let Tristan charm her. We’re not friends.

“We’ll double what you’re making if you come work for us,” he says.

She lets out a surprised laugh at the same time I say, “Tris, no.”

“Rude,” Emory says. “But also, no.” Her mouth is curled up in that bewitchingly confident smile. “I like my job. And I have an expansion to plan.”