“You do,” Cam said to his twin. “But that’s a discussion for another day.” He squared off in front of the couch and crossed his arms. “What kind of business can you possibly have with Shelby? I mean…Shelby? Really, bro? I get that you had a thing for her, but Jesus Christ.”
“He must have knocked her up. That’s the only explanation,” Jude said cheerfully and helped himself to a beer from the fridge.
The suggestion set them all off again like a match to a bomb’s fuse. Reece closed his eyes, pressed the ice to his jaw, and let them rage around him. Was Shelby having any better luck with Eva and Libby?
Probably not.
“Holy fuck,” Cam said as he paced back and forth across the room. “Please tell me that’s not the case. Eva will kill you.”
Vaughn nodded his agreement. “Oh, hell yeah. And slowly.”
Cam groaned. “Yeah and then she’ll ask me to help her hide the body. I don’t want to make that choice between my wife and my brother.”
Reece sat up. “Shelby’s not pregnant.” At least, as far as he knew. Damn. Maybe that was the reason she pushed for marriage? “Or if she is, it’s not mine.”
Cam scowled. “You’re gonna play it like that? I’ve never known you to shuck your responsibility.”
“And I’m not now. I’m telling you she can’t be pregnant because we’ve never fucked, all right?”
“What about earlier tonight?” Greer asked softly, finally breaking his silence.
Jesus. Could this conversation get any more uncomfortable? “It was a blow job. Now can we drop this?”
A murmur of awkward agreement went around the room, and the five of them sat in brooding silence for several minutes.
Cam scrubbed his hands over his head. “Just…why?”
Now came the tricky part. How did he explain the marriage without divulging the blackmail and the potential for Wilde Security’s financial ruin?
Reece met his brother’s gaze. “Cam, you know me. You know I always have a reason, and you just have to trust that I know exactly what I’m doing. Like I said, it’s a business arrangement, and when I can tell you the whys of it, I will. But until then, I need you all to play it like we’re really married.”
“You are legally married?” Greer asked.
“Yes, we are. But for the sake of appearances, it needs to look like more than the business arrangement it is. It needs to look real.”
Cam paced away. “This is so fucked up.” He stood in front of the windows for a moment. Then with a shake of his head, he spun back to face the group. He held up a finger in warning. “Don’t hurt her, Reece. You hurt her, you’ll hurt Eva, and then we’re gonna have problems.”
If anyone was going to get hurt in this whole fucked up situation, he had a feeling it’d be him—but he wasn’t about to say that to his brothers. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
The room settled into another uneasy silence.
Finally, Jude held up the beer in a mock toast. “Let’s all just take a moment here to appreciate the fact that I am no longer the family fuckup.”
A chorus of groans rang out, and Vaughn smacked him upside the head.
Even Greer cracked a small smile. “Nobody can take that hard-won title from you, little brother.”
Jude shrugged. “But you gotta admit, Reece is doing a damn fine job of trying. And Vaughn’s not far behind. Hell, Greer, even you’ve been in the running lately. A distant third, but still third place. I should have trophies made up.”
More groans. And just like that, everything was normal again. Reece had to admire Jude’s ability to break the tension in any situation. For the longest time he’d thought his youngest brother was little more than the family clown—annoying, somewhat scatterbrained, and all but useless during a crisis. He’d been wrong. Jude wasn’t an idiot, and he wielded his sharp wit like a weapon, but also knew how to use humor as a kind of glue to bring the five of them back together after a fight. It was a respectable talent, one not many people had.
Shelby had that same talent, he realized with a jolt of surprise. But somehow he doubted she was using it now over in Cam and Eva’s suite. If anything, Libby was playing the peacemaker between the sisters. And for some idiotic reason, he wanted to walk over there and stand in front of Shelby, use himself like a human shield to keep away all the hurtful things Eva was probably saying. The kinds of things he knew too well because he’d said them enough times to Jude over the years.
He watched his youngest brother mercilessly poke fun at Greer, who sat there and took it with a half amused, half exasperated expression on his hard face. It was like watching a grizzly bear patiently enduring the antics of a rambunctious cub.
Reece had never been patient when it came to Jude. Still wasn’t, although he was working on it. And he’d already apologized for it, but…
Suddenly, it didn’t seem enough.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Jude’s right. I fucked up.”
And there went the moment of levity. If Jude’s superpower was humor, then he must be the villain of this story, the anti-Jude, sucking the funny out of everything.