The corners of Declan’s mouth twitched and it looked like he was trying hard not to laugh. He put the phone up to his ear. “Hello, brother.” He listened for a moment before he said, “Will you chill out? She was with Ellie and Beth tonight at my house. I wasn’t even home. She had a few drinks, so I didn’t think she should be driving. I’m just dropping her off at home on the way to the store for Ellie.” Declan finally ended the call and handed her the phone back. “You’re supposed to call Daddy back when you get home.”
For some reason, that struck Emma as funny and she laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. “God,” she gasped out, “why couldn’t I have slept with the funny brother? Whoops, maybe that came out wrong. I’m not saying you specifically, just that I could use a man with a sense of humor, you know?”
“Er . . . yeah, I think so.” Instead of looking offended, he looked vastly amused. “I’ve been accused of having a stick up my ass a time or two, though. Most men lose their sense of humor when another man is driving their woman home in the middle of the night.”
“That might be true if the same man didn’t have his old girlfriend living with him. Isn’t that all brick houses and stones?”
Declan looked puzzled for a moment before saying, “Ah, I think you mean glass houses and stones. I’ll admit that’s a little fu . . . messed up, but there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty. If Brant’s with you, then he isn’t with her. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother either. He just isn’t built that way. After Alexia took off, he stayed closed off for a long time. Brant is a stand-up guy. As messed up as it may be, if Alexia is having problems, then Brant will help her out, regardless of how she screwed him over in the past.”
“I had a few stalker lapses but, strangely enough, I do trust him. I even love him most days, stick up his ass and all.”
Declan chuckled. “Well, there you go. If you can love someone at his worst, then loving them at his best is a breeze.”
Emma turned her head and without any of the jealousy she had felt earlier, she said, “Ella is a very lucky woman to have you.”
Brant stalked around his hotel room scowling at his silent cell phone. How long did it take for Emma to get home from his brother’s house? In the back of his mind, he knew he was being unreasonable. Declan was crazy about Ella, and so there was no one that Emma was safer with than his besotted brother. It still rankled him, though, that Declan was with her while he was miles away in a hotel room alone. Shit, like he had a right to be pissed. Hadn’t he just gotten off the phone with Alexia? She had pretty much listed every good time they had ever had together. The one thing she hadn’t touched on was how horribly things had ended between them. A part of him would always be tied to her, but since getting some distance between them, he was starting to feel more and more certain Alexia belonged in his past. Emma was his future. And damn it, he needed to hear her voice.
He looked down at his watch only to see that she had had more than enough time to make it home. He punched in her number and waited while the phone rang numerous times before an obviously sleepy Emma murmured, “Hmm?”
“Emma?”
“Hmm?”
“Why didn’t you call me when you got home? You are home, aren’t you?”
On a big yawn, she said, “Yep. All safe and sound.”
He sighed in exasperation. “I was worried about you.”
Her voice still sleepy, she cooed, “Ah, that’s so sweet. I miss you. I wish you were here.”
Brant dropped back on his bed, feeling the stress of the evening drain away. “I miss you, too, baby. Trust me, I’d much rather be with you than with Mark.”
He smiled as Emma giggled. “You guys aren’t spooning, are you?”
“God, no.” Brant shuddered. “He’s up in the penthouse suite probably doing unspeakable things to some woman he picked up in the bar while I’m down here where the poor people stay.”
“So how’s Boston?” Emma asked.
Brant could tell that she was struggling to stay awake. He’d love to be there curled around her while she slept. “I’m in Greenville, remember?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. When are you coming home?”
“Probably sometime next week.”
“I’m going to miss you,” Emma said.
“Me too, baby. Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll call you tomorrow?”
“Mmm, ’kay. I love you.” The breath hitched in his chest as she ended the call. He wondered for a moment if he was hearing things that weren’t there. No, he knew what she had said. Surprisingly, he found himself hoping that she meant the words and that it wasn’t just the result of too much alcohol. There were two women wanting to be a part of his life but there was only one from whom he wanted to hear words of love—the woman who had just spoken them to him.
Chapter Twenty-one
Emma looked in the mirror the next morning and gasped. She vaguely remembered someone having the bright idea of doing homemade tattoos the previous night. Shit, she was pretty sure she had started it. Right in the middle of her chest was a crooked heart with the word “Bran” in the middle of it. Oh my God, she’d even left the T off the end. Great, everyone knows you only eat bran when you have digestive issues.
Even after a scrubbing so hard she had taken off a few layers of skin, the Sharpie still prevailed. She picked a shirt that covered up most of her drunken body art and left for work. She went straight to Ella and Beth’s floor to see their tattoos. Beth had to pull her into the office to show hers since it was on her breast. “Nick loved it. He said he would be turned on all day knowing it was there.”
Ella pulled her shirt down, showing another crooked heart with “Declan” written in the center. “All right,” Emma huffed, “why am I the only one with a misspelled name on my chest? Who did it?”
Beth looked guilty before raising her hand. “I think I did. Don’t judge me, though. I had had way too much to drink by then.” Turning to Ella, she said, “You weren’t drunk, why didn’t you stop us? Or at least encourage us to use something a little less permanent than a Sharpie?”
Shaking her head, Ella replied, “Hey, I tried to talk you out of it, but you were both bound and determined to go through with it, even when I pointed out that the marker was permanent. So . . . I did what any good friend would do, I joined you.”
Emma grimaced. “Well, I’ll go back over mine with some bleach and a loofah tonight. I’m sure it’ll be gone in a few days . . . or weeks.”
Suddenly, the mood sobered as Ella asked, “Have you heard from Gray? How is Suzy doing?”
“He said she’s feeling better but would like for everyone to wait to visit. I wanted to go by there during lunch, but he told me she’s not really ready for visitors yet,” Beth finished, looking miserable. “Part of me wants to go anyway, but I know how my sister is. She likes time to think things through and I feel that, regardless of my wanting to see her, I need to give her space.”
Emma put her arm around Beth, giving her a brief hug of understanding. “I would love to see her, too, but I think Gray knows what she needs now better than we do, so even though it’s tough, let’s do this for her.” Before she could comment further, the phone on the desk rang and Beth jumped to get it. Emma walked out with Ella and they promised to have lunch the next week. She took the elevator to her floor and felt a pang of disappointment knowing that Brant wouldn’t be there waiting as he usually was.
She worked steadily through the morning and grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch, eating at her desk while playing Candy Crush. She was almost bored enough to call her mother—almost. Instead, she settled for her sister. She could still get the same gossip from Robyn but wouldn’t be forced to answer a lot of awkward questions as she would with their mother.
Unfortunately, Robyn was too busy to do more than say hello and talk for a few minutes about her upcoming vacation to Sebastian Inlet on the other side of Florida. Her sister spent most of her spare time surfing, and Sebastian Inlet had some of the best waves in the state. Emma might be decent on a paddleboard, but she had never been graceful on a surfboard. Their brother, Boston, was a natural surfer with the whole surfer-dude stereotype to go along with it. Her siblings had been more blessed in the natural athleticism department than she had.
At that moment, she envied them both. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Robyn worked and surfed. She dated but had no desire to be in a serious relationship with anyone. Boston . . . well, whatever he did, he seemed pretty happy with it. Emma, on the other hand, had slept with her boss, going so far as to have a fake relationship with him and then fallen in love with him. She now realized that she had probably been in love with him for a while. Her uptight, boring boss was so unpredictable now that she had no idea what he would do next. He was hot, then cold and just generally all over the place. His ex-fiancée was living with him and she had vague recollections of him calling last night, sounding pissed off that she had been with Declan. God, her life was a mess.