“I was—” Darn it, how could she possibly find the right words? Although Harry tended to be the most reasonable of her three brothers, he was protective enough that she was wary of oversharing. But since there was no way around this now, she made herself say, “Intimate.” They both grimaced, and she wanted to drop her face into her hands and hide as she finished, “With one of the founders of CP Systems.”
Harry dropped his fork onto his plate with a clang. “What the hell, Suz?” He looked nearly as upset as Roman. “How could you just mention this now?”
“Because,” she said, unable to hold back a scowl, “like I told Roman, Craig would never hurt me. Trust me, even if he cared that I ended things after we got together those couple of times—which he didn’t—he doesn’t have it in him.”
Harry pushed away from the table and moved to where she was standing at the window. “I do trust you, Suz. We all do. But even nice people can do crazy stuff when their egos are crushed.”
“I didn’t crush his ego. It wasn’t even anything serious.”
“Maybe it wasn’t serious to you, but what if it was to him?”
Suzanne knew she could be stubborn, but she always tried to make sure that stubbornness didn’t edge over into stupid just so she could win her point. When Roman had suggested that Craig might have been more upset than he’d seemed over “losing” her, she’d outright rejected it. But now that Harry was saying the same thing…
She finally accepted that she needed to make herself take a closer look at whether she was wearing rose-colored glasses where Craig was concerned. Maybe she should reach out to him to make sure everything was as okay between them as she’d thought.
Yes, she decided, that approach made the most sense. And then once she confirmed that Craig wasn’t an issue, she’d make sure Roman understood that the rest of her personal life was off-limits.
“Okay,” she said as she turned to Harry, “I’ll admit that you’ve made me think. I promise I’ll look more closely at this possibility.”
But instead of looking happy about it, Harry said, “Maybe you should let Roman look into it, Suz.”
“No.” She wouldn’t bend on this. “I’m not going to tiptoe around anyone. If I hurt someone’s feelings, I’m going to be the one to ask if that’s what I’ve done. And then I’m going to fix it.”
Harry looked as though he wanted to give her more unwanted advice. Wisely, all he said was, “Just be careful, okay? We love you too much to let anything happen to you.”
“I love you too. I love all of you, even if you need to stop poking your noses into my life.”
“Drake and Alec will be glad to hear that you’ve forgiven us.”
“You and Drake, maybe. But Alec…” She scowled. “You don’t have to tell me that he’s the one who steamrolled this whole bodyguard thing. I can guess. And I’ll tell you what, I really don’t appreciate the way it’s tumbled my life upside down.”
“Is it really that bad having Roman around?” Harry held up a hand before she could shout yes at him. “Let me ask that another way. From the time I’ve spent with him, he seems to have a solid head on his shoulders. And Alec wouldn’t vouch for someone he doesn’t respect the hell out of. Are we both wrong?”
Sometimes she hated being fair. But no matter how annoyed she was with Roman right now—no matter how annoyed she was for the totally unacceptable feelings she was having for Roman—she couldn’t live with herself if she told her brother lies about him.
“I suppose solid is a good word.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Like a big block of cement who is always there whether I’m working or running or with family.”
“Doing his job, in other words.”
“I suppose so. It’s just that…” She tried to put her conflicted emotions into words. “I can never quite focus when he’s around.”
“You?” Harry looked extremely surprised. “Lose focus?”
“You have no idea how much of a struggle it’s been to get things done since Roman’s been following me around. He always finds a way to rile me up.”
“That’s interesting.”
Realizing far too late that she’d said far too much, she quickly changed the subject. “Any word from Dad?”
Instead of answering, her brother gently put his hands on her shoulders and moved her back toward the table. “I know how busy your days are here. Sit and eat before someone comes knocking on the door needing you to solve all their problems.” After she’d sat and picked up her burger, he said, “It sounds like Dad’s been really busy lately on a last-second project that popped up.”