Chapter 50

Dorian's POV

As if the prospect of a long-lost sibling reunion first thing in the morning wasn’t enough, Vivian was sitting in my kitchen.

All my ghosts seemed to be coming back to haunt me today.

I caught myself tracking the curve of her ass in those jeans before I forced my eyes away. This day was already too long; I didn’t need to torture myself with fantasies I couldn’t act on.

I cut around the island and went straight for the coffee.

“Good morning,” Vivian said softly.

I nodded without turning around. “You’re up early.”

“I didn’t sleep much.”

That made two of us. I was running on fumes and family duty. I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter.

Vivian was fiddling with the wrapper of a protein bar she’d barely touched. To the right was another plate—peanut butter toast with bits of crust left behind.

I stiffened as I put two and two together. “You’ve seen her already.”

“What?” She looked up and followed my gaze to the plate next to her. “Oh. Yeah. She was eating when I came down.”

“Blyat’,” I cursed under my breath. “Just what I needed. As if she doesn’t have enough ammunition already.”

Vivian frowned. “I’m sorry. Do you think I met your sister for the first time and immediately started bad-mouthing you? Is that how you think I started my day?”

“Leonora would be a sympathetic audience. She’s pissed at me.”

“So am I,” she snapped. “That doesn’t mean I’d try to come between you and your sister. I actually tried to defend you. Not that you deserve it.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and I don’t think she realized how much that simple, thoughtless gesture affected me. I gripped the coffee mug so tightly I was surprised it didn’t shatter.

“How did it go?” I asked sarcastically. “Defending me? I bet Leonora ate it right up.”

“Oh. Um. Well…” She tugged on her lower lip with her teeth. “Leonora is confident. I can tell you that. She’s not shy, either.”

I ran a hand across my forehead. “Who did she insult, you or me?”

“Both of us. Mostly me, though.” Vivian laughed. “Apparently, I need to get rid of my jeans.”

A thought blared in my head, uninvited: I’d rip those jeans right off you if you just said the word.

Out loud, I said, “I should have warned you she was here, but she got in late.”

“After you unlocked my door?”

I nodded. “If I’d known she was coming, I might have locked you both in. It would have made my life a lot less complicated.”

Suddenly, a fork bounced off my chest and clattered to the floor. Vivian was biting back a smile. “That’s not funny.”

“Who says I was joking?”

Vivian toyed with her protein bar a bit more before tossing it in the trash can uneaten. She leaned her hip against the counter and crossed her arms. It was a struggle not to drink in every inch of her. “What are you going to do?”

I’m not going to close the gap between us and lift you onto the island, spread your legs, and fucking devour you, that’s for sure. That would be a terrible, terrible idea.

Although, on the other hand…

might.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself not to move. “Sending her back to live with my mother isn’t an option. She’s almost eighteen. It won’t be long before she could come here without our mother’s permission anyway.”

“For what it’s worth, I can tell she likes you.” Vivian shrugged. “Or, she wants to like you, anyway. As much as a teenage girl can like her older brother.”

“She’ll like me less when I sit her down and explain the conditions under which she’ll be allowed to stay here.”

“She’ll thank you later. Even if it’s hard now, she’ll see one day how much you must have cared about her to make that tough choice.” Vivian slid closer. “You’re willing to let her hate you just to keep her alive. You must care about someone a lot to do that.”

Vivian wasn’t just talking about Leonora. Her eyes were on me, questioning what I was thinking. Part of me thought she knew I was still hearing the echoes of her moans from the last time we were together.

Everyone in my life needed something from me right now, but Vivian was trying to help. She was offering support. The fact that I wanted to lean into that was reason enough to back away.

So why couldn’t I back away?

Vivian was still staring at me when someone cleared their throat. We both looked up to see Adrian smirking in the doorway. “Good morning, you two.”

Vivian’s cheeks flushed pink, even though we hadn’t been doing anything. Adrian would never believe that.

I topped off my coffee and elbowed Adrian toward my office.

“Sorry to interrupt your little moment,” he whispered, too loudly.

“You didn’t interrupt.” I shoved him down the hall. “You were late.”

Adrian walked back into my office like he’d just been to war. His usual perma-smile was gone. He flopped into the chair across from me and sighed. “Well, shit is fucked.”

“You were talking to Leonora for thirty minutes. If you don’t have more to say than that, you’re fired.”

He frowned. “I’m family. You can’t fire me.”

“I can do whatever the fuck I want.” I leaned back in my seat. “Tell me what she said.”

“She didn’t say much. It was more about the way she said it.”

“For fuck’s sake,”I spat, “this was useless. I should have talked to her myself.”

Adrian volunteered to have a chat with Leonora first, thinking she’d open up to him. Clearly, he wasn’t up for the task.

He threw his hands up. “I’m not a fucking therapist, okay? All I know is she’s going through something. Do you think it could have anything to do with Otets?”

I grimaced. Everything was tangled up with our father’s death. “He died five years ago. This is something else.”

“Okay, fine. So, is she going to stick around long enough for us to figure it out, or are you shipping her back? Because I have to tell you, I think she might make a run for it if you try to put her on a plane.”

“With Shinomiya prowling around, Leonora going missing is the last thing we need.” I shook my head. “There isn’t another option. Mother can’t handle her, and she’s naive enough to run off and get hurt if we force her out.”

“So she stays,” Adri concluded.

I squinted at him. “What the hell are you smiling about?”

“I think it’s nice,” he said with a shrug. “All of us are finally back together. It’s been a long time.”

“For good reason. You know it isn’t safe for her here.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he said. “And we can assign her some guards. She’ll be fine. We’ll all get to know each other again.”

“One big, happy family reunion,” I mumbled.

“One big, happy family and Vivian,” Adri added. “It could be nice to have her feminine energy around. For Leonora… and for you.”

I shot him a warning glare. “It would be better for everyone if they didn’t see much of each other. Vivian will be gone soon anyway.”

The last thing I needed was Leonora getting attached to Vivian the way everyone else in this fucking house seemed to be.

Adri snorted. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“I have nothing to say. I’m just wondering when the two of you are going to admit there’s something more going on between you.”

One of us already had.

Vivian was falling in love with me.

Every time I looked at her, the thought rang through my head. I couldn’t get rid of it.

But it didn’t mean anything. We weren’t dominos. She might have fallen, but she didn’t get to take me down with her.