I wasn’t sure if group therapy without a therapist was better than it would’ve been with a shrink involved, but I did know I could think of a million different things that would be better than sitting here and listening to my brothers talk about their feelings.

A root canal, for example. Being covered in honey and tied to an ant hill. Going to the opera.

It didn’t help that when I’d come back from my walk yesterday, they’d wanted to know if I’d been meeting with Brea. I’d given them a curt no, but they either hadn’t gotten the message or didn’t care about it, because they hadn’t stopped wanting to know who she was and if we were together. As if their new romantic status meant I had to find a woman too.

I’d finally just locked myself in my bedroom and ignored their attempts to get me to come back out. Not surprisingly, it hadn’t lasted long. Once they’d reached whatever they considered to be enough, they’d gone away and left me alone. It was what I’d wanted, but a part of me had been disappointed that they hadn’t tried harder.

This morning, things had gone from bad to worse.

Instead of sitting in our suite and talking, Jax had announced we were going to use one of the retreat’s ‘therapy rooms.’ We’d just finished up breakfast when Blair had appeared at the door, her expression far too chipper. I was tempted to tell her that we were only here because we didn’t like each other, and our dead grandfather was manipulating us into working through our shit. That would’ve wiped the smile off her face.

I wasn’t that much of an ass though, no matter what everyone thought of me.

“Right this way,” she said with a sweep of her arm.

As we followed her, I found myself looking for similarities between mother and daughter. They had the same coloring, but Blair’s eyes were a bit darker, and where Blair was curvy, Brea’s body was leaner, stronger. I could see Brea’s smile in Blair, but Brea was undeniably more grounded than her mother.

Why was I doing this to myself? Brea had played me. I’d taken her to my home – which I’d never done before – and she’d acted like she was there for me when she’d really been there for her parents. I didn’t want to see her or even think about her.

Blair was talking, and I forced myself to turn my attention back to her.

“…specially equipped to facilitate communication and understanding.” She pushed open the door and led the way inside. “We’ve removed all distractions and recommend that all electronics are put into one of our silent spaces for the duration of your time here.”

She wasn’t kidding about removing distractions. Pretty much the only things in the entire room were giant cushions and pillows. No chairs or couches or tables. No windows either. A single sign hung over a smallish square cut into the wall.

Silent Space. Set interior timer to unlock space.

“We have the room set at an ideal seventy degrees, with perfect humidity. We also offer complementary scents for you to choose from. Lavender, eucalyptus, rose, vanilla, and sandalwood. It takes only a few minutes for them to dissipate and fill the room with the right atmosphere for your needs.”

“No, thank you,” Jax said with a polite smile. “I think we’ll be fine with just the use of the room.”

“If you change your mind, simply press the call button next to the door.” She pointed at a small button that I hadn’t noticed before. “You can set the interior locks on a timer, so you won’t be disturbed, and we have an override in case of emergencies. All of the instructions are in the panel next to the button.”

She really thought we were going to lock ourselves in the room? I rolled my eyes. My first impressions of Blair and Kevin were proving to be spot-on. They should’ve been in some free love commune somewhere with mellow seasons and sunshine. Why had they chosen to build a retreat here? I loved it here, but I thrived on isolation. They looked like the sort of people who liked to go out just to meet new people. Wyoming didn’t really fit that image. Even as I thought about it, however, I knew the answer.

They’d come for Brea.

Dammit. I didn’t know what that meant. Had they bought the place because she lived in Rawlins, then after she and I first met, they’d asked her to seduce me to keep me from making waves? Or had they asked around about me when they’d first gotten here and realized they’d probably need something to distract me, then contacted Brea? Or had she thought of it herself after her parents told her about the grouchy man who lived next door?

It didn’t matter what had happened first or how things had unfolded. The point was that Brea had hidden who she was and if I couldn’t trust that, then I couldn’t trust her for anything else either.

I hadn’t realized that Blair had left until Jax said my name. All three of them were staring at me with these strange expressions on their faces. Like they were worried about me.

Fuck that.

“What?” I snapped.

“How about we sit down?” Slade said. “Might as well get comfortable before we start in on everything.”

I still had no idea what we were doing here. Yeah, I knew the basic idea that we were supposed to reconcile because we wouldn’t get our inheritance if we didn’t, but that didn’t tell me much. Like how the hell anyone expected us to have some breakthrough in a weird room when we’d barely spoken to each other since…well, ever.

I plopped down on a giant cushion that was stuck in the corner farthest from my brothers. It was comfortable, I admitted grudgingly, but it didn’t make me any happier to be here. I crossed my arms, scowled, and prepared myself to listen to whatever bullshit lecture I was about to get.

“I’ll start,” Jax said. He looked at each of us in turn, his gaze staying on me the longest. “Since Grandfather passed, I feel like my eyes have been opened. I’ve been so focused on being everything I thought Grandfather wanted that I forgot what it was like to be part of a family.”

I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes again. Jax hadn’t stopped being a part of a family when he’d gone to work for Grandfather. None of us had been a family since Grandma Olive died, and we hadn’t even been a whole one then. A fat lot of good it did any of us to whine about it though. I barely remembered our family, and I’d gotten past it and made something of myself. I didn’t need a family.

Jax kept talking. “When I met Syll, I finally got it. What it was like to want something more than the life I had. The company, the family name, none of it mattered as much as the people did.”

Syll. His fiancée. I still couldn’t quite believe it. I hadn’t thought any of us would ever get married, to tell the truth. Maybe Cai, if he looked up from his microscope long enough to propose, but not Jax. Who’d want to marry someone who’d never be around? Unless she was after his money, but I wasn’t about to suggest that. I didn’t have a death wish. If she was a con artist, that was on Jax. If she wasn’t, whatever. He’d get his happily ever after and ride off into the sunset, or whatever shit made up his fairytale ending.

My happy ending was next door. My place. My work. My life. I didn’t need anyone else acting like they knew better about what I needed or wanted.

I was happy with my life the way it fucking was.