Chase was there when Aiden picked me up for our date, lurking by the front door, glaring at both of us. He’d asked—no, demanded—that I call Aiden and cancel. I’d refused.

I wanted to see where this thing with Aiden could go. I’d never truly thought there could be something real between us. Even if I could put aside his stealing Chase’s company, my lies held us apart. But Aiden hadn’t stolen Chase’s company and he understood why I’d lied to get a job with Winters, Inc. Everything keeping us apart was gone, and all I wanted was Aiden.

True to his word, he didn’t take me anywhere fancy. He showed up at my door in jeans and an untucked, white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. I’d only seen him dressed casually once, at breakfast in our hotel suite in Vegas, and we hadn’t been dressed for very long. Even on the plane home, he wore a suit.

Aiden in jeans—jeans that showed off his ass to perfection—with rolled up sleeves… Yum. I could spend all night just staring at his forearms.

I thought about jeans myself, but for a first date, I just couldn’t do it. And this was our first real date. Vegas didn’t count. Everything that came before was just a prelude. I didn’t have to hide the truth anymore and that changed everything.

I chose a linen wrap dress in cherry red. Simple, stylish, but the color was fun. It didn’t hurt that the wrap style emphasized my curves and made my waist look tiny. I paired it with matching red wedges and pulled one side of my hair back with a pin adorned with a red silk poppy. The rest I left down. I’d noticed in Vegas that Aiden liked my hair down.

The only awkward part about our date was getting through the front door under Chase’s disapproving glare. I love my big brother. Adore him.

But when his voice chased me down the hall with, “I’ll be waiting up,” I only rolled my eyes. He could wait up all he wanted. I didn’t have a curfew and the only person I answered to was me.

In the elevator, I turned to Aiden and said, “Sorry about that. He’s protective.”

Aiden pressed a fingertip to my shoulder, trailing it down my bare arm until he reached my hand and tangled his fingers with mine. Tugging me a few steps closer he leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of my head.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, unsuccessfully hiding a laugh, “I have a baby sister and a younger cousin. Be grateful you’ve only got the one brother. Both Charlie and Annalise had all of us ganging up on their dates.”

“How many of you are there?” I knew his family was big, and I knew parts of their backgrounds.

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows about the Winters family. But I didn’t know any of them personally except for Aiden and Gage. After our last confrontation, I’d be happy to go the rest of my life without seeing Gage again.

On the short drive to the restaurant, Aiden filled me in.

“On my side, there’s me, the oldest. Then Jacob—he runs his own real estate company. Then Holden, he’s a partner in WGC. Winters Gaming Corp. And Charlie—Charlotte—is the baby. On my aunt and uncle’s side, Gage is the oldest. Then Vance and Annalise—they’re twins. Tate is the youngest. He’s the other partner in WGC. Jacob owns Winters House in Buckhead.”

“The historic building that has the art gallery and the coffee shop on the first floor?” I’d gotten coffee there once or twice before.

“That’s the one. He named it Winters House to mess with me since our family home is also called Winters House. He has the penthouse. He shares it with his fiancée Abigail. Holden and Tate each have half a floor. Tate married his girlfriend Emily on New Year’s Eve. She’s a game designer and works at WGC with them. Holden is engaged to his girlfriend, Jo, and she lives with him. Vance is married and has a toddler. Rosalie. You know Gage got married to Sophie not long ago, and Annalise and her fiancé Riley get married at the end of the month.”

“What about your little sister? Are you two the only Winters who haven’t paired off?”

Aiden pulled his car into a tiny parking lot behind a small building that looked like a cottage nestled between high-rise condo complexes much like my own. Amazing scents drifted out the back door. Curry and coconut. My stomach rumbled.

“Are you okay with Indian?” Aiden asked, sliding his arm around me and guiding me through the parking lot.

“I love it. I’ve seen this place, but I’ve never eaten here before.”

“Their naan is amazing.”

“I could eat naan all day,” I said, my mouth watering at the thought of the light, fluffy, Indian flatbread I loved. I wasn’t kidding. If we got a basket before our meals, Aiden would have to fight me for every bite.

The restaurant was small, filled with artfully arranged booths separated by vibrantly colored silk curtains. The dim lights and flickering candles combined with the privacy of the booths left me feeling as if Aiden and I were the only two people in the restaurant despite the dinner crowd.

When Aiden slid in beside me instead of taking the seat opposite, I didn’t complain. The truth was, I’d missed him. I hadn’t liked waking up alone either. One weekend away together and already I was used to him. Too used to him.

He didn’t answer my question about his sister until we’d ordered drinks and had menus in front of us.

“Charlie?” I asked, curious. He’d mentioned more than once that he was overprotective, and I wanted to know if she’d managed to fall in love despite Aiden scaring away all her potential suitors.

“Charlie fell in love with her husband while we were estranged, which is the only way Lucas Jackson got within fifty feet of her. He was not what I had in mind for my baby sister.”

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

Aiden flipped his menu shut and stared at the cover before he answered. “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with Lucas Jackson. He runs a division at Sinclair Security. He’s smart as hell, tough as nails, and if anyone so much as looks at Charlie the wrong way he’ll beat the hell out of him. But he’s also a little rough. Tattoos, motorcycle. He went private after the army and his résumé has a lot of blank spaces. Dangerous blank spaces. The first time he crossed our paths he was working undercover as the president of the Raptors motorcycle club.”

“Hmph,” I said, “I guess I could see how you might not want the president of a motorcycle club hooking up with your little sister.”

“I wasn’t thrilled, but Charlie wasn’t speaking to me at the time, and she’d moved out of Winters House, so unfortunately—or fortunately, given the way things turned out—I didn’t get a say.”

“Why wasn’t she speaking to you?” Chase and I didn’t always get along perfectly. I could imagine all sorts of circumstances that might have Aiden’s little sister angry at him, but I wanted to know what had really happened.

I wanted to know even more when he slid me a hesitant look as if he didn’t want to admit what had caused their rift. I poked him in the side. “Tell me. What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?” he asked, trying to sound offended.

I pressed my lips together to fight a smile. “You look guilty. And I have an overprotective brother of my own. I don’t know your sister, but I’m already guessing whatever happened was your fault.”

Aiden rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, either trying to find the right words or praying for deliverance. Finally, he said, “I fired her. She was working at Winters, Inc. as a vice president—Gage was still away in the military—and all she did was work. She had no life. She was exhausted, and she hated her job, but she wouldn’t admit it. We always thought Gage would take his place at the company. But after my parents died he joined the Army and pretty much never came home. Charlie—” Aiden’s voice faded out, his eyes unfocused as he drifted in memory.

“Charlie wanted to help, didn’t she?”

Aiden let out a breath and nodded. “She was so young when our parents died. She doesn’t even remember Gage’s parents. I practically raised her, and ever since she was a teenager all she talked about was coming to work for Winters, Inc. I knew, even back then, that it wasn’t right for her. I encouraged her to try other things, but she was dead set. The company was her legacy. But I couldn’t watch her anymore, always stressed, unhappy. I hated seeing her unhappy.”

“Couldn’t you tell her to slow down?”

Aiden laughed. “I could. I did. Over and over. She refused to listen. If I worked late she worked late. Finally, I fired her. She was pissed. She was beyond pissed. She stole a fifteen thousand dollar bottle of whiskey, got drunk, and ended up kissing her next-door neighbor.”

“Lucas Jackson?” I guessed.

“Lucas Jackson,” Aiden confirmed. “Eventually, she forgave me. Now she has a business flipping houses, he helps when he’s not running his hacker team at Sinclair, and I’ve never seen her happier.”

“Which you think justifies firing her,” I concluded.

“Doesn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my head.

“I’m glad she’s not still mad at you, but just because you think you know best doesn’t mean you get to make decisions for other people. You’re just like Chase, setting up admissions interviews at grad schools when I’ve told him I’m not ready to go back yet.”

“You’re stalling, Violet. You wouldn’t have started your master’s in the first place if you hadn’t wanted to go. You’re treading water when you could be moving forward. Your brother’s only trying to help.”

I shoved my shoulder into Aiden’s arm and scowled. “Arguing with you about this is pointless, isn’t it? You’re going to be on his side.”

“Not exactly. I can personally vouch for Emory’s MBA program. I’ll make a few phone calls and—”

“No,” I said.

“Don’t be stubborn, Vi. I can help with this. I’m not promising you’ll get in. That depends on your grades and GMATs, but I’m guessing those were both pretty good since you graduated college with honors.”

“They are good, but that’s not the point, Aiden. You and Chase are just alike. So sure you know what’s best. So ready to steamroll everyone else, and you think it’s okay because it’s for their own good.”

“I can’t help it if I’m always right,” Aiden said. “It’s a burden I have to bear.”

I might have thought he was serious, his delivery was that good, but I caught the slight raise of his lips and the twinkle in his warm brown eyes.

“You’re not always right,” I said darkly. “You didn’t fire me when you should have. You didn’t know I wasn’t going to cause serious trouble. Keeping me on was stupid.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Maybe I wasn’t stupid. Maybe I knew you. Maybe I knew I could trust you and you just needed to learn you could trust me.”

“Don’t be sweet when you’re being annoying.”

I had more to say, but Aiden stopped me with a kiss, wrapping his long fingers around the back of my neck and moving his lips over mine in a warm, gentle caress that had me leaning into him, wanting more before the scuff of the waiter’s shoe reminded me where we were.

That kiss lingered on the edge of my mind all through dinner. The food was delicious. Aiden didn’t fight me for the naan, and by the time dinner was over I was stuffed and relaxed.

Being with Aiden was easy. We never ran out of things to talk about. Movies, books, hobbies. Sometimes we agreed, often we didn’t, but either way, we had fun. The push and pull of conversation with Aiden was entertaining and a little like foreplay. A lot like foreplay.

Never before had I regretted living with my brother. I already knew I wasn’t bringing Aiden home to my place. Not as long as Chase was there. A glaring brother standing over us was as good as a cold shower.

Aiden was signing the check when he looked up and said, “Tell me you’re not ready to go home.”

“I’m not ready to go home,” I said, honestly.

“Do you want to go out somewhere else? Or somewhere quiet?”

“Somewhere else like a bar or club?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

I shook my head. “Somewhere quiet.”

The smile that spread across Aiden’s face lit his dark eyes. I thought in that moment that I would do anything to make him smile like that. He took my hand under the table and squeezed before he said, “Come back to Winters House with me. No one will be there. We can watch a movie. Or I can show you my tie collection.”

“Your tie collection? Exactly how many ties do you have?”

“Way too many. And they’re all displayed in my closet. Which is right next to my bedroom.”

“Mmmm. I’ve always admired your ties.” Not exactly true. Aiden’s ties were nice, but I wasn’t that into men’s accessories. I had, however, always wanted to see his bedroom. Especially after Vegas. A thought occurred to me. “Doesn’t your cousin Gage live in Winters House? He won’t be happy to see me.”

Aiden looked away as he led me out of the restaurant and around to the parking lot. I didn’t miss the muscle twitching in the side of his jaw. “Gage and Sophie had plans for dinner and a movie. They won’t be home. Lise and Riley were going out with Charlie and Lucas. Even Mrs. W and Abel—our housekeeper and cook—have the night off. The house should be empty.”

“That sounds good,” I said as I got into the car. I wasn’t afraid of Gage. I was cautious. “I don’t want to cause trouble with your family. Gage doesn’t like me.”

“I can handle Gage,” Aiden said. “Between my cousin and your brother, we’ll figure it out.”