Forty

ANDREW

Gladys comes down to my studio and tells me there’s a guest for me upstairs. I blink at her confusedly before asking who it is. The only person I’m expecting is Lilah and she just told me she was headed out for some coffee.

Who else would show up unannounced? It’s very rare that I get visitors. Especially uninvited ones.

“It’s your brother,” Gladys says. I can read the nervousness on her face as she wrings her hands.

She’s probably worried because we have one rule when it comes to Edward in this house.

He isn’t welcome.

But I’m guessing he asserted his power and wouldn’t take no for an answer if she’s standing there looking like she’s just seen a ghost.

There’s no telling what asinine thing he did to swindle his way inside.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say, grabbing my towel to clean some of the oil from my hands.

Abandoning my work, I follow Gladys up the stairs and into the foyer where my brother is waiting in a navy blue suit.

He is staring at one of my paintings that hangs in the hall. There’s a white folder in his hand.

I clear my throat and he turns swiftly to look at me.

“Andrew.”

“What the hell do you want, Teddy?”

He hates when I call him his childhood nickname.

A phony smile touches his lips. “Is that any way to greet your older brother?”

“I’m going to give you five seconds to state your business before I toss your ass out of here.”

I narrow my eyes at him, and he drops the sickening charade and squares his shoulders.

“Fine. Business it is. We need to talk,” he says, tossing a look over his shoulder. Gladys is still here watching the scene unfold. “Preferably somewhere without too many watchful eyes. You’ll want time to digest this alone.”

“Anything you have to say to me, you can say right here. Right now,” I say, calling his bluff.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, pressing the white folder into my chest. “Have a look.”

“What is this?” I ask, catching the folder before it can slide to the floor.

Edward remains silent, but the cocky expression on his face makes me curious.

Keeping one eye trained on him, I open the folder. There is an envelope on top. I run my index finger under the seal and reach inside to pull out the contents.

A glossy four by six of Lilah in a café is all I can make out until I start flipping through the stack. There are at least a dozen pictures here. All with her huddled up in a corner talking to the ex I saw in the grocery store that night. From what I can tell the photos were taken over the course of three different visits.

“Thought you should know your latest obsession is one-sided. She’s across town with him right now while you’re here alone.”

I don’t even absorb his words as I keep shuffling through the photographs.

These were all time stamped within the last two weeks. Not once has Lilah brought up that she’s still in contact with him.

“What the fuck does this have to do with you?” I snarl at my brother, not letting on to the fact that it feels like someone just ripped a gaping hole in my chest.

Gladys mutters something behind me but I don’t catch it. The sound of my own heart is beating too loud in my ears.

Edward shrugs again looking smug. “Just thought you’d like to know. You seem pretty caught up on this one and I couldn’t stand to see my brother getting played by a whore.”

I raise my hand and strike Edward’s face. It doesn’t register to me that I’ve smacked the snot out of him until Gladys appears at my side, worrying over my uninvited guest.

“Oh dear,” she gasps assessing the damage. “I better get some ice.”

She scurries off to the kitchen, leaving the two of us alone.

“Still hot-tempered, I see,” Edward says, holding his jaw with a self-righteous smirk.

“Don’t ever call her that again.”

Edward starts laughing now. His shoulders shaking as he loses himself in whatever the hell he thinks is funny.

“Why are you defending her? She clearly doesn’t give a fuck about you and you’re willing to fight your own flesh and blood. Damn, her pussy must be better than I thought,” he mumbles under his breath.

In an instant, the photos fall scattering against the wood floor. In the next second, my fist lands against his nose, the sound resounding in the foyer.

This time he has sense enough to cower against the wall. Gladys enters the hall, snapping me out of my fury.

“Show yourself out,” I say over my shoulder as I walk away.

Back in the confines of my studio, I finally let the information sink in.

Lilah’s been playing me the whole time?

But that doesn’t make any sense and the thought alone is enough to make my blood boil. What the hell does she stand to gain by playing me?

How the fuck did she get on my brother’s radar? And why the hell has Edward been following her? What kind of crazed stalker shit is he on?

There are too many unanswered questions for my brain to make any sense of this bullshit.

Lilah wouldn’t lie to me.

Right?

But why the hell is she huddled up with her ex so often?

The most contact they made in the pictures was a hug. But their body language was enough to cue me in to the fact that they have a secret that they feel is worth is protecting.

This doesn’t make any sense. I need more concrete proof.

I take my phone in my hands and send Lilah a text.

We need to talk.

More confused than ever, my eyes roam around my studio searching for answers it doesn’t have to give.

The door slams closed announcing Edward’s departure. Thank fuck. A moment later, my phone chimes with an email notification.

My grip tightens on the phone when I realize the email is from Edward.

The title of the message is “Ms. Lilah Tucker” and is marked urgent.

No, I need to speak to Lilah before this goes any further. Edward has caused enough mayhem. I’m going to wait it out and see what Lilah has to say for herself when she arrives.

That’s easier said than done because two seconds later, my thumb is pressing the screen to reveal the message.

There is no body text, only attachments. Five in total. I click on the first one titled “Tucker, Lilah” and what I see confuses me further. The document is a screenshot of an email Lilah sent Edward long before she and I had ever met.

The email attachment is her accepting a job to work with him over the summer and my stomach heaves.

There’s even a scanned employee contract attached at the bottom in exchange for a quarter-million dollars for her business project at the close of the summer.

I drop the phone in denial but quickly pick it back up, hungry for more information.

My anger mounts more and more with each attachment I open.

Lilah isn’t a financial advisor. She’s a kindergarten teacher and it’s all written out before my eyes as plain as day.

She’s known who my brother was this whole time. And she never said a fucking word. Red tints my vision as I read on, angry with her and most of all, angry with my damn self. She duped me. And I was dumb enough to fall for it.

Reading over the next document, I learn that she’s been teaching for the last six years and has created a product called Thriving Together. In order to get it off the ground, she went to Edward for funding who only agreed to help if she would do something in return.

My finger hovers over the final attachment titled “Knight III, Andrew” when the door to my studio opens and Lilah appears at the top of the staircase.