“Shit….”

I sighed and replaced my hotel phone on its hook. That was the sixth company I’d spoken to who wouldn’t be able to get my red dress shipped to the Bunbury Islands from San Diego in under a week, even with their priciest express service, and I needed the dress in three days. I couldn’t blame the companies, though. It was my own damn fault for forgetting to pack the dress.

I glanced over at the clock on the wall. I’d been trying to sort out this dress issue for four hours to no avail. Sighing again, I flopped down on my bed and opened my laptop before clicking onto the retailer’s website. I figured they might have a warehouse nearby which could ship me another dress by Friday. No such luck, though—they didn’t have any left in my size. Great.

Twisting my lips, I sat up as an obvious solution suddenly crossed my mind. Duh. I should be outside, cruising around the island and checking out any boutiques it had to offer. Surely at least one of them would have a red dress. Even if it wasn’t the exact same dress that all the other girls had, like Libby initially wanted, it would be better than nothing.

Just as I stood up and grabbed my purse, there was a knock at my door. Frowning, I padded over to it. As far as I knew, everyone was off doing their own thing this afternoon, so I wasn’t expecting anyone.

I opened the door a crack to see Nate standing there with a big grin on his face. “Surprise!” he said. It was only then that I noticed he was holding a garment box marked ‘Zafela’.

I gasped. “Is that…?”

He nodded before I could finish my question. “Can I come in?”

I opened the door wider, and he brushed past me. Hands on hips, I watched him set the box down on my bed. “I don’t understand. How did you get it here so fast?”

“I heard Libby say the name of the website you ordered the dress from. I looked it up, and there was only one red dress on the whole site, so I figured that was the right one. They have a small store up in Bermuda, so I called them and got them to package one in your size. Then I had it dropped off here via helicopter. It arrived ten minutes ago.”

My mouth fell open. “Helicopter? But… how can you afford that? You’re broke!”

He smiled. “I still have connections all over the place. I didn’t have to pay.” He tore the sticky tape off the box and pulled the dress out. “So is this the right one?”

I stepped over and fingered the slinky red fabric. “Yes,” I murmured in disbelief. “This is it.”

“Right size? I had to make an educated guess.”

I checked the tag. “You guessed perfectly,” I replied. I looked up at him. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

Nate cocked his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I? I knew it was important to you and your sister that you all have these matching outfits for the bachelorette party. And I kinda owe you for making brunch a bit awkward, don’t I?”

I stared down at the dress again, chewing my bottom lip. Nate had almost always been thoughtful and kind to my face, but behind my back he was a totally different person—the kind of person who lied and slept with married women. I couldn’t understand how two polar opposite personalities could exist in the same body.

“Thanks,” I finally said, averting my eyes again. “This was really sweet of you.”

I hated to say it, but it was the truth.

Nate grinned and leaned back on the bed. “Anything for my girlfriend.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that, but I rolled my eyes at the same time. “We don’t have to pretend we’re together when it’s just the two of us.”

He sat up straight. “Fine. But at least let me see you in the dress so I can admire my handiwork.”

I nodded. “Okay. I should probably try it on anyway, just to make sure this size still fits. I’ve eaten so much since we arrived that it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve gained five pounds.”

Nate winked. “You’d look great either way.”

Stop being so nice to me, you two-faced prick, I wanted to scream. Instead, I smiled and stiffly thanked him again.

I took the dress into the bathroom, leaving the door open just a crack so I could hear Nate in case he said anything. As I stripped off and stepped into the unzipped dress, my mind went crazy again, trying to figure out what the hell his deal was. How could someone seem so great but then actively participate in the destruction of someone else’s relationship at the same time?

I guess people’s personalities weren’t black and white. It was all shades of grey. Someone could be nice in some ways and horrible in others. Still, it didn’t excuse Nate’s affair with Ginny Morell, as far as I was concerned.

I fumbled around my back, trying to reach the zipper for the dress. Unfortunately, I was still quite stiff from the long plane ride the other day, and I couldn’t quite get it. Reluctantly, I stepped out of the bathroom and called out to Nate.

“Hey, could you help with this? I can’t get it up.”

I expected him to make some dumb joke about ‘getting it up’ but instead he simply nodded and headed over to me. I turned around, holding my hair out of the way, and Nate’s cool fingertips coasted over my back, searching for the zipper. He pulled it upwards, slowly, and when it was done, he smoothed the dress down over my hips. “Some of it’s a bit bunched up,” he said by way of explanation.

I didn’t reply. I was too busy having a heart attack. Nate’s hands were all over me, and my senses were going haywire. I took a deep breath, trying to block everything out, but sensual flames licked at my inner thighs, rudely yanking me back into the moment. Nate was bad for me, but he was too tempting to resist.

No matter how hard I tried, my universe was narrowed to this man and the things he did to my body without even trying.

His fingers ran over the silky fabric yet again, smoothing one last part of the dress, and a tidal wave of desire slammed through my senses, cresting low in my belly. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last like this. My hands hung limply by my side as I tried to ignore Nate’s fingertips on my skin, but my willpower showed no sign of returning. God, I wanted him to touch me like this forever.

Suddenly I was angry. No, furious. Furious at Nate for being such an irresistible bastard, and furious at myself for my incomprehensible reaction to his touch.

I turned around, jerking away from his fingertips. “Thanks,” I said stiffly.

“It looks good,” Nate said, eyes traveling a slow path from my cleavage down to my legs. “Really good.”

“Nate, I…uh…” I tried desperately to think of something to say to change the subject away from how I looked. Anything to make him stop staring at me like that with those hungry grey eyes. “I want to talk to you about Bobby.”

It worked. Nate sighed and took a step back. “I knew this was coming,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

“You were pretty mean to him earlier. I think he might be trying to help you, Nate. Maybe this trip would be easier on us all if you let him.”

His jaw tightened. “You don’t know him as well as you might think. Trust me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my brows knitted in a puzzled expression. I’d long suspected there were deeper issues between Nate and his brother, but he’d never said anything to confirm that until now.

“Sometimes people aren’t what they seem. Sometimes they can really surprise you. They can hide things about themselves for a long time, and one day they turn around and reveal their true nature. You don’t see it coming, but you feel the effects forever. That’s what Robert is like. He hides things and blindsides you with it. He turns your highest moments into lows.”

I pressed my lips together as he spoke about people lying and not turning out to be who others thought they were. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I looked into his eyes, my expression steely. “You’re right. Sometimes people can really surprise you.”

“Right.” Nate gave me a hard look. “You want to know the truth about the man your sister is marrying?”

I folded my arms. “What truth?”

Nate turned and headed over to the hotel minibar. “Mind if I have a drink?” he asked.

“Um. Sure, I guess.”

He pulled out a tiny travel-sized bottle of scotch and took a mouthful. Then he sat down on the bed and patted the duvet. “Wanna sit?”

“I’m fine standing.”

He shrugged. “Right. Well, I’ll start by saying I really hope my brother has changed for Libby. I hope he never treats her the way he’s treated me.” He paused, then looked up at me. “I never told you the whole story about my mother, did I?”

“You told me she passed away, if that’s what you mean,” I said tentatively.

“There’s more to the story than that. It was quite a while ago now, back when we still had nothing. She was a single mom, remember?”

I nodded, and he went on.

“It wasn’t always easy. We didn’t have much money. But Robert and I were smart enough to get college scholarships, at least. We went to local places to stay close to Mom so she wasn’t lonely. Then she got sick. That was right around the time I was trying to get my business started, right out of college. It was just me and my computer, really. Robert helped me with it, but ninety percent of the work was done by me.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t quite sure how Nate’s business related to his mother’s illness, so I kept listening, my forehead creased with concentration.

“Mom was sick for quite some time. My brother and I moved back in with her to take care of her, and at some point we heard about this new treatment that was showing promising results in people who had the same cancer as her. We wanted her to get it, but it was exorbitantly expensive.”

I sighed. “A lot of those things are. It’s horrible.”

Nate nodded slowly. “No matter what we did, we just didn’t have the money to pay for it. Even if we sold the house. I got a real job and worked part-time on my company when I could, but it still wasn’t enough. I kept thinking if Mom could just hang on a few more months, we’d finally make enough for the treatment. But we didn’t make it, and she died in some shitty little room in the best hospital we could afford, which wasn’t saying much.”

“I’m sorry, Nate,” I murmured, edging closer to the bed.

He held up a hand. “Wait. I’m not done. Just one year after she died, my brokerage exploded. Suddenly I had a ton of money, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I had everything I wanted. Except Mom, of course. But I figured wherever she was, she’d be proud of me for finally making it somewhere in life. So at least I had that to comfort me, right?”

“She would be very proud of how successful you are,” I said with a nod. I hesitated for a few seconds. “So what happened with Bobby?” I tentatively added.

Nate was silent as he took another swig of scotch. Then he licked his lips and looked down at the floor. “When I went to tell him the good news, I figured he would congratulate me, or tell me he was proud of all my work paying off. But you know what he said?”

“What?”

Nate looked up again. His upper lip curled slightly. “He said: ‘Maybe you should’ve worked harder on it. Then it might’ve blown up like this a year ago, and we would’ve had the money when we needed it. Mom would still be here. That’s on you’.”

My eyes widened, and my limbs froze as I contemplated the sheer nastiness of Bobby’s comment to Nate. No congratulation, no happiness… only blame. Blame for their mother’s death. It was one of the worst possible things I could imagine someone saying to their sibling. No wonder Nate resented him so much.

“He really said that?” I asked, my voice a higher pitch than usual.

Nate nodded and tapped a finger to the side of his head. “It’s all seared right into my memory. Those were his exact words.”

He looked at me, granite-grey eyes piercing me as he waited for my next response. For the first time, I could truly see his vulnerability and pain. I felt a twinge of guilt for pressing him into telling me this story by bugging him about Bobby, but also a small sense of relief in seeing that he wasn’t as much of an ass as I previously thought he was.

I shook my head slowly. “Nate… that’s awful.”

I didn’t know what else to say. The whole time I’d known Bobby, which admittedly wasn’t long, he’d seemed so kind and gentle. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d say something so heinous to his own brother, but I could tell Nate wasn’t lying or exaggerating. The haunted expression in his eyes was proof enough.

If Bobby was capable of that level of cruelty, maybe he was capable of ripping his own brother off as well. So maybe he really did take all that money from Nate’s accounts, and he’d successfully pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes.

If that were true, then I didn’t want my little sister to marry him. No way. Nate had suggested earlier that Bobby could’ve changed for Libby, but if he really did take that money only four months ago, then that meant he hadn’t changed at all.

But I couldn’t say these things to my sister. Upon my arrival, everyone already suspected that I brought Nate here to ruin the wedding. So if I brought these things up now, she’d start to think that was true, and she wouldn’t listen to a word I said. Who she married wasn’t up to me, anyway. In the end, it was her decision.

All I could do was keep my mouth shut and pray that Nate was wrong; pray that Bobby wasn’t the guilty party in regard to the missing money. I also had to pray he’d never say something as cruel to Libby as what he once said to his own brother. If he ever did, I might just kill him.

Nate cleared his throat and went on. “That’s the kind of person my brother is,” he said, looking up at me. “All that time, he’d been seething and blaming me for Mom not getting that treatment, and he didn’t say a word about it for a whole year. But you know what the worst part is?”

I looked at him blankly. “What?”

Nate’s nostrils flared. Then his shoulders sagged. “He could be right.” He grabbed the fringed end of the white waffle fabric throw rug on the bed and squeezed it so hard his knuckles turned white.

I shook my head and sat down next to him. “No, he’s dead wrong,” I said firmly. “How could it be your fault? You tried your best.”

He shook his head slowly. “If I just put more hours into the company, things might’ve taken a turn for the better sooner. I could’ve had the money for Mom’s treatment. But I failed. I let her down.”

I squeezed his arm. “You can’t think like that. For one, it wasn’t just your responsibility to make enough money for that treatment. Bobby was just as responsible. And how could you have put more hours into your company? You were working hard at your other job and also taking care of your sick mother. There’s only so many hours in a day.”

Nate grunted but didn’t say anything in response.

I pressed on, trying to comfort him. “Look, I don’t know much about all the cryptocurrency stuff you work with, but I know enough to tell you that you weren’t in control of when it all blew up and became popular. It happened when it happened, that’s all. You couldn’t have made the market soar sooner just by putting more hours into your company.”

“I suppose so, but still, that shit stings. I went from feeling on top of the world to feeling like I practically killed my own mother.”

“Yeah. I can only imagine what it felt like.” I sighed, then tilted my head to the side. “Why did you let him keep working for your company after that?”

He shrugged. “I always said he could so I didn’t want to go back on my word. And he did help out at the start, remember? He helped me build it all up.”

“But not much. You said he only contributed about ten percent.”

“Yeah, but after Mom died, he was the only close family I had left, and he knew the company better than anyone apart from me. So I wanted to at least try with him, even after what he said. Besides, ten percent is still a fair amount in the grand scheme of things.”

I nodded. “Well, for what it’s worth, I think it was very big of you.”

He threw up a hand. “I guess, but it didn’t help much. We drifted apart anyway, even though we saw each other nearly every day at the office. It was business only. Hell, I never even knew he proposed to his girlfriend. Didn’t even know who she was.” He paused for a moment and looked out the window. “Mom would be so pissed if she saw us like this. But what can I do? It is how it is.”

I followed his gaze outside. A gentle breeze was blowing, making distant palm trees sway. “I don’t really know what to say,” I admitted softly.

Nate’s eyes snapped back to my face. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to say anything. I just wanted you to know why I’m like this when it comes to my brother. When that money went missing, I didn’t suspect him for no reason. There was a lot of buildup to it. Years and years of resentment between us.”

I nodded. “I get it. Thanks for telling me. It can’t be easy to talk about.”

He gave me a tight smile. “Kinda feels good to let it out, actually.”

I heard a sudden vibrating sound, and he pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. I didn’t mean to look, but the screen was right in my field of vision, so I could see his notifications popping up. One made my throat tighten painfully.

It was an email from the address [email protected], and there were two love heart emojis in the subject field.

I bet if I Googled Ginny Morell, I’d find that 1981 was her birth year. My stomach hardened at the thought, and I tore my eyes away from the phone screen, lowering them to my lap instead.

Nate abruptly stood up. “I should go. I have a ton of work emails to reply to.” He strode toward the door, and he turned when he reached it, stormy grey eyes coasting over me again. “I’m glad the dress fits. You look stunning in it.”

“Thanks,” I said, my voice barely above a mumble. I stood up and followed him over to the door. “I guess I’ll see you at dinner? Mom wants us to eat at that seafood place downstairs.”

He smiled, and the dimples around his mouth made my knees quiver. “Yeah, I know. See you at seven, doll.”

He softly patted my shoulder before heading out, and I almost collapsed as tingles shot up and down my spine from his touch alone.

I was so damn confused. So mixed up I barely even knew what to feel anymore. On the one hand, I craved Nate more than my lungs craved oxygen. He’d just poured his heart out to me and made me understand so much more about him, and I couldn’t help but feel for him; couldn’t help but want to wrap my arms around him and tell him it wasn’t his fault. On top of that, the mere brush of his fingertips against my skin made me melt.

On the other hand, he was still the guy who’d lied to me about his love life when I specifically asked, most likely due to the fact that his secret girlfriend was married.

I groaned and chewed on a nail as my mind arrived at a blunt conclusion. Maybe Nate was a morally-bankrupt love rat, but I was worse, because I still wanted him anyway. Letting out a whimper, I sat down on the end of the bed and put my head in my hands.

I was in trouble.

So much freaking trouble.