Chloe

I jumped to my feet as David walked into the lobby, sipping distastefully at a cup of coffee. “Honestly, this has to be hot water and food dye.”

“How is he?” I asked urgently.

The hospital staff had headed me off at the pass when David had informed them that I wasn’t family. I’d been sitting waiting for what felt like forever, praying for some kind of good news.

“They,” David replied, trying another sip and making an identical grimace to the one he’d walked in wearing, “are fine.”

“They?” I repeated uncertainly.

“Mother and Father,” he clarified, tossing the full cup into a trashcan. “Come on. I need something with actual caffeine.”

“What about Alex?” I asked. “And I thought it was just your father?”

“Alex is dealing with Mother,” David replied, taking my arm and steering me toward the exit. “He’ll be in there for a good while, so there’s no point cooling our heels here.”

Bewildered, I allowed myself to be led outside, where David stopped and considered various restaurant options in the vicinity before apparently deciding on one and starting across the street, half-dragging me.

“What happened to your mother?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “Father was having a cup of coffee—a good cup of coffee, I might add—during a business meeting. He’s always had acid reflux but refuses to do anything Alex or the doctors tell him.”

I noticed immediately that he didn’t class his brother as a doctor and wondered why, but decided now was not the time to ask. We stopped at a crosswalk and waited for traffic to slow.

“He also had a massive breakfast full of everything he’s not supposed to eat. So, in the middle of his meeting, he started feeling this heavy ache in his chest.” My arm clasped firmly in his, David guided me across the street toward Java Joe’s. “If you’re not aware, my family has a tendency toward melodrama. He panicked and that probably worsened the heartburn. He collapsed on the floor and Mother was right there with him, shrieking hysterically and screaming for her own doctor.”

I blinked, trying to take all that in as we walked up to the take-out only coffee joint. While David ordered, not bothering to ask if I wanted anything, I felt a deep sadness well up inside of me for Alex. My family had been far from perfect, but the chaos David had just described was nothing I’d ever experienced, not even on our worst days.

“Much better.” He smacked his lips around what looked like a cappuccino and finally actually looked at me. “So. You’re into Alex.”

Stepping up to the window to order something to ward off the cold, I studiously avoided his gaze. It was so unlike his brother’s. So cold. So … judging?

“Oh, sorry. Here. I’ve got it. What do you want?” David elbowed me aside and shoved a wad of cash at the cashier without even asking the price.

“Uh … hot chocolate,” I muttered.

“Not a fan of coffee?” he asked archly.

Why I told him, I don’t know, but I did. “Caffeine isn’t good for babies.”

David’s eyes went wide for just a second before his usual narrow-eyed gaze reasserted itself. “Aha,” he said thoughtfully, as the cashier handed over my hot chocolate.

I cupped my hands around it, cold in more ways than one. “Aha?” I repeated.

“That explains your interest in my brother.”

If I’d been taking a sip right then, I’d have spat it out all over myself. Thankfully, I’d barely lowered my nose for a sniff. “Excuse me?”

David smirked. “Don’t playact with me, Chloe. My family is very familiar with your type.”

“My type,” I repeated, strangely numb in the face of what was very definitely some kind of insult. Usually I’d have let him have it with both guns blazing, but this was part of the issue I hadn’t had a chance to discuss earlier with Alex …

“Hangers on,” he elaborated. “People in need of our class. And our cash.”

Behind us, the cashier coughed violently and David swung around, probably to give him an earful. I took my chance and started away at a fast pace, but not fast enough. A moment later, he was beside me once more.

“Don’t take it like that. We have. You don’t. It’s natural for you to want it.”

“How is Alex even from your same family?” I muttered through clenched teeth.

“Oh, Alex is no saint,” he promised me, and I could see his perfect grin from out of the corner of my eye, leering at me. “You do realize that you’re just a project for him.”

Now I stopped and turned to face David head on, my temper finally flaring. “Excuse me?” Somehow it was one thing for him to tear into me, but for him to start in on his brother—

He laughed. “Look at you. Already thinking you’re in love with him. Worse yet. Probably already thinking he’s in love with you. Let me save you the heartache, sweetheart. The Reeds don’t love commoners. Alex went to medical school to save the world, not to marry it. You’re one of his little projects where he feels like he can redeem himself somehow by pulling you up out of the gutter.”

The problem was that Paul’s walking out on me had cut more deeply than I’d let on to anybody. I’d thought he was so into me … and then he wasn’t. So there was a chance that I might be making the same mistake again with Alex. Right?

“Poor Chloe,” David droned on. “Let me take you home, sweets. It’ll save you all kinds of heartache. Stress can’t be any better for the baby than caffeine, right?”

I wanted to douse him in steaming hot chocolate. I really did. I was so close …

“If you don’t believe me, here’s the evidence.” Before I knew it, he’d shoved his phone under my nose. It was a conversation between him and Alex and much as I wanted to tear my eyes away, I was paralyzed.

Esme’s hot, right? I’m not slumming?

She’s gorgeous. And you’re an ass.

Really? I’m not too good for her?

Man, she is way too good for you. When did you mutate, Dave?

So you don’t see Chloe as slumming?

Unlike your feelings toward Esme, I’m too good for her.

Told you …

Honestly, the conversation didn’t even make sense. Something was seriously off. But all my brain saw was I’m too good for her I’m too good for her I’m too good for her I’m too good for her.

David patted my back sympathetically and I didn’t even have the strength to pull away. My mind was whirling with feelings of betrayal, warring with the belief that Alex was better than this. I knew he was.

Except. I didn’t. That’d been the whole thing earlier, when he’d halfway told me he loved me and wanted to raise my baby with me—

My eyes filled with tears.

—and I’d tried to remind him that we barely knew each other.

“Right this way,” David said quietly, and I stumbled along beside him in a daze. Somehow, I found myself in his car and somehow I then found myself back on my grandmother’s doorstep, with David waving to me as he pulled away. “You’re making the right decision, Chloe,” he called. “For you and your baby. Alex has no part to play in your lives.”