“Does he think we’re together?” Sam asked as he drove me home.

“Who?”

He shot me an impatient look. I bit my lip and looked out the window to keep from answering. Maybe if he truly thought I didn’t know whom he was talking about he’d leave me alone. It was highly unlikely, but a girl could hope. Sam rarely let questions go unanswered, and one look at my face would tell him I was full of it.

“My brother,” he said. “He looked at me like he wanted to kill me.”

“Who cares?” I shrugged.

“He’s my brother.”

“Doesn’t he always look at you like that? I mean, you said yourself that you’ve barely spoken a word since he left for college.” I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t know the details, but I assumed they had a falling out. One of those absolutely absurd reasons that made no sense but made people lose touch completely. I guess I could have understood it if they weren’t the only sibling the other had.

“I’ve been trying to fix things between us. Besides, even if I could dodge him at family functions, I’m going to have to put up with him at Hawthorne Fabrics for the rest of my life.”

“It isn’t like he’s the boss there.”

“Yet.”

Yet. The word angrily made its way around my gut and festered. Rowan would fit into his father’s shoes once he took over Hawthorne for good. He would also hate it if he knew I was comparing him to his father, not that it was an outlandish comparison when I considered the way he’d turned out. I turned my attention back to Sam.

“You never know, you may end up being the boss instead.”

“I don’t want to be the boss,” he said. “I’m perfectly content with my brother having that role. He’s business savvy, I’m not. He has the same drive that Dad has, I don’t. I like the creative work, not the number crunching. I hate dealing with people, he loves it.”

“I like that about you.”

“I know.” He smiled. “So? Does he think we’re together?”

“I may have let him believe we might be together.” I closed my eyes and cringed as I said the words. Sam chuckled.

“Why? You wanted to up the ante in our sibling rivalry?”

“I just didn’t like the way he asked me if we were together, as if he deserves to be privy to any of that information, so I let him believe we were.”

He stayed silent for a long moment before speaking. “You know, I’ve always thought mind games were dumb. Especially between two people who are clearly longing for each other.”

“I don’t long for him.” I scoffed. “He’s moved on. I’ve moved on. End of story.”

He scoffed back. “You’ve moved on? With who? Me? Under false pretenses?”

“I dated guys in college,” I said. “Besides, I don’t need a man in order to say I’ve moved on. I’ve moved on with my life, period.”

“Yet, you involve me in the mix because you know he’d have a problem with it. You knew he was jealous of our friendship even when you and he were together.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s bullshit because we’re just friends. Besides, he has a girlfriend. I don’t know why he cares about who I’m with.”

“You know damn well Camryn isn’t his girlfriend.”

“Yet, we can’t seem to place her in an alternative category.”

“This isn’t jeopardy, Tess,” he said with an exhale. “Maybe it’s force of habit. Or maybe he isn’t over you.”

“Let’s go with the brother thing or even the force of habit. He and I weren’t even together. Not really anyway.”

“You were friends for a long time, though,” he said.

“Yeah, and we should’ve stayed friends.”

“Probably. Still, I find it hard to believe that two people as close as you two were can’t salvage at least the friendship you had. It’s sad, don’t you think?”

“It is,” I admitted.

It was the reason I regretted ever taking my relationship with Rowan to the next level. Even after we broke up, I didn’t have it in me to hate him. I loved him too much for that. It hadn’t been until the Hawthorne takeover happened that I started to hate him. He had known it was going to happen and hadn’t thought to tell me. His father consulted everything with him. Everything. So there was no chance that he didn’t know about it and he just didn’t tell me anything. Not that my parents had said a word to me about it until it was done, but that was different. In their eyes, I’d forever be the baby of the family. They didn’t need my approval to sell the company. Rowan used to call me for mindless things, but when something that important, that life changing, happened, I didn’t get so much as a text. What was worse, when I sent him one, he left it unopened and unanswered.

The kicker was that my family’s fabrics company wasn’t the only one his parents bought. There had been four within a one-hundred-mile radius. Surely, they didn’t need one more. They didn’t need ours. If Rowan had told me, I would have come home and prevented it from happening. I could have convinced my dad not to sell. I would’ve done anything to keep Monte Industries out of it, including dropping out of the fancy ivy league school I was in and opting for a smaller college. It’s not like Monte Industries was anywhere near as big as Hawthorne Industries, but the upholstery we made was beautiful and sought-out by all the local furniture companies. When I was little, I’d go to work with my parents and marvel that all of those people worked for us, making things my father had designed. Now, they all worked for the Hawthornes.

“You can’t blame him for something he didn’t have a say in,” Sam said. “Trust me, I didn’t even know about it.”

“I can assure you he did, and I only blame him for not confiding in me. That sale ruined my family.”

He shot me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“If you don’t blame me, you shouldn’t blame him either.”

“Why are you so hell-bent on defending him today?”

He pulled into my driveway and then turned to face me. “Look, I have a lot of issues with my brother, but I can’t fault him for what happened to your family. And you shouldn’t either. Maybe if you try being friends with him again, you would be able to see that.”

I shook my head. “Some things are better left alone.”

“And some things are worth chasing. Friendship is one of them.”

“Not with people you feel this strongly about.”

His stared at me for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something more, but he just shook his head and looked out the windshield.

I sighed and reached for my door handle. “Thanks for the ride.”

“I’ll drive by the area where you said the truck died and call a tow truck to come get it.”

“I can do that.”

“Today was the last day of you bringing fabrics for me to lug in. Consider it a parting gift.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Sam. You really are the better of the Hawthorne boys.”

“Feel free to print that in the newspaper.” He winked as he drove off, and I laughed as I headed inside.