How had I let her talk me into this? I was supposed to be the one in control, but somehow, Addison had convinced me that calling Slade was the best thing to do. I hadn’t really expected him to pick up the phone, but he had, and I found myself saying that I’d like to see him while I was in the area. To my surprise, he’d accepted, and that was how I now found myself walking into Tabla with Addison at my side.

She’d argued about coming, but then I’d pointed out that she was the only reason this dinner was happening. It’d taken me threatening to cancel if she didn’t come with me, but I’d finally gotten her to agree, under one condition. She wanted to buy something nice to wear.

Nice didn’t begin to cover it.

The dress was simple enough, but on her, it looked like something right off the runway. The deep, pine green complemented her coloring, and the long, flowing style made her look even taller than she already was. She’d gotten a pair of dressy sandals with enough of a heel to put her a few inches closer to my height, but that was where things ended. No jewelry and barely any makeup.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even when the hostess escorted us back to the table where my brother was waiting.

“Cai, it’s good to see you again.” Slade rose from his seat and held out a hand.

I shook it, resisting the urge to squeeze as his gaze shifted from me to Addison. He didn’t even try to hide the admiration in those damned baby blues of his.

“Slade, this is Addison Kilar. Addison, this is my little brother, Slade.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said politely.

I had to stop myself from touching her just to let Slade know where things stood, but she didn’t let the handshake linger. I pulled out her chair, smiling at the pleased expression on her face. Once we were all settled, Slade ordered a cheese plate and some pear thing. I had to admit, I was surprised that this was the place he’d chosen.

“The chef here is a friend of mine,” he answered my unspoken question. “I helped his daughter out of a tough spot last year.”

“Slade’s a DEA agent,” I explained to Addison.

“It seemed like a good way to put my army training to work,” he said easily. He brushed back his dark hair, leaning back in his chair with that casual grace that had always gotten him the attention of pretty much every straight woman around. Half the time, I didn’t think he was even aware of it, but tonight, I didn’t care.

I finally had something that was mine, and I wasn’t going to let my slick brother steal her from me.

I leaned closer to Addison, letting my arm brush against hers. “If you get tired, just say the word, and we’ll go back to the hotel. You shouldn’t get run down.”

She nodded, but the look she gave me said that she knew my comment had been meant for Slade as much as it was for her.

“Is something wrong?” Slade asked, his concern genuine enough that I couldn’t be annoyed by it without being a bastard.

“I work with Cai at the CDC,” she answered. “We were in Pecan Grove, and I was exposed to the infection there.”

She glanced at me, giving me a warm smile that I felt all the way down to my toes. She reached over and put her hand on mine. I curled my fingers around hers, the gesture so natural that I barely realized I was doing it until it was done.

“He found a cure and saved me, along with everyone else who’d been affected.” She turned her attention back to Slade but didn’t pull her hand away. “You guys must be so proud of everything he’s done.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Slade responded, “We are.”

“Now,” she continued with a smile, “what’s your favorite dish here?”

Food was an easy enough topic of conversation that I found myself able to start relaxing. I didn’t contribute much, but what I observed spoke volumes. I’d never taken the opportunity to watch my brother, and now that I was, what I realized surprised me.

Under that laid-back veneer was an edge almost as sharp as the one I felt in myself. Slade had always been the funny brother, the one who eased tensions between the rest of us, the diplomat and peacemaker. He’d been that way before our parents had died – or at least as much as a five-year-old could be – but I wondered now how much of him was a mask.

“Have you spoken with Jax?” I asked during a lull in a discussion regarding the pros and cons of winter weather.

Slade took a drink before answering, “Not since I left Boston. You?”

“Monday evening, actually.” I kept my tone casual. “I called him while I was waiting to see how everyone was going to respond to the treatment. I was having difficulty doing nothing.”

“You’ve never struck me as the impatient type,” Slade said. “Spending all those hours looking at bacteria and viruses, going over things hundreds of times.”

I couldn’t tell him that under normal circumstances, I was a patient person, but those hadn’t exactly been normal. He’d want to know why, and with Addison sitting right next to me, I couldn’t say it. Not when I was still trying to figure out what it all meant.

I shrugged and gave a half-assed answer. “Impatience can get the best of any of us.”

I felt Addison’s eyes on me but didn’t look at her. She was far too observant.

“What did he have to say?” Slade asked, stabbing a piece of duck with his fork.

“He’s building that club he talked to us about.”

Slade’s eyes darted toward Addison and back again.

“It’s okay,” I said. “She knows.”

I left the explanation at that. He could make of it what he wanted, and if part of that assumption was that Addison and I were intimately involved enough for her to know about that, all for the better.

“Does that mean he got that woman to sell her bar?”

I shook my head. “You’re not going to believe this.”

* * *

I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed Slade’s stories. He’d always had a knack for spinning tales that were a hundred times more elaborate than what had actually happened, but they were so good that no one ever minded that they were exaggerated.

“How have you not gotten fired?” Addison asked, her voice breathless with laughter.

Slade gave her that charming, irascible grin that had made him one of the most popular guys in our school. “Technically, I wasn’t on the clock.”

“How have you not gotten arrested then?”

“He’s always been good at getting out of trouble,” I said wryly. “Remember that time you found a goat and set it loose in the school? What were you then, a junior? Senior? We thought for sure you were going to get arrested. Expelled at the very least. Instead, you got what, two weeks of detention?”

“A week,” he corrected and gave me a strange look. “I was a senior, which meant you and Jax were already gone. How did you know about that?”

“Just because Jax and I were in college didn’t mean we forgot about you and Blake.”

The look on Slade’s face said that was exactly what he’d thought had happened, and for the first time since I heard what Grandfather expected of us, I realized that he’d been right. Even though Slade and Blake had their own issues, Jax and I were the most responsible for what happened to us. We were the oldest, the ones our brothers should have been able to come to, but we’d let them down.

Slade looked away and the moment passed, but the smile he gave Addison didn’t look quite as real as it had before. I’d never seen it before, how Slade had used his charm and humor to placate and deflect, not just between family members, but also to keep his own thoughts and feelings hidden.

He steered the conversation away from family, and I let him. I wanted to know more about his life beyond the surface things that he’d shared in Boston, and not pressuring him about the past was the best way to do it. He wasn’t ready and forcing him to talk about those things would only push him away more.

As we said our goodbyes, and Addison and I rode back to the hotel, something registered so deeply within me that I knew it had to be true. That if I didn’t follow the path it showed me, I’d regret it.

I needed to make amends with my brothers, starting with Jax.

It seemed Grandfather would be able to dictate his will for me after all.