Seducing My Best Friend (Alphalicious Billionaires 4)

“I see that Sam managed to keep his mouth shut for all of five minutes.”

“You told your brother not to tell us?” His mom’s mouth dropped open and hurt filled her eyes. Her lips wavered and those big eyes started to get shiny. He was pretty sure that at that point, she wasn’t going to be leaking tears of joy, no matter how close she was getting to marrying one of her kids off. It was only her lifetime goal. Those tears, if he let them fall, wouldn’t be tears of joy.

“Oh, no, mom, come on.” Jesse shoved back from his desk. “Please don’t do that.” He stalked over and took her warm hand in his. “I just- this isn’t… I have a lot of explaining to do and I actually wanted to talk to the bride first, before I said anything to you and dad. Sam worked me up to it last night and it just slipped out.”

Some of the hurt faded from his mom’s eyes, replaced with hope that was just about as hard to take. “But you’re… are you serious? You managed to keep this whole thing a secret?”

“Mom, it’s not what you think.” Jesse guided his mother over to his desk, where he pulled out one of the modern metal chairs in front and eased her into it.

He sat down on the edge of his desk in an undignified position hardly fitting the boss. He actually had lectured a few of his employees to treat their desks like desks and not like chairs in the past, so he hoped no one was heading towards his office or walking down the hall for the next few minutes to see him winning the Hypocrite Boss of the Year Award.

“I don’t know what I think,” his mom sniffed. “Your brother came up for waffles this morning. I said that I was going to call you to come over for some and he said not to bother, that you’d be busy. I asked busy with what, and he said busy planning your wedding.”

“For Christ’s sakes,” Jesse muttered under his breath. Thanks a lot Sam.

The thought of throttling his brother almost made up for the bastard giving away all of his secrets after he’d promised not to. Turns out all it took was the promise of home cooked waffles.

“Maybe I should move back home so you can cook me breakfast every single morning, clean up after me, and wipe my ass too.”

“Jesse!” His mom chided. “No need to be crass about it.”

“Sam is my older brother. You shouldn’t have to take care of him like he’s five. He’s capable of looking after himself.”

His mom leaned forward like she was ready to let him in on a secret, but he already knew what she was going to say. “Between you and me, he’s not really.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know that, mom. Seriously. It’s not just between you and me. I think everyone who knows Sam knows it.”

“He’ll grow out of it. You’ll see.”

“He’s thirty-four!”

“Well, plenty of time. Everyone says forty is the new twenty, so I guess he’s more like a teenager still.”

“That’s not how that saying is used, mom.”

His mom blinked her long eyelashes. She had those doe kind of eyes that could turn even the hardest of hearts into a sopping mess. She’d done it to him over the years. The thing he hated most about screwing up when he was a teenager still living at home was the disappointing way his mom used to look at him. He hated seeing her look like that. Kind of how she was looking at him now.

“Mom…”

“Jesse.” His mom placed her hand above her heart. “I’m just sad that you didn’t think you could tell us. You kept this girl a secret. Your whole relationship a secret? From everyone. I mean, I can see that you’d want to keep it private, out of the media and what not, because I know how much you hate when people dig into your business and put you into the papers and magazines and online and all that, but your own family? You couldn’t even tell us?”

Jesse sighed. “Seriously, mom, you don’t understand. This isn’t what you think. It wasn’t conventional. Even if it was, don’t you think Sam would have sold me out long before now?”

“Jesse!”

“I know, I know.” He put up his hands in a gesture of peaceful defeat. “I’ll admit that’s a low blow. True, but low.”

“It’s not…”

“Mom.” Jesse leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I couldn’t tell you and dad because I didn’t know until last night.”

“What?” his mom gasped. “Are you… like, doing one of those mail order bride things? You didn’t get everything confirmed until yesterday? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“First of all, I think the term, mail order bride, is a little outdated. Secondly, uh- not exactly.” Jesse closed his eyes and hoped his mom could wait until he was done before she jumped in with her two cents. More like four cents or eight cents. Heaven forbid it was ten, because he’d be lucky if he got out of there in time for dinner before her lecture was done and it was just past ten in the morning. “I- well- of course you remember Sydney.”