I tried not to curse as I moved.
With each step my ribs felt like they were going to poke through my skin, the pain was aggravating. I ran a hand through my freshly cut hair and tried to remember the details of Julian’s relationship with Izzy.
I refused to call her Isobel, that rule could go to hell for all I cared. Isobel sounded like someone who ate kale and liked political dinners and vacations in the Hamptons.
Izzy sounded fun.
And I’d rather believe the lie, that she was fun, than believe the truth, that she was as selfish as my brother.
A true social climber.
According to my dad, the Tennysons had given her everything, cars, shopping trips, a roof over her head. They were the only family she had now, which meant she would probably do whatever it took to stay in their good graces.
Just like Julian.
I scowled.
“Something wrong?” Her voice was soft, cultured. I didn’t want to like it, but it was impossible not to sense the warmth of it clinging to my body, wrapping around it over and over again.
“Just painful,” I said in a gruff voice as we finally made it to the master bathroom. “Drugs aren’t really helping.”
At least my brother had good taste.
It was just modern enough to look trendy but not so cold that you felt like you couldn’t put up family pictures, not that he would ever do such a thing.
This was Julian we were talking about. He was more likely to put up pictures of himself than of someone else, him and that damn thick mop of hair on his head. Girls had loved him for keeping it long, but it was short now, just like mine.
The pictures lining the walls were expensive and impersonal. They gave me absolutely no background into Julian’s life these past few years or Izzy’s position in it.
“Sorry,” she finally said in a tone that sounded anything but. For some reason, that amused me, that she had some spark to her and wasn’t this little Tennyson doormat.
“Are you?” I just had to ask as I sat on the edge of the tub and watched her lean over and turn the silver knobs to let out the hot water. She plugged the drain, the action giving me a view of her cleavage beneath the thin blouse. Perfect everywhere, wasn’t she? I almost asked if I’d bought them, her breasts, but I figured if she had any sense in her, she’d take that opportunity to drown me, and I needed to stay very much alive.
So he could get better and let me go back to Mom where I belonged, at her bedside cooking food she couldn’t eat and making sure she had a smile on her face at all times.
Getting distracted by two perky surgical breasts? Not in the cards.
“Of course I am,” she finally said, meeting my gaze with a smile that didn’t reach her sparkling green eyes. Her brows had the perfect dark arch. Her hair was pulled back tight into a low honey-blonde ponytail. My gaze traveled lower as I drank her in. My brother had done one thing right in his life, it seemed. He’d landed a woman who looked like an angel, the literal kind and the Victoria’s Secret kind.
“That wasn’t very convincing,” I joked with a smirk.
Her eyes widened in fear as she flinched.
I fucking made her flinch.
What the hell?
Did he hit her?
Was she afraid of me? Him?
“You can go now,” I said in a softer tone. “Really, it’s okay. I’ll try not to drown on my own, alright?”
Her lips pressed together like she was holding something in, maybe a scream? What sort of world had I just stepped into?
“No, no, it’s . . . it’s fine.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. “I don’t want you to be inconvenienced.”
The hell?
I sat in stunned silence as the water trickled into the bathtub, higher and higher. “You don’t live to please me, Izzy.”
“And you must be high on whatever they gave you, because that’s exactly what I do, and you know it.” Fire lashed out of her eyes, out of her words, as she stood and pressed her hands down her pants and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll bring you in two fingers of whiskey and the newspaper. Will there be anything else?”
“Yeah.” I reached for her hand and grasped it. “Stop acting like my maid.”
“Maid. Fiancée.” She shrugged. “I guess you must get the two confused often.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Her nostrils flared. “You told me never again.”
Shit, what the hell did he do? I wasn’t sure how to respond. My brother was an ass who answered to no one, but I couldn’t find it within myself to be anything but kind. “Excuse me?”
“She was in our bed, Julian.”