Sterling (Carolina Reapers 6)

“Can we talk?” he asked, motioning to where Maxim had selected a table across the room.

I blew out a breath. I didn’t really want to talk to him, but he was my brother, and I knew we needed to have an honest discussion sooner or later. Might as well be after I’d had a bourbon for courage.

“Be right back,” I said, and Savannah gave me an encouraging smile. I knew she’d wait for me. Knew she’d have my back in an instant, and that was powerful. It gave me all the strength I needed to face Caz.

I settled into the chair across from Maxim and Caz, my eyes darting between them both.

“London,” Caz said, cringing a bit. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like you had to hide your relationship.”

I swallowed around the rock lodged in my throat. He’d made the first step, so I wouldn’t slam that door in his face. “It wasn’t just you,” I admitted, sighing. Maxim stared into his drink, his shoulders tense. “I didn’t want anyone to know. Not until I’d secured my position with the Reapers. I wanted to stand on my own. To be known for my work, not because I’m your little sister or someone’s girlfriend.”

“I can’t help who I am, sis,” he said.

“Not asking you to,” I said. “But you have to admit, you’ve been overprotective of me since that day I got trapped in the storm cellar.”

Caspian’s eyebrows raised, his eyes widening at my mention of the memory. I usually avoided bringing it up because it used to have the power to send me into a full-blown panic attack.

Not anymore.

Not since Jansen.

My chest felt like it may crack from the pressure.

“I need you to trust me,” I said. “As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s my choice who I give my heart to. And, apparently, who I allow to break it.” Maxim shook his head, but Caspian nodded. “You have to let me breathe, Caz.”

“I’ll do better,” he said, and his voice was sincere. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep things from me. You’ve been my best friend since the day you were born. I don’t want to push you away. I’ll be better, I promise.” He visibly swallowed. “But you have to admit, this looks bad. Sterling—”

“Is a selfish asshole,” Maxim cut in.

Anger sizzled in those fresh fissures over my heart.

“You don’t know the first thing about who he is,” I said with a lethal coldness.

Maxim’s eyes flared for the briefest of moments before he settled back into his default look—grumbly, determined, cocky. “And you do?”

I huffed a dark laugh. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I had, but I knew pieces of his heart. The ones he’d showed me that had scars from Maxim and his father written all over them.

And even if his intentions with me hadn’t been in the right place, that pain, the suffering, and the selfless way he’d risen to be the better man was real.

“I do,” I said, calming my racing heart. “Maybe I’d been blind about the reasons behind us being together, or his reasoning behind it, but I know him, Maxim. He isn’t whatever you think he is. He doesn’t deserve your hatred. He deserves your respect, and quite possibly your acceptance.”

A muscle in Maxim’s jaw ticked, and Caz let out a low whistle as he hid behind his drink.

I tilted my head, my heart no longer capable of feeling another ounce of pain. “Can you be honest with me for a second?” I asked, and he dipped his chin. “When did you want to ask me out? The first time the thought occurred to you, Maxim?”

He visibly swallowed, and I gave him a small, broken smile.

“When you saw how Jansen was looking at me after the elevator? The way he’d snapped in this very bar after that, way back before the season started? When he thought I’d shown up with you?”

When Maxim didn’t answer, I turned to Caz, who cringed.

I reached across the table, laying my hand over Maxim’s. He didn’t flinch under the touch, just simply held my gaze. “You may be pissed at Jansen, accusing him of using me to make you angry, but you were prepared to do the same thing. We’ve been friends for two years, and you never once said anything. Tell me I’m wrong.”

He cleared his throat and shook his head. “You’re not,” he said. “But I still think we would’ve had fun together.”

I choked out a dark laugh, squeezing his hand. “Maybe,” I said. “But I wasn’t looking for fun. I was looking for something real.”

Maxim grazed his thumb over the back of my hand, an innocent gesture. “I understand,” he said. Then he flashed me a pitiful look. “And I may not know my brother like you do, but I know his hate. Understand it in a way you never will. And his hate? It’s strong enough to make him fake it with you.”