Wright with Benefits

“Julian?”

“Fuck, I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“What? Why?”

Julian sighed as if he knew it’d come to this. “Annie found them. Though I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“Annie?” I asked slowly, drawing her name out in disbelief. “Wait, was she at the Sinclair party tonight?”

He nodded. “Not with Chase,” he added hastily.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ashleigh brought her.”

“So she’d end up with Chase.”

“Just shut up,” Julian growled. “That’s not what happened, and if you’d get your head out of your ass, you’d realize that she just saved our fucking asses here. Now, we can go after the Sinclairs and get them to stop this shit. Because I’m ninety percent sure that she leaked the show with Campbell and called the police.”

It wasn’t often that Julian raised his voice. Let alone to me. But I could see that he was sincere. What mattered was the winery situation. I could process what Annie had been doing there later. Julian needed me, much like I’d needed him the night before.

“You’re right,” I said evenly. “She probably did both of those things.” I paused as something else came to me.

“What?” Julian asked.

“Ashleigh was the one who told me that Annie had gone over to Chase’s. She told me at the party. That’s right before we fought.”

Julian sighed heavily. “Fuck.”

“She really is sabotaging everything.”

“Yeah,” he said hollowly.

“I’ll get in contact with our attorney tomorrow. Have a cease-and-desist sent to the Sinclairs and threaten them with a lawsuit for falsified paperwork.”

Julian deflated at the words. As if he’d been waiting for the moment where I would take control and he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

He dropped his head onto the counter. “What the fuck is wrong with me? How could I date someone for two years that does this shit?”

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“You never liked her,” Julian said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Everyone hated her.”

“You didn’t,” I reminded him. “Why…did you like her?”

He shrugged, looking back up at me. I wanted to build a wall around my little brother and make it so no one could ever hurt him again. But there was nothing I could do about this, and I just had to watch him suffer. At least I would get to use my attorney against the scheming bitch.

“She was different with me,” Julian said, as if that were an explanation. “Just realizing that wasn’t enough.”

“I’m sorry, man. This weekend sucks.”

“Understatement.” He finished off the second beer. “What are you going to do about Annie?”

“She didn’t even want you to tell me she went to the party. Do you think I have much of a chance?”

“I think she’s hurting, but yes, unlike me and Ashleigh, you have a chance.”

“Then I’m going to win her back.”

Julian’s smile brightened the room. “Damn right you are.”

39

Annie

Jordan didn’t contact me over the weekend. A part of me was happy to have the time to myself before I went back to the hospital Monday morning. I was thankful for long shifts, so I could forget about this messed up weekend.

The other part of me…had been hoping he’d reach out. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I wanted him to want to talk to me. Which sounded ridiculous, but there was no way I was making the first move. I’d thrown that ring at him. Ball was in his court.

Cézanne was in the lounge when I dropped my stuff off in the morning. “What are you doing here?”

“I moved over to a pediatric ER for an extra week. I thought it would help me in family practice,” she said as she finished off a coffee. “I heard you had an eventful weekend.”

“Blah,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, let me tell you about my weekend,” she gushed.

I sat down to finish my own coffee. “By all means.”

“I might or might not have hooked up with Gerome.”

My eyes widened. “Gerome, Gerome? From the soccer team?”

“The one. We met at a family reunion. Our families don’t really get along, and we’re not related, but it’s like his cousin and my cousin got married. That kind of thing. A cousin of a cousin married his cousin of a cousin of a cousin.” She waved her hand. “We kind of got into it, and then one thing led to another.”

“Oh my God! That’s amazing. I can’t believe this.”

“Me either, honestly. I always thought he was just like his family, and he always thought I was just like mine. Turns out…nope.”

I squealed with Cézanne over her new boy, excited that at least someone had gotten some this weekend.

Then a man walked into the lounge.

“Uh, I have a delivery for Annie Donoghue.”

“That’s me,” I said in confusion.

He held up a giant vase of a dozen red roses. “Here you go. Enjoy!”

I took them from him, and then he walked away.

“Shit, girl. Look at that!” Cézanne said.