MARRIED TO MY Ex'S BROTHER

Chapter 2 The Bastard Brother

Emily.

"No," I said again, because the first time had come out shaking, and I wanted him to hear it steady.

Julian's hand had already let go of my wrist, but he stood close enough that I could smell the same cologne he wore the night he proposed, the same one I had bought him for his birthday because he mentioned once that he liked it. That memory turned my stomach in a way I did not expect.

"Emily." His voice dropped lower, glancing past the drape toward the head table, checking who could see us. "You cannot do this here. Over two hundred people are out there."

"I am aware."

"Then you understand why this needs to wait."

He said it like he was explaining something simple to someone who was struggling to keep up, and that tone alone made the decision easier than it should have been. "Finish your shift. We will talk about this later, I promise you."

"There is no later, Julian. There is only tonight, because tonight is the only night you are marrying her."

Something shifted behind his eyes, fast and calculating, and I understood in that moment that whatever came out of his mouth next would be about protecting himself, not me.

"You do not understand what is riding on tonight," he said. "This is not just a wedding. My father's company needed Norwood's investment eighteen months ago, or we would have lost everything: the house, the firm, all of it. Presley's father agreed to save us on the condition that this marriage happened. That is what tonight is. It is not romance; it is survival, and if you blow it up out of spite, you will not just be taking something from me. You will be taking it from my whole family."

I almost laughed, though nothing about it was funny. "So I am supposed to feel sorry for you."

"I am telling you the truth because I think you deserve that much, even now." His jaw tightened. "If you make a scene, it will not just be my problem; it will be yours too. Denise's company is on the line.

My father does business with half this city. Presley's father does the other half.

A caterer who caused a scene at the biggest wedding of the year will not work in this business again, and neither will the company she works for."

That was the part that worked, and I hated that it worked. I thought of Denise, three problems behind and counting on me, and I thought of every review Gilded Oak had earned over years of nights like this one.

I stepped back from him, and for a moment he must have read that as agreement, because something in his shoulders loosened.

"I am not staying quiet," I said. "I am choosing when."

He did not have an answer for that. I turned and walked back through the drape into the light before he could try to find one, and I picked up a fresh tray from the service table because my hands needed something to hold.

I caught my reflection in a mirrored panel near the doorway, apron still tied neatly around my waist, hair still pinned the way Denise liked it, and I barely recognized the steadiness in the face looking back at me.

The rest of dinner passed in pieces I could barely hold together. I poured wine. I cleared plates. I smiled at strangers who complimented the food and had no idea the woman refilling their glasses had been engaged to their groom until an hour ago.

It was near the bar, waiting for a fresh case of champagne, that I heard two groomsmen talking low over their drinks.

"Who invited him?" one of them asked, tilting his head toward the far side of the room. "Nobody at the family table so much as looked his way all night."

"Norwood brought him," the other one answered. "Business partner or something. You know how the Kesslers feel about the bastard brother showing up anywhere near the good silver."

I followed the tilt of his head without meaning to. Near the back wall stood a man who did not belong to the rest of the room, not because of his suit, which was cut as sharp as anyone else's, but because of how still he held himself while everyone around him performed.

He was not laughing at anything. He was not working the crowd. He watched the room the way someone watches weather they cannot control, waiting to see what it would do next.

A few minutes later, weaving back toward the head table with a fresh bottle, I passed close enough to Desmond Kessler and his wife, Vivian, to catch part of a conversation neither of them meant for anyone to hear.

"We agreed to keep the arrangement quiet a little longer," Vivian said, her hand gripping the stem of her glass. "Norwood cannot know how close we came to losing the firm before this wedding was even a possibility. Not tonight, of all nights."

"It was never going to be a good night to admit it," Desmond answered, and something in his tone sounded almost tired, almost afraid, which did not match the man I had seen commanding the room all evening.

"Sooner or later it comes out. A man cannot marry his son into a fortune and pretend the fortune was not the reason."

I kept walking before either of them noticed me standing too close, but the words stuck to me anyway.

So that was what Julian had meant. Not just an investment. A rescue, dressed up in white lace and calligraphy, and I had almost married into the wreckage without ever being told it existed.

By the time dessert plates were cleared, I had convinced myself the worst of it was over. I was gathering empty glasses from a side table near the service hallway when Julian found me a second time.

He did not grab my wrist this time. He simply stepped into my path, his voice dropped so low I had to lean in slightly to hear him at all.

"I need you to understand something," he said. "If you say one word tonight, one word to anyone, it will not stay contained to me. Think about what you are risking before you decide to be dramatic."

"I already told you," I said. "I am not staying quiet. I am choosing when. That has not changed just because you said it twice."

He stepped back like I had struck him, something flickering across his face that was not quite fear and not quite respect, and then he turned and walked back toward the ballroom without another word.

I stood there a moment longer with the empty glasses still balanced in my hands, waiting for my legs to remember how to move, and when they finally did, I turned toward the dark end of the hallway to put myself back together before anyone else could see my face.

I did not see him standing there until I nearly walked straight into him.

I stepped back fast, glasses rattling against each other in my hands, and looked up to find the man from the back wall standing close enough that I could see the moment his expression settled into something unreadable.

He was not smiling. He was not looking away politely the way a stranger should when they catch someone in a private moment.

He had heard every word Julian just said to me, and something in the stillness of hi

s face told me he had already decided what he thought about it.

“Hello, Emily."