one on.”
“I was at a monthly meeting of local businessmen,” Charlie bit out. “I guess I am one. Why are you talking about my clothes? You want to come over here and braid my hair? Brother?”
Jason let out one of his booming laughs that had likely served him well during his short career playing pro football. But Charlie kept his eyes on Thor, who was blond and blue-eyed like Charlie, but there was no dirty in Thor’s Scandinavian blond. And his Viking blue eyes were glacial.
More glacial by the second, in fact.
“If we can return to matters of business,” Thor said in that icy way of his, “it appears that our half sister has fulfilled the terms of the will.”
Their heavily tattooed half sister, who Daniel St. George had messed with from beyond the grave. Bold, take-no-prisoners Angelique Masterson from New York City, with her dyed black hair and bright blue eyes. Unmistakably a result of yet another run-of-the-mill affair, and yet the only one required to jump through hoops to get her inheritance.
“You’re going to have to remind me what that means,” Charlie said now, making his drawl a little heavier than necessary. “And also why I should care.”
“It means she hooked herself the big fish,” Jason replied. He lounged back in whatever chair he was sitting in, looking lazy and amused.
“Correct.” Thor still sounded icy, Charlie thought, but maybe there was a hint of something like a smile lurking around the older man’s mouth. Maybe. “She achieved her objective. The hotel property in the kingdom of Sadat is now officially hers. And so, too, will our dearly departed father’s estate present her with her quarter.”
“Why does this require an emergency call in the middle of the night?” Charlie asked. “This feels like it could be an email. One I could ignore, because I have shit to do.”
Jason laughed at that. Thor only arched an eyebrow.
“I assure you, I have no intention of wasting your precious time, Charlie. Our next call is set for Friday, as usual. Angelique will be on it. That is the purpose of this call. To prepare you.”
“I don’t need preparation,” Jason said, as if it was all a big joke. But then, that was the way he said everything. And given the way he was holding off developers who wanted to turn the island he’d inherited into yet another strip mall—singlehandedly, from all the reports Charlie was required to listen to every week as part of the thousands of things he’d signed at the will reading—he used it to hide behind. Charlie could relate.
But he didn’t want to relate to these men who were family by blood, but who he’d met exactly once.
“Meanwhile, I still don’t care,” he said gruffly. “Two sisters. Twelve sisters. Or just the one. Makes no difference to me.”
“Noted.” Thor actually rolled his eyes, which Charlie thought was revolutionary. Normally he didn’t crack at all. Charlie figured it was that purple-haired professor he refused to talk about. “I, personally, prefer to know what I’m walking into. Call it a personal fetish.”
“Says the man with the sex hotel,” Jason said, with another laugh.
But all Charlie could think about was Maya, calling him a liar. Calling him out, ripping him to shreds and walking away.
Again.
“Is that it?” he asked, not bothering to pull out his own lazy drawl and pretend nothing got to him tonight. “I’m actually in the middle of something.”
He would have hung up already, but they’d all signed those damned papers. He was forced to be a part of what the lawyers had called “the St. George family.” Charlie knew better than to get carried away at the sound of that word. The only family he’d ever had was his mother and stepfather. His mother was all smiles when she wanted something and a raging bitch every other minute of the day. She’d never treated him like he was anything but a burden. His stepfather had groomed him to be a weapon and had knocked him on his ass when he didn’t act as ordered, when ordered. And while his half brothers and half sister hadn’t exactly achieved those levels on anything so far, it wasn’t like he trusted them.
Do you trust anyone? a voice inside him asked. Do you have the slightest idea how to trust anyone?
It sounded far too much like Maya for his taste.
“Mahalo, assholes,” Jason said cheerily, as always. “I have a wave to catch.”
And he disconnected with his middle finger.
Charlie went to hang up, too, but something in the way Thor was studying him stopped him. “What?”
“Are you well?” the glacial Icelander asked.
Coolly, the way he did everything.
Charlie frowned. “Why does that feel like a loaded question?”
“You look different,” Thor replied. “Less...aggressively relaxed than usual.”
“I’m going to make ‘aggressively relaxed’ my new band name.” Charlie forced a smile, but it didn’t feel right. Nor did it appear to impress Thor. “I told you I was in the middle of something.”
“If I could offer you some brotherly advice,” Thor said, a rueful expression on his face, suggesting he knew exactly how ridiculous that sounded.
“Is that a thing we do now? Because that’s a hard pass on my end. I’m fine.”
“Yes, of course.” Now Thor looked amused. “I have also been as fine as you look. And all I will say is this. A little something I’ve been considering. It is always possible that our father’s manipulation was not to control us with these hotels and these lives he set out for us in his will. It is always possible that the aim was to free us from our other lives instead.”
“This sounds like the raving of someone who finally got himself a girlfriend,” Charlie bit out. “Getting it on the regular must have fried your brain, Thor. So let me remind you. Our dear, departed father never did a goddamn thing to free anybody. He was a piece of shit. Where I come from, the kind of piece of shit he is would end up dead after he betrayed the wrong person. But it’s always different for rich assholes, isn’t it?”
“In the spirit of all the families I’ve ever known, you certainly don’t have to take this advice. I’m just sharing it.”
“Family isn’t a word I like all that much.”
This time, there was no mistaking the way the other man’s mouth curved, just like there was no mistaking the perfect awareness that sprang between them. They were brothers by blood, called family by the world, but that only made the word more meaningless. It had nothing to do with what Charlie had called his family back home. Those ties of obligation like claws, sinking in deep.
He’d never been to Iceland, but if he had to guess, he’d say his newfound older brother had some experience with those same claws and the damage they did.
“I understand,” Thor said. “Enjoy your evening.”
But when Charlie finally hung up, he felt...shaken. He didn’t understand what was going on. When had he turned into this easily shook fool, who cared what a piece of ass said to him? Who let some stranger who happened to share half of his blood get in his head?
He needed to shut this down. All of this.
But when he found himself out in the village again, out in the dark and the cold and running up those stairs like a maniac, all he could see was Maya.
And it occurred to him that despite everything he had no idea who he was if he wasn’t pretending...something. Wearing a mask. Smiling when he was murderous. Laughing when he wanted to punch a wall.
Pretending he felt nothing when the truth was, he felt too much.
What would happen if he stopped?