Finding Mr. Wright E-Book

K. A. Linde

• Herausgeber: Heyne Verlag
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Serie: Die Wright-Brother-Serie
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 419

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Die Wright Brüder sind unfassbar reich und sexy - und gewohnt, jede Frau zu bekommen

Emery Robinson war nie dazu bereit gewesen nach Lubbock, Texas zurückzukehren, doch als sie ihren Freund beim Fremdgehen erwischt, hat sie keine andere Wahl. Und da ist noch etwas, für das sie nicht bereit ist: sich in einen Wright Bruder zu verlieben. Schon wieder. Den Wrights gehört ein Imperium – ihre Firma ist Milliarden schwer und sie beschäftigen den Großteil der Leute in der Stadt. Emery bleibt gar nichts anderes übrig, als für sie zu arbeiten. Während der High-School datete sie einen der Wright Bruder, bis er ihr das Herz brach. Die letzte Person also, in die sie sich verlieben möchte, ist Jensen Wright, der große Bruder ihres Exfreundes und ihr neuer Boss ...

Leseprobe

The Wright Brother

Wright Book One

K.A. Linde

Contents

1. Emery

2. Jensen

3. Emery

4. Emery

5. Jensen

6. Jensen

7. Jensen

8. Emery

9. Emery

10. Emery

11. Jensen

12. Emery

13. Jensen

14. Emery

15. Emery

16. Jensen

17. Emery

18. Emery

19. Emery

20. Jensen

21. Emery

22. Jensen

23. Emery

24. Jensen

25. Emery

26. Emery

27. Jensen

28. Emery

29. Jensen

30. Emery

31. Jensen

32. Emery

33. Emery

34. Jensen

35. Emery

36. Jensen

Epilogue

The Wright Boss

Acknowledgments

Also By K.A. Linde

About the Author

The Wright Brother

Copyright © 2017 by K.A. Linde

All rights reserved.

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www.kalinde.com

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Cover Designer: Okay Creations.,

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Photographer: Sara Eirew Photography,

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Editor: Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1948427012

To Rebecca Kimmerling,

for every wonderful book you’ve helped me with

and a million more to follow.

1

Emery

I rolled my shoulders twice and yawned. I hated being at the office this early. It was mind-numbing, but at least I got to see Mitch. He didn’t have class for another hour, and I figured we could use that time to get some coffee…or just occupy his office. I could think of a few things that I preferred to working.

My feet carried me straight down the hallway of the history building at the University of Texas, Austin. I was anxious for that uninterrupted hour alone with my boyfriend. It might be a bit taboo that he was also my professor and the advisor for my PhD, but it worked for me.

I reached his office and opened the door. “Mitch, I thought we could—” I stopped mid sentence and stared at what was before me.

Mitch was seated in the chair behind his desk—the very desk I had been fantasizing about. And a tiny blonde undergrad was sitting in his lap. Her skirt was hiked up; I could tell even from my vantage point.

My stomach dropped out of my body. This could not be happening. I could not be this naive.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I demanded.

The girl hopped up and straightened out her skirt. “Nothing,” she squeaked.

“I was just helping her with some last-minute…assignments,” Mitch said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, my voice low and menacing. My eyes snapped to the girl. “You should leave. Now.”

“Emery,” Mitch said consolingly.

“Now!” I yelled.

The girl grabbed her purse and rushed out of the room. I slammed the door shut behind her and glared down at the man I’d thought I loved for the last three years. But looking at him sitting there, adjusting himself, all I saw was a pathetic excuse for a man.

“God, this is embarrassing,” I snapped. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving you, I’m leaving the program, and I’m leaving the university. I’m fucking done.”

“You can’t leave the program, Emery,” he said, not acknowledging what else I had said.

“I can, and I will.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, pushing back his messed up hair. “You only have a year left.”

I shrugged. “Don’t give a damn right now. You fucking cheated on me, Mitch.”

“Come now, Emery. Do you really believe that?”

“Um…hello? I just walked in on you with Angela! She’s an undergrad!”

“You don’t know what you saw.”

I snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you. I’m well aware of what I saw. I doubt it was the first time, too. How many others are there?”

He stood and tried to reach for me, but I pulled away.

“We can make this work, Emery.”

“God, do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Oh, Em,” he said, straightening his black suit coat. “Don’t act so childish.”

I fumed at those repulsive words. “I am not acting childish by accusing the man I loved of sleeping with someone else. I’m standing up for what I think is right, and your bullshit routine is far from that. Are you sleeping with other students?”

“Honey, come on.”

“You are, aren’t you?” I shook my head and retreated. “Wow, I am an idiot. Not only do I really not want to be in academia, but I also really don’t want to be with you.”

“Emery,” he called as I marched toward the door. “It’s been three years. You can’t do this.”

I whipped around. “Tell me you’re not fucking anyone else and that I’m the only girl for you.”

He ran a shaky hand back through his long blond hair. He thought he was the cool professor, the one everyone could talk to about not just their research problems, but also their life problems. He’d reeled me in that way, and like a fool, I’d been blinded by the nice suits, fancy dinners, and finally finding a man on the same level as me. Turned out…he was a rat.

When he didn’t respond, I scoffed at him. “That’s what I thought.”

Walking out of his office was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. He deserved to lose his job for what he had done all these years, but I didn’t have it in me to go there yet. I walked into the history department and filled out the appropriate paperwork to withdraw from the program. Maybe, one day, I would want to go back and finish my PhD, but today, I knew that I had come to the end of the line. One too many panic attacks, my first ever prescription for Xanax, and a dissertation topic that seemed perpetually out of reach had done me in.

Screw academia.

I drove my Subaru Forester back to my one-bedroom studio, cursing Austin traffic the whole way. How was it possible for there to be bumper-to-bumper traffic at all times?

Three years’ worth of neglect had taken over my apartment, and my head ached from just imagining what to do with it all. At that moment, my life was completely open before me. No obligations. No job. No future.

I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculous thoughts and began to stuff half of my closet into the two suitcases I had. An hour later, I tucked my MacBook into my leather bag, remembered to grab my phone and computer charger, and kissed Austin good-bye. I’d eventually have to come back for the rest of my shit, but for now, I was going to forget all about Mitch, kick up the Christmas tunes, and drive the six hours home to Lubbock.

The weird thing about Lubbock was, most people had no idea where it was, and when you told them that it was actually not full of tumbleweeds or overrun by the desert, they’d seem surprised. As if that was all there was in west Texas. It was a city of three hundred thousand people, for Christ’s sake!

The six years I had been in Norman at the University of Oklahoma, I’d gotten so good at responding to strangers’ questions about where I was from that I still hadn’t broken the habit of telling people I was from Texas, even when I’d moved back to Texas.

It would inevitably be followed up with a, “Where?”

And then I would have to explain, “Lubbock. It’s west Texas. Stuff actually exists there. Texas Tech and Buddy Holly.”

People would nod, but I didn’t think anyone really believed me since they hadn’t been to west Texas.

My sister, Kimber, was waiting for me outside when I pulled up to her brand-spanking-new house. She placed a hand on her swollen prego belly, and her four-year-old daughter, Lilyanne, ran around her ankles.

I put my car in park and jumped out in a hurry to scoop up my little niece. “Hey, Lily Bug,” I said, twirling her in a circle before swinging her onto my hip.

“Lilies aren’t bugs, Auntie Em. Lilies are flowers!”

“That, they are, smarty-pants.”

“Hey, Em,” Kimber said, pulling me in for a hug.

“Hey, Kimmy.”

“Rough day?” she asked.

“You could say that.”

I dropped Lilyanne back onto her feet and opened the trunk. Kimber hoisted the smaller suitcase out of the trunk, and I wheeled the larger one into her ginormous house.

“Em! Do you want to see my new dress? It has dinosaurs on it. Dinosaurs say rawr!” Lilyanne said.

“Not now, Lily. We have to get Emery into the guest room. Can you show her where to go?” Kimber asked.

Lilyanne’s eyes lit up, and she raced for the stairs at lightning speed. “Come on, Auntie Em. I know the way.”

Kimber sighed, exhausted. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. She’s a handful. But it’s good to have her. How else would I be able to find my way around here?” I joked as we made our way up the stairs after Lilyanne. “Seriously, are we in Beauty and the Beast? Is there a west wing I should avoid?” I gasped.

Kimber snorted and rolled her eyes. “It’s not that big.”

“Never too big for a library with ladders, of course.”

“Of course. We might have one of those.”

“I knew it! Please tell me all the dirty romance novels we read in high school are proudly on display now.”

Kimber dropped my suitcase in the guest bedroom, which was approximately the same size as my loft back in Austin. “Noah would kill me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Most of those books are on my iPad now anyway. I’ve converted to e-books.”

“Fancy,” I said, fluttering my fingers at her. “I could use an iPad. Just throwing that out there in case Noah needs gift ideas for Christmas.”

Kimber laughed. “God, I’ve missed you.”

I grinned devilishly. Noah worked at the Texas Tech Medical Center. He worked long, long hours and made Scrooge McDuck–level dollar bills. He and Kimber were high school sweethearts and possibly the disgustingly cutest couple I’d ever encountered.

“Come on, Lilyanne,” Kimber called. “We have cookies in the oven.”

“Cookies?” I asked, my eyes lighting up. “Mom’s recipe?”

“Of course. Are you going to go see her?” Kimber asked, as if she didn’t care. But I saw her glance nervously in my direction.

It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with my mother. It was more like…we were the exact same person. So, when we were together, our stubborn heads butted, and everyone ran for the hills. But there weren’t hills in Lubbock.

“Yeah…probably.”

“Did you even let her know you were coming into town?”

Kimber picked Lilyanne up and dropped her down into a seat by the sprinkles. The timer dinged for the cookies, and Kimber pulled them out of the oven. Fluffy golden brown Christmas cookies, just the way we liked them.

I shot Kimber a sheepish look. “No, but…”

“Gah, Emery! She’s going to kill me if you stay here without telling her you’re in town. I do not want to deal with that while I’m pregnant.”

“I’m going to tell her!” I said, reaching for a cookie.

Kimber slapped my fingers with the spatula. “Those are too hot. Wait for them to cool.”

“You don’t want a boo-boo,” Lilyanne said.

I sucked my finger into my mouth and made a face at my sister. “Fine.”

Kimber dropped the subject, and we spent the rest of the afternoon making cookies. Lilyanne and I got to cut out the shapes with Kimber’s cookie cutters, and then she placed them on the tray and into the oven. Once they cooled, we iced and added Christmas sprinkles on top of them.

By the time Noah was home, earlier than usual for him, we were covered in flour with sugary-sweet hangovers. It was a welcome relief from the drama I’d endured with Mitch. It was a known fact that Kimber’s cookies cured heartaches.

I pulled Noah in for a big hug. “Missed you.”

“You, too, Em. I heard you were having some trouble.”

My nose wrinkled. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay while I figure things out.”

“You’re always welcome here. It’ll be good to have you around for Kimber, too. She’s home a lot with this one, and I know she’s ready to get back to work.”

My sister owned a kick-ass bakery right off of campus called Death by Chocolate that made the best cookies, cupcakes, and doughnuts in town. But, with the new baby on the way, she’d taken a step back and turned more to management, so she could work from home. But her true passion was baking, and I knew she’d love to get back into the thick of things as soon as she could.

“Thanks Noah.”

When it was Lilyanne’s bedtime, I finally left their house and went to meet my best friend out for a drink.

When I pulled up to Flips, I was shaking from the bitter December cold that had sprung up out of nowhere. I rummaged through my backseat, extracted a black leather jacket, and then dashed across the parking lot.

I handed the bouncer my ID and then pushed through the hipster crowd to the back of the bar. As expected, I found Heidi leaning over a pool table and making eyes at a guy who thought he was going to make some easy money on a game against a chick. His friends stood around with smirks on their face, as they drank Bud Light. Lubbock was big enough that there were still enough idiots for Heidi to hustle, but the regulars steered clear.

“Em!” Heidi called, jumping up and down at my appearance.

“Hey, babe,” I said with a wink.

“Guys, I’m going to have to finish this game early. My bestie is here.”

The guy’s brow furrowed in confusion. She leaned down and knocked the rest of her balls into the holes, hardly paying any attention. He and his friends’ jaws dropped, and I just laughed. I’d seen it happen one too many times.

Heidi’s dad had owned a pool hall when she was a kid, and her skills were legit. I was pretty sure pool was the start of her love affair with geometry. She’d gotten into civil engineering at Tech, and she now worked at Wright Construction, the largest construction company in the nation. I thought it was a waste of her talent, but she liked to be the only female in a male-dominated industry.

“You hustled us!” the guy yelled.

She fluttered her long eyelashes at him and grinned. “Pay up!”

He tossed a couple of twenties on the pool table and stormed away like a sore loser. Heidi counted them out and then stuffed them into the back pocket of her destroyed jeans.

“Emery, baby,” Heidi said, flinging her arms around my neck. “I have missed your face.”

“Missed you, too. You buying?”

She laughed, removed one of the guy’s twenties from her pocket, and threw it on the table. “Peter, shots for me and Emery!”

Peter nodded his head at me. “Hey, prom queen.”

“That was Kimber. Not me!”

“Oh, right,” he said, as if vaguely remembering that had happened to my sister and not me. “You dated that Wright brother though, right?”

I breathed out heavily through my nose. Nine and a half years since Landon Wright had broken up with me on graduation day, and I was still recognized as the girl who’d dated a Wright brother. Awesome.

“Yeah,” I grumbled, “a long time ago.”

“Speaking of the Wright brothers,” Heidi said, pushing a shot of tequila and lime toward me and adding salt to the space between her thumb and finger.

“Nope.”

“Now that you’re newly single after you kicked that jerk to the curb.”

“Oh God, Heidi, can we not talk about Mitch?”

“I promise I won’t talk about the skeezeball if you hear me out.”

I sighed heavily. “All right. What about the Wrights?”

“Sutton Wright is getting married on Saturday.”

“She is?” I asked in surprise. “Isn’t she still at Tech?”

Heidi shrugged. “She found the one. It’s kind of a rush job. They only got engaged on Halloween.”

“Shotgun?” I asked.

The entire Wright family was riddled with scandal. With billions of dollars to throw around and no moral code, it was easy for anyone to get in trouble. But the five Wright siblings took it to a new level.

“No idea really, but I’d guess so. Either way, who cares? I am not missing a chance for an open bar and a swank party.”

“Have fun with that,” I said dryly.

“I’m taking you with me, bitch,” Heidi said.

She raised her shot glass to me, and I warily eyed her before raising mine to meet hers.

After I downed the tequila and sucked on the lime, I finally responded, “You know I have a rule about Wright siblings, right?”

“I know you’ve been jaded against the lot of them after Landon, yes.”

“Oh no, you know it’s not just Landon.”

“Yeah, so they’re all a bag of dicks. Who cares? Let’s go get drunk on their dime and make fun of them.” Heidi seductively placed her hand on my thigh and raised her eyebrows up and down. “I’ll put out.”

I snorted and smacked her arm. “You’re such a whore.”

“You love me. I’ll get you a new dress. We’ll have fun.”

I shrugged. What could it hurt? “Fine. Why not?”

2

Jensen

“My whore sister is pregnant again, and this time, she wants to keep it,” I said to no one in particular as I expertly knotted the red bow tie at my neck.

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point of the wedding today, Jensen,” my brother Austin said. His bow tie still hung loose around his neck, and he was already on his third glass of whiskey. At twenty-nine years old, he was already shaping up to be the one who tarnished the Wright name. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up just like our father—a raving alcoholic up until the moment he was buried six feet under.

“Can’t believe we’re fucking doing this today.”

“She’s in love, man,” Austin said.

He raised his glass to me, and I fought the urge to call him a sentimental dick.

“He’s looking for a paycheck. A paycheck that I’m going to have to provide because there’s no way he’ll be able to take care of our little sister.” I finally got the bow tie straight and turned back to Austin.

“Have a drink. You’re being too uptight about the whole thing.”

I glared at him. I had to be uptight about this shit. I was only thirty-two, and I was the one in charge of the business. I was the one who had been left with all the money and responsibilities to take care of my four younger siblings. If that made me uptight, then fuck him.

But I didn’t say any of that. I just strode across the room and refilled his glass of whiskey. “Have another drink, Austin. You remind me so much of Dad.”

“Fuck you, Jensen. Can’t you just be happy for Sutton?”

“Yeah, Jensen,” Morgan said. She stepped into the room in a floor-length red dress with her dark hair pulled up off her face. Her smile was magnetic, as usual.

Morgan was only twenty-five and the most normal one of my family. We all had our issues, but Morgan gave me the least amount of grief, which made her my favorite.

“Don’t you start in on this, too,” I told her.

“Sutton is her own person. She always has been. She does whatever she wants to do, no matter what anyone says,” Morgan said. Taking the drink out of Austin’s hand, she downed a large gulp. “Don’t you remember that time she decided she was a princess superhero? Mom couldn’t get her out of a tutu, cape, and crown for almost a year.”

I laughed at the memory. Sutton had been a handful. Fuck, she still was a handful. Twenty-one and already getting married.

“Yeah, I remember. I’d be happier about the whole thing with what’s his face if he wasn’t such a completely incompetent dipshit,” I told her.

“His name is Maverick,” Austin cut in. “And you can’t fucking talk, man. Your name is Jensen,” he drawled my name out, exaggerating the second syllable. “It’s a fucking weird name, too.”

“It’s not a weird name. Maverick is a douche name, especially since he goes by Maverick and not Mav or Rick or something.”

Morgan rolled the big brown eyes she’d inherited from our mother. “Let’s drop it, shall we? Where is Landon anyway?”

As if on cue, my twenty-seven-year-old younger brother Landon schlepped into the room. His wife, Miranda, followed in his footsteps in the same dress as Morgan. My eyes slid over to Morgan. She returned the look, saying a million things in that one glance.

“Hey, Landon,” Austin said when he realized neither of us were going to say shit since Miranda was here.

“Hey,” Landon said, sinking into a seat next to Austin.

He looked beat.

Landon was the only one of us who didn’t work for the company. Austin and Morgan both worked for me at Wright Construction, and Sutton would once she graduated—or that had been the plan before she got pregnant. Now, I’d probably have to hire Maverick in her place, so she could take care of that baby.

Landon had graduated from Stanford—unlike the rest of our family who had attended Texas Tech since the school’s founding in the 1920s—but instead of putting his business degree to good use, he had joined the professional golf circuit. That was when he’d met Miranda. They’d dated for only six months before he proposed. Just like we were doing with Sutton, we’d all sworn that Miranda was pregnant and using him for his money. But when she hadn’t had a baby nine months later, we had all been fucking baffled.

It was one thing to marry a girl like Miranda for a baby. You had to take care of the kid. That always fucking came first. No matter who the mother was. It was another thing to marry a girl like Miranda because you liked her—or, fuck, loved her.

“Well, what a happy reunion this is,” Miranda said. She eyed us all like she was trying to figure out how to wiggle more money out of the Wright family. There might as well have been actual dollar signs in her eyes.

“Miranda,” Austin said. He stood and gave her a quick hug. “Good to see you.”

“Thanks, Austin,” she said with a giggle.

Austin, the peacekeeper. That used to be Landon but not anymore. Not since the wicked bitch had sunk her claws into him.

As a man who had been through a brutal divorce already, I couldn’t figure out why Landon hadn’t handed over the paperwork. Being around Miranda for a solid five minutes was too much for me, and it made Morgan lose her shit. I hated that Landon always looked like someone had kicked his puppy.

I’d been there. I knew what that was like. I did not want him to have to go through the same thing I had. Or end up with the same consequences.

“Come on, Morgan,” Miranda trilled. “I’m sure Sutton will need us with the other bridesmaids.”

“I’m sure. Why don’t you head over there and tell her I’ll be just a minute?” Morgan said, using the slow voice she typically reserved for small children.

Miranda shot her an evil glare. Or maybe that was her face. I could never tell.

Then, she grabbed Landon’s arm. “I’ll see you at the ceremony, honey. Kiss?”

Landon turned his face up to her, and she latched on to his lips like a leech.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said automatically.

When she was gone, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Bless her heart,” Morgan drawled.

“Y’all,” Landon groaned, “don’t.”

Morgan started humming the theme song for the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Are you ever going to give it a break, Morgan?” Landon asked.

“No, probably not.”

“We’ve been married for two years now.”

“I can’t believe you’re staying at a hotel,” I said.

Landon shrugged and reached for the bottle of whiskey, pouring himself a glass. “Miranda wanted to stay downtown.”

“And, before we start World War III by bringing up Miranda,” Austin cut in, “I feel like someone should grab Sutton. We’re about to suffer through a couple of hours of pictures with eighteen of her closest friends. Might have some time, just the five of us.”

“I limited her to nine bridesmaids,” I said.

“That’s a limit?” Morgan asked with a huff. “I don’t think I even like nine people.”

“You weren’t in a sorority either,” I reminded her.

“I don’t like people. I certainly wouldn’t like to pay for new sisters. Sutton is above and beyond.”

Austin and Landon laughed, and that sound finally made me relax. It was nice to have all my siblings back in one place. With Sutton in school and Landon living on some beach in Florida where he could golf year-round, it just wasn’t the same. Some people thought the Wright siblings were…odd. They thought we were too close, but we had to be. With both parents gone, we were all each other had.

“You want to go see if she’s decent?” I asked Morgan.

She groaned. “This is what I get for being the only other girl.”

I opened the door for her, and she hiked up her dress and stormed out. I knew she wasn’t happy about having to spend the next twelve-plus hours with seven other girls she didn’t know or like, plus Miranda, but there was nothing I could do about it. Trying to convince Sutton to do anything was like trying to move a mountain. She might be tiny, but she was a firecracker.

I grabbed the bottle of whiskey out of Landon’s hands before he and Austin could finish it. Leaving the two of them alone with alcohol would guarantee a disaster. Then, I rummaged through my bag and found the group of shot glasses I’d brought with me. I was setting them up right when Sutton returned with Morgan.

“Hey, y’all!” Sutton said, flouncing into the room with a skip in her step. “Morgan said you needed me for something important.”

I hefted the bottle of Four Roses Single Barrel whiskey at her. “Your brothers tried to drink the bottle before you got here, but I thought, a toast?”

She sagged in disappointment. “You know I can’t have that.”

I grinned devilishly and then grabbed a bottle of apple juice that I’d tucked away, knowing she couldn’t drink. “How about this?”

“Yes! Make mine a double,” she told me.

I laughed and poured out the shots. She was definitely part of the family. Addictive personalities ran in the Wright line. I had my fair share of vices, but I was lucky that alcohol wasn’t one of them.

“Annnd,” Sutton drawled out, “while I have you here, Jensen, I wanted to run one teensy little thing by you.”

She widened her big blue eyes like she was about to ask me for a million dollars. She’d been giving me that same look for years. Once, it was a blowout sweet sixteen to rival that TV show My Super Sweet 16. Another time, it was for a trip to Europe with all her sorority sisters. I couldn’t imagine what more she could want from me right now. We’d put together her wedding in six weeks, and she was flying first class to Cabo for two weeks. Still, she was upset that I wouldn’t give her the jet.

“Oh no,” I muttered. “What is it?”

“Look, I was talking to Maverick last night, and I know that he already signed the prenup, but—”

My face instantly hardened. “No.”

“I didn’t even ask anything!”

“I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no.”

“But it’s silly, Jensen. Really! He’s the love of my life. We’re going to spend eternity together. A prenup is ridiculous. It’s a bad way to enter a marriage. If you’re thinking about how it’s going to end before it even starts, then what does that say about a person?”

Morgan, Austin, and Landon had all gone still behind her. They could probably read the fury on my face. I didn’t want to blow up on her on her wedding day, but I was dangerously close to doing so.

“You are worth a small fortune, Sutton. And I don’t give a fuck who you’re marrying. You get a prenup to protect yourself in case something happens. Thinking about the future is a way to ensure that you are not getting scammed. No matter how much somebody loves you.”

“But, Jensen—” Sutton said, trying to reason with me.

“Sutton,” Austin said, cutting in, “do you really want to do this right now? I mean, Jensen and Landon both had a prenup. No one marries a Wright without it.”

“That’s right,” I said, silently thanking Austin for his backup.

“Plus, you’re only twenty-one,” Morgan said. “Who knows what could happen?”

“Oh, wow. Thanks, Morgan,” Sutton grumbled.

“I didn’t mean that Maverick isn’t ‘the one,’” she said with air quotes. “I just mean, Jensen didn’t think he’d divorce Vanessa under any circumstances and look what happened.”

I gritted my teeth at the mention of my ex-wife. Vanessa Hendricks wasn’t a name that was usually brought up in polite conversation. But she certainly was a cautionary tale as to why a prenup was necessary.

“If Maverick really wants to throw out the prenup, I’d be happy to talk to him about it,” I said to Sutton with raised eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not that stupid. You’d scare him half to death.”

“Well, if he’s trying to take you for your money, then he’d deserve it.”

“Okay, fine. I get it. I just thought I’d ask. Maverick and I had a long talk about it.”

“I bet,” Landon muttered under his breath.

“Anyway, shots!” Sutton cried.

I passed out shots of whiskey to Austin, Landon, and Morgan and then handed Sutton the shot of apple juice.

I raised my glass high. “To Sutton, on the happiest day of her life and to many more amazing years to come.”

We all tipped back our glasses. The whiskey burned all the way down my throat, but I just grinned at my siblings.

The world felt right when we were all together. No matter what challenges we might face, at least we had each other.

3

Emery

“Heidi, what are you doing to my hair?” I asked.

Heidi laughed hysterically behind me. “I’m making you look presentable, Em. You just wait. It will come together at the end.”

She threaded a few more strands of my hair into this crazy braid.

If Heidi and I hadn’t been best friends since kindergarten and if I hadn’t known all her deep, dark secrets, I was sure she would have dumped me for the cool crowd. Despite her obsession with geometry, her all black attire, and her pool-slinging skills, she had been a cheerleader and obsessed with popularity.

My sister, Kimber, had been the girlie girl—prom queen, homecoming queen, voted most attractive. The whole shebang.

But not me. Though I never had a problem with finding a date, I had not been the typical teenager. I had played varsity soccer my freshman year, I’d skateboarded circles around the dude-bros in town, and I had made up my mind that my dream job was to become a vampire slayer.

At the time, Landon Wright had tested my friendship with Heidi. Why would the star quarterback have any interest in the loner tomboy? I hadn’t understood it any more than Heidi.

I closed my eyes and pushed the thoughts aside. I was only thinking about Landon because I knew he would be at the wedding this afternoon. He hadn’t crossed my mind in a long time, and I hadn’t seen him in longer.

“I swear, it’s going to be cute,” Heidi assured me.

“I know. I trust you,” I said. “I cannot believe that you talked me into going to this wedding with you. Is it going to be like a high school reunion? I don’t know if I’m prepared for that.”

“It’s not a high school reunion,” Heidi said. “I got invited because I work for the Wrights and, like, half of the company was invited. It’s going to be a big wedding. I doubt you’ll even run into him.”

“I am not worried about running into Landon. It’s been almost ten years since we broke up,” I told her.

“Didn’t he get married anyway?” Heidi asked.

She yanked on my hair, and I winced.

“I don’t follow him. You would know more than I would.” I glared at Heidi in the mirror. “Stop giving me that look. Do you know how many guys I’ve dated since Landon? No, you don’t. Because I can’t even remember, but it’s a lot. And I’m currently sitting right here because of guy trouble.”

“I just know you and Landon,” Heidi said dreamily. “Perfect high school couple. That was, like, the only thing that you beat Kimber in. You and Landon got Best Couple in the yearbook.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please stop reminiscing about high school, or I’ll vomit.”

“You were cute,” Heidi added.

“If you think for a minute that something is going to happen with him at this wedding, you’re out of your mind. Not only is he married, but he’ll also be there with his wife. And, as of today, I’m officially swearing off men.”

Heidi laughed. “Yeah, right, Em,” she said. “You are boy crazy and always have been. Even when you were our little skater girl.”

“Look, Mitch fooled me into thinking that he loved me. He was, like, fifteen years older than me and a total player. I’m almost certain he was sleeping with an undergrad,” I told her. “I mean…how bad is my judgment skewed that I ended up with someone like that? I think I just need to be single for a while.”

“All right,” Heidi said with a shake of her head. Her blonde hair swayed back and forth down against the middle of her back in an amazing wave that she’d somehow created. “More for me tonight.”

“All for you.”

Heidi stepped back and observed her creation. She messed with my bangs and then added one more curl into the end. “There. What do you think?”

I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself. While I wasn’t still a tomboy, when I felt down, I’d tend to fall back on old habits, as in no makeup and messy bun galore. But Heidi had practically digitally remastered my face. My makeup was flawless, and the shimmer shadow brought out the green in my eyes. My dark hair was braided into a crown atop my head that wove into a low side ponytail with curls.

“You have a gift,” I told her. “You’ve made me look human again.”

“Go put on your dress,” Heidi said. “I can’t wait to see it all together!”

“All right. All right. I’m going.”

I shimmied into the dress that Heidi had picked out for me from a boutique downtown.

I stepped out of the closet. Heidi whistled.

“You’re ridiculous.”

But I liked the dress. Sutton’s wedding was formal attire, and it was hard enough to find a dress I liked, let alone a full-length dress, but Heidi had done it. The dress was black with a gold shimmer layer underneath that accentuated my figure when I walked. Everything came together with cute peep-toes. Benefit of a winter wedding in Texas was that it would reach the seventies during the day if we were lucky. The weather was pretty erratic.

“You are so getting laid in that dress,” Heidi said.

I dramatically rolled my eyes. “No boys. This is a no-fly zone.”

“You won’t be saying that tonight when you’re getting fucked. All I’m saying,” Heidi said. “Hopefully, it’s Landon Wright. That would be so full circle.”

“Don’t even say that. If I see him, I will run in the opposite direction,” I told her.

Heidi grinned, as if laughing at her own inside joke.

“All right, all right,” Heidi said when she noticed my glare. “No boys. I got it. If Landon approaches you, I’ll distract him. I still have some cheer moves.”

She kicked her leg and nearly touched her nose. Then, she spun around in some intricate dance move. I wasn’t even sure how it was possible that she was this flexible.

“Oh my God, if you do that in your dress, you are going to be more than a distraction for Landon. You are going to rip your dress in half for the entire party to see.”

Heidi laughed and shrugged. “I’m going to get dressed, and then we can go.”

A few minutes later, Heidi reappeared in a floor-length mermaid dress in the deepest, darkest purple. She shimmied over to me and winked. “Come on, sexy. You’re my date tonight. Let’s get Kimber to take a picture of us!”

We hurried into Kimber’s bedroom, and Kimber agreed to take the shot. Heidi handed her phone to Kimber. Then, she threw one hand up in the air and placed the other on her hip while making a pouty face. I pointed my finger at the camera while kissing Heidi on the cheek. When we got a look at it, I just giggled with my girls. It was the most ridiculous and the most us picture in existence.

“This is so going on Instagram. Damn, it’s good to have you back,” Heidi said.

“Use a filter,” I insisted.

“You just filtered your face,” Kimber said, pointing out all the makeup on my face. “You don’t need a filter.”

“My life needs a filter,” Heidi muttered.

Heidi posted the picture and then grabbed her clutch. She stuffed her phone and ID inside. I hated carrying a purse anytime, especially when I had to navigate a dress and heels. So, I gave Heidi my phone and ID, who rolled her eyes and added them to her bag.

“You really don’t mind dropping us off, Kimber?” I asked.

“Not a problem. I want to hear all about the antics when y’all are done.”

“I’ll live tweet you,” Heidi said.

“Oh my God, you are not going to be on your phone all night,” Kimber said. “You should enjoy yourself. Get drunk and make a mistake or two.”

“Done and done,” Heidi said with a wink. “Let’s get out of here.”

We all piled into Kimber’s car. The traffic around the Historic Baker Building, a venue in downtown Lubbock, was outrageous. And that was saying something because the only time traffic got this bad was on Texas Tech game days.

“How many people did Sutton invite?” I asked, craning my head out the window.

“It looks like everyone she’s ever met,” Heidi said.

“Or the whole freaking city,” I grumbled.

“Maybe we should hop out here,” Heidi suggested.

“Be safe,” Kimber said. “Take some condoms for the kids.”

Heidi rolled her eyes.

I laughed as I hopped out of the SUV. “Thanks, Kimber.”

“Bye, babe!” Heidi called, following in my footsteps.

She slammed the door, and we darted through traffic and onto the sidewalk. The Baker Building was a block or two down the street, and already, I was cursing myself for wearing high heels. They had looked so adorable in the store. Now, they were little torture devices.

Who invented these?

Men.

Men invented these to torture us and make our butts look awesome.

Thank God my butt looked this awesome. Otherwise, I’d be taking these off so fast.

“Stop hobbling,” Heidi said, strutting around in her heels like they had been made for her.

“I’m not hobbling. I just don’t think I’ll be able to wear these all night.”

“We’ll take them off once we get to the reception. But, right now, you need them to be able to see.”

I smacked her arm. “I’m not that short. I can see fine. You’re just super freaking tall.”

“Well, we can’t both be perfect, Em.”

“Oh my God, why are you my best friend again?” I asked.

“Beats me,” she said with a giggle. Then, she looped our arms together and strode up to the entrance of the Baker Building.

The place really was packed. At the entrance, a dozen ushers were escorting people to seats, and people milled about as they waited for their chance. I recognized about ten people in the span of a minute and slowly angled my body so as not to have to engage with anyone.

Eventually, it was our turn, and Heidi and I wrangled one usher for the both of us.

“Bride or groom?” the boy asked. He had ice-blue eyes and a real Southern drawl. He was probably in a fraternity at Tech and had gotten coaxed into this with the promise of free booze.

“Bride,” Heidi said. “We’re friends of the bride.”

“Cool. How do you know Sutton?” he asked as he walked us, arm in arm, down the aisle.

“We grew up together,” Heidi said.

When I raised my eyebrows, she shrugged.

“Family friend. Got it.”

Then, he walked us right up to the third row. I felt myself panicking. Why were we so close? Couldn’t he have given us different seats? I did not want to be this near the Wright siblings. I was here for the booze and had been promised a good time.

“Family friends up front,” he said with a smile, gesturing for us to take our seats.

Heidi smiled brightly at him and then took the second seat inside.

“You’re leaving me on the end?” I hissed at her.

“Yeah. Sit your ass down.”

“This was not part of the deal, Martin,” I spat at her as I sat down.

“Ohhh, using my last name. I’m real scared.”

“You owe me big for this.”

“Just enjoy it, Em. It’ll be over in, like, fifteen minutes, and then we can drink for free all night.”

“Right. Priorities,” I muttered as the doors finally closed behind us.

As the remaining guests took their seats, my eyes traveled the room. It was elaborately decorated with flowers attached to every chair and shimmery curtains draped across the entire front of the room. White lights that twinkled down on the attendees were strung on the second-floor balcony.

Softly, a string quartet began playing classical music, and the lights dimmed. I looked back to the front as the pastor stepped out from a back room with the groom and a long line of groomsmen following in his wake.

My eyes scanned the length of the line. Nine. He had nine groomsmen. Holy fuck!

There were so many of them that they had to stand in two lines.

And the last three men in the line were very distinct and downright gorgeous.

The Wright brothers—Jensen, Austin, and finally, Landon.

The party had arrived.

4

Emery

I purposely turned my attention away from the brothers before me. I really didn’t want to look at any of them anyway. Luckily for me, the bridesmaids started walking down the aisle. Then, the traditional “Canon in D” began, we all stood, and Sutton walked down the aisle. I was pretty sure, the last time I’d seen Sutton in person, she was only about twelve years old. But it was shocking to me, now that she was all grown up, how much she looked like Landon.

All of them looked the same—dark hair, pouty lips, athletic figure. Though they had their differences, too. Just not enough noticeable differences. Anyone could see they were related.

Heidi leaned over to me to whisper into my ear, “Ten bucks, she’s a crier.”

“She’s pregnant. She’s definitely a crier,” I muttered back.

I tried to hold my laughter in as Sutton finally reached the front of the room and immediately burst into tears. Her groom took her hands in his and grinned down at her.

The pastor raised his hands. “You may all be seated,” he said.

I dropped into my seat and waited for this whole thing to be over.

“We are gathered here today to join Sutton Marie Wright to Maverick Wayne Johnson in holy matrimony.”

My eyes rounded, and I glanced at Heidi. We had an entire conversation without saying a word.

Maverick Wayne.

Maverick?

That’s his name?

Holy fuck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She must be here for his Johnson.

I cracked up and had to cover it with a cough when a few people turned to glare at me. Heidi tried to hide her own laughter by reaching for her purse and digging around for her phone.

The rest of the ceremony progressed like any other I’d ever been to. If you’d been to one wedding, you’d been to them all.

Yada, yada, yada.

“I do.”

Yada, yada, yada.

“Till death do us part.”

Yada, yada, yada.

“You may kiss the bride.”

I applauded methodically with the rest of the crowd and silently prayed for some really good champagne to make up for this. Champagne cured everything.

The music started up again. The end of their fifteen minutes was up. On to bigger and better things. Like an open bar and a dessert table.

Maverick took Sutton’s hand in his, and they strode down the aisle, beaming like streetlamps. Each bridesmaid walked forward in her long, silky red dress, latched on to the arm of one of the groomsmen. With nine people on each side of the bridal party, it was taking forever. One after the other after the other.

The only bridesmaid I recognized was Morgan, who was the maid of honor. She was only two years younger than me and Heidi and had run in the popular crowd, of course. She was easy to figure out because she looked exactly the same as she had in high school. Unfortunately for her, she was on the arm of some leering frat boy. The other girls, I gathered, were Sutton’s sorority sisters.

Then, finally, it was on to the Wright brothers.

Jensen moved forward first. He held his arm out for the girl who was blushing as bright as a cherry tomato. She looped her arm in his, and I was trying so hard not to roll my eyes. I had been that girl once. I knew what that was like. Back in the day, Landon had made me feel that swoony, over-the-top, oh-my-God feeling from having the attention of a Wright brother. And I wasn’t that type of girl either. Now, it felt ridiculous. Money couldn’t buy happiness, and it sure didn’t fix shit when the guy broke your heart.

I was so deeply entrenched in my own thoughts that I didn’t realize I was staring. At Jensen Wright. And he was staring right back at me.

Why? Why, oh God, did Heidi put me on the end? And why is he looking at me like that?

He hadn’t even moved yet. He was just standing there, staring at me with those dark brown eyes. And I didn’t know what he was thinking or what he was doing. Except for making a complete fool of himself because, surely, he needed to start walking right now. Like right fucking now.

Synapses must have fired in his brain again because he gradually moved the girl forward. And, when I thought I’d gotten past that look and away from his penetrating gaze, he turned around. He did a motherfucking double take. Right there in front of everyone at his own sister’s wedding, he turned around and looked at me.

What world am I living in?

I didn’t think I breathed normally again until he looked away and proceeded down the aisle. By then, Austin had already passed me, and I didn’t even get a chance to see Landon and his wife. And that was the only thing I’d been interested in.

So what? I was an ex-girlfriend. I had every right to stalk his wife to see if she was prettier than me.

Heidi shook my shoulder, jarring me back to reality. “Did you just get eye-fucked by Jensen Wright?” she gasped.

An older woman sitting in front of us glared at her for the language. She hadn’t exactly been quiet.

“No. Nope. No, I did not,” I told her. I was still trying to figure out what had happened. Because nothing I could conjure up was making any sense.

“You so did. You so, so did!” Heidi said.

The two aisles in front of us left first, and then Heidi was pushing me out of the aisle, all while whispering in my ear about how excited she was. “Do you remember mooning over him in high school? He was, like, this hottie college guy, a totally unattainable god. Like Zeus on Mount Olympus. Or maybe we just wanted to get on his lightning bolt, if you know what I mean.”

“Heidi, God, you’re so embarrassing.”

“Em, just think about Jensen when we were in high school. He belonged in a magazine.”

“I was dating his brother.”

“But before that,” she insisted.

“Okay. I might remember staying at your house a time or two…”

“Or ten.”

“Where we talked about him being hot.”

“Yes. And he has gone from hot to one damn fine wine. The bottle gets better with age, honey,” Heidi said, knocking her hip into mine.

“Are you really suggesting I hook up with Jensen Wright at his sister’s wedding when I dated his brother?” I asked with wide eyes.

Heidi laughed. “Getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you? I didn’t say hook up with him. You said that. Are you thinking about that?”

“No,” I spat.

Because, no. Seriously. That would never happen.