Jessa James - His Brother's Fiancée

“It’s not okay! I freaking caught him in bed with someone else! Someone who looks just like me, by the way.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning. “Well, I guess that’s kind of good.”

“Good?” she asked, exasperated.

“I mean, at least he’s attracted to you, right?” King could hear the smugness in his own voice, but he couldn’t help it. “I mean, kind of keeping it in the family. You are both so good at that.”

He just couldn’t stop himself. King hadn’t realized until that moment that for the past three years he’d harbored so much anger over her dating his brother.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” she asked.

Effie stood up and let the blanket fall onto the couch. She grabbed her jacket, but not before he could see that she’d taken off her bra to sleep. The sudden chill from losing the blanket hardened her nipples instantly against the thin fabric. He felt his cock stirring below, but pushed the urge aside.

She deserved this.

King heard the front door slam and a car start in the driveway. Slowly, he made his way onto the patio. His erection refused to wane even when her SUV was out of sight.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

3

Effie had thought she’d been cried out, but by the time she’d reached the end of the Smiths’ cabin’s driveway, her tears were blinding.

There’s no way I can be around anyone like this.

She didn’t even have to think about it. Effie angled the SUV towards the trailhead of the familiar chipped paths she’d explored with King all through high school.

It soothed her, just the sound of her footsteps in the wild. Like she was a teenager again, she easily picked out the sounds in the forest that hugged the outskirts of the city. Dark-eyed junco. American Goldfinch. Northern cardinal.

It was here, her junior year, that she’d first told King she wanted to be a vet tech. He’d laughed and joked that it was good her relentless memorization of bird songs would come in handy.

She knew her Dansko work shoes were getting covered in mud, but she kept on. Dr. Yung would give her hell when she saw them, but in the woods work seemed a lifetime away. Effie didn’t stop walking until she realized the sun would set soon. She was exhausted, but calmed.

As she approached the Explorer, the clouds in the sky started to turn a threatening deep slate. Effie barely made it out of the deserted parking lot before the first drops of rain appeared.

Freezing, she jabbed at the seat warmers until it was on full blast. It took her a mile to get into a reception zone, and her phone shook to life with backed-up texts.

The ones from Thorne she deleted without reading. Her mom, begrudgingly, had agreed to take care of Yaya.

“We’re out of thyme,” her mom had added.

“So figure it out,” Effie said under her breath before she replied with a simple thumbs up.

There were no messages from King.

No big surprise there . He never was much for the phone, even before he gave her an ultimatum and then took off for Chicago alone.

The rain had turned into a torrential downpour. Even with the wipers on as strong as possible, Effie couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of her.

She rounded the corner only to be greeted by a wildly veering sedan with its brights on. They blared the horn as Effie’s heart froze. Instinctually, she veered to the side of the road and stopped inches from the steep ledge that led to a creek.

“Forget this,” she said. In this weather it would take hours to get home—assuming she even made it safely.

Turning the car around, she slowly drove back to the cabin.

“Please be gone,” she whispered as she turned the SUV onto the cabin’s long driveway. “Please be gone.”

What was King doing up at the cabin, anyway? Last she’d heard, he had his act together with a normal, professional nine-to-five. She’d had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing when she’d heard.

Effie knew there was no way he could keep up that kind of charade. It just wasn’t him. But she hadn’t heard about him quitting.

She flipped off the lights as she rolled up to the house. The exterior lights were bright enough to make the entire, generous parking area visible. There was no sign of King’s car, but she hadn’t seen it last night either.

“Hello?” she called as she pushed the door open gently. “Anyone here?”

She wrinkled her nose as she noticed that King had tidied up what little things she’d brought into the cabin. He’d stacked her bag by the door with the cardigan folded on top.

“Neat freak,” she said under her breath.

“You know goddamned well that I’m here,” she heard King call from the kitchen. “Whose house do you think it is?”

Effie opened her mouth to fire off a snarky retort, but clamped it shut. She was starving, she was freezing, and the smell of the steak coming from the kitchen was irresistible.

King didn’t even look at her as she hovered in the kitchen doorway. Instead, he lifted the pan to keep coating the prime cuts in butter.

“So what’s the deal?” he asked, eyes still glued to the pan. “You show up at my cabin—break in, actually—”

“Excuse me, but I have a key?” she said, instantly irked. “And it’s not your cabin, it’s your family’s—”

“Actually, it’s in my name. Besides, I thought by now you might have grown out of the whole taking whatever you want from my family whenever and however you liked.”

Effie bristled. Back when they’d broken up, they’d never had the kind of intense fight that should have unfolded. When King had dumped her, it had been neat and fast. Effie often thought she’d been in shock, unable to react. By the time she’d started dating his brother, King was in Chicago, halfway across the state.

The neat transition from King to Thorne had been almost too easy.

“I—” she began, but King held up his hand.

“Forget it. So did you get him out of your system?”

“Who?” she asked, just to buy time.

She prayed he wouldn’t say his name. Just hearing Thorne’s name would send a fresh jolt of anger through her, but it was like a current. Buried deep. Maybe all the tears and the trek through the woods really had done some healing.

King let out a cruel laugh. “Three guesses.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

“I never said it was.”

From the living room, the dull murmur of the local news station suddenly became urgent.

“This is an emergency announcement,” a robotic voice said.

Without speaking, both of them rushed into the living room. Through the picture windows, there were fat flakes of snow beating angrily against the glass.

“Oh, my God,” Effie said under her breath.

“…travel advisory in effect…” the television warned.

“It’s sticking already,” King said as he peered out the window. “Shit.”

“No, no, no,” Effie said. “This can’t be happening, this can’t—”

“What the hell are you so upset about?” King asked. “You’re the one who randomly drove up to the woods when you know we’re the first place to get snowfall—”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go!” Effie screamed.

She surprised both of them, and clapped her hand over her mouth as King’s eyes widened.

“Okay, I get it. Jesus,” he said.

The television flickered briefly and went black.

“The electricity—” she started, but King shook his head.

“The lights are still on, it’s just the television. I’ll get the emergency radio out.”

Effie struggled out of her coat and dumped it onto one of the thick leather chairs. She kicked off her shoes haphazardly. King, radio in hand, stopped and deliberately neatened up her shoes against the wall.