“I still wish you would just walk away from this. But if you insist, then yes, you should tell me about anything . . . anything my brother does that makes you uncomfortable or makes you . . . wary.” He’s choosing his words so carefully now. It makes me smile. “I want you to be okay, and if you let me know what’s going on I can make sure of that.”

I shift in my seat as new dishes are brought back to our table. “Okay, I promise to tell you if things get weird, or even if I think they’re about to. But you have to do something for me too.”

He raises his eyebrows, digs into his fettuccine.

“I want this job to work, Lander.” I bring my voice down an octave, emphasizing my earnestness. “Assuming everything’s basically on the up-and-up, of course. But I worry . . . if your brother knows that we’re . . . well, that we know each other like we do, then it could make things difficult for me.”

Lander takes another sip of wine in lieu of answering.

“I just . . . I don’t want him or his wife to think of me as the woman his brother is fucking.”

“Bell.” Lander says the name softly. “It’s not like that.”

Actually, it’s exactly like that, but I keep the thought to myself and wave his concern away with a flick of my hand. “I don’t want them to think of me as the woman Travis’s brother is dating either. I don’t want any kind of special treatment any more than I want them to look at me like I’m some little gold-digging whore.”

“Bell!”

“Just let me establish a relationship with my new employers on my own merits. If the job goes well and this”—I gesture to myself and Lander with a quick swing of my fork—“if this goes well too, then we can act like we met and started dating well after I took the job. But if the job ends or this”—again I gesture with my fork—“ends, then . . . I mean, why screw things up by revealing everything too soon? Why not just let it all run its natural course before we start merging things together, like work and family, too soon?”

“I’ve been merging work and family all my life,” he points out.

“Well, I haven’t, and I don’t want to start quite yet. Are you okay with that?”

Are you okay with lying to your brother and his wife? That’s the real question. I look at him calmly as my heart pounds against my chest. What’s the answer, Lander?

“Yes, I think we can hold off on letting them know.”

I have to stuff my mouth with fish to keep myself from grinning ear to ear.