“I’m well aware of the games you play with Aleck,” I say, leaving no need to decode my disdain. “You get me alone, then convince me to switch brothers… Aren’t you supposed to offer me lavish things and vacations?”

“Do you like lavish things? Something tells me you’re the Netflix and chill kind of girl.”

“Something would tell you correctly. More importantly, I’m the loyal kind of girl.”

“Oh, Winter, I’m not looking for your loyalty. I like my women a bit more… agreeable. Girls like you aren’t really tolerable in the long run—too much sass. But you sure are fun for a weekend.” He rubs the pad of his thumb over his full bottom lip, gazing over the length of my body like he’s mapping out which part of me he’d like to devour first. “Just ask Aleck, he knows what I’m talking about.”

I grin, showing teeth, because even though I find Hayden more than sufficiently intimidating, I know he gets off on fear. So, I’ll show him none.

“Let’s be clear about something, Hayden. I’m not on the menu. I never will be. In my eyes, you’re nothing more than a second-rate Aleck. Second best, maybe even third. And even if I didn’t belong to your brother, which—to be clear—I one thousand percent do, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot lacrosse stick. Not even if you were beating me with it.”

Hayden lowers his head, tracking me with his narrowed eyes. His breath hitches in his chest, and as his ribs expand with a rageful breath. He’s angry… Good. My work here is don—

Without warning, he takes a quick step, the tip of his Oxfords touching my heels. I feel his body heat as he leans in, grabbing the edge of the counter on either side of me, boxing me in. If I didn’t find him as vile as I do and he wasn’t currently scaring the ever-loving shit out of me, I would note that he smells fantastic. Like bergamot, cigar smoke, soap, and danger.

“You’re so infatuated with my brother you don’t even see what you are to him.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me, then?”

“You’re a fling, Winter. Easy to fuck, but not good enough to date. He won’t extend your little arrangement because you’re not on his level and he knows it.”

Our little arrangement… He heard me talking to Midge. Or Aleck told him.

Hayden’s steel-gray eyes wrap around my pupils and squeeze, but a glimmer of something shines through. A lump of emotions feels like a planet in my throat, choking me, but for a moment I see his sadness.

I tilt my head, looking over his handsome yet twisted face. “Why are you in so much pain?”

Hayden’s spine straightens, his brow dips, and he takes a step back. “What?” he whispers, breathlessly, as if he’s been punched with the realization that someone finally sees him, if only for a second.

The back door opens, and the sound of Aleck and Richard’s playful conversation carries through the hall into the kitchen. I stand straight, trying to wipe the horror from my expression, feeling the heat of Hayden’s questioning glare digging into the side of my face.