He’d been there for her, and she’d kind of known, deep in her heart, that he would always be there. She could count on Eric. And what she felt for him wasn’t casual or silly. It wasn’t easy.

It was terrifying and consuming and overwhelming. She wanted to run, she wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t.

She could only stand rooted to the spot as she fully realized that she didn’t just love Eric Wilde.

She was in love with him. And, maybe, just maybe, she’d been in love with him since she was fifteen years old.

“Piper?” Eric frowned at her. He’d moved to stand beside the bed, directly opposite of her. “You okay?”

No, her whole world was just doing a bit of realigning. “Fine.” She had to get a grip. Right now, the focus was on Ben. Her gaze swung back to him.

And she found him staring at her, and damn if his frown didn’t look a whole lot like his older brother’s.

“What’s going on?” Ben muttered. His gaze slid from her to Eric. “Bro?” Ben cleared his throat. “That guy…I swear, I remember him asking me some questions…about you. About Piper—”

Eric’s shoulders straightened. “He attacked you because he thought you were involved with Piper. Maybe that’s what Grady told him. Maybe the bastard tortured Grady until the guy gave him a name—the name of the man Piper was involved with. You told me that Grady suspected you two were more than friends.”

Piper let out a slow breath.

“But he went after the wrong brother,” Eric added grimly.

Silence.

No, there as a faint tick, tick, tick from the clock on the wall. A round clock with a big face and that ticking seemed to get louder and louder until—

“Want to run that shit by me again?” Ben demanded, voice even rougher than it had been a moment before.

Eric blew out a hard breath. “He went after the wrong brother.”

Ben’s gaze swung to her. She didn’t blush. Didn’t avoid his gaze. Just met his stare straight-on. This wasn’t how she would have preferred to tell him. She really would have preferred for her best friend not to be in a hospital bed, recovering from stab wounds and a concussion. And a broken nose—he hadn’t seemed to realize that his nose was bandaged up yet. She wasn’t going to point out that particular bit of news to him. He’d always been a little bit vain about his perfectly straight nose. Eric’s nose had gotten broken in a basketball game once. It had the smallest of bumps on the ridge. She’d never told Eric that she liked that little bump—

“Piper, you’re sleeping with my brother?”