Shopping for a CEO's Fiancée

But I’m not dating.

At least, I don’t think I’m dating. I’m with Amanda, but the definition of with is as slippery as Bill Clinton’s is.

Damn it. I need to talk to Declan.

And the fact that I need to talk to him makes me seethe.

Seeing Terry in Vegas was a reminder, a nagging pull. Amanda set up that crazy hotel scenario two years ago to get Declan and Shannon back together. She barged into my office to demand compliance and walked out of it with my heart. I just didn’t know it.

Terry was part of the scheme, and thinking back, I didn’t question his presence. Amanda may damn well have been the first person other than Grace to get me, Dad, Declan and Terry to do something together.

Another reason she’s amazing.

Terry never answers his cell phone. I know he has one—has had the same phone number since the late 1990s. He’s called me a handful of times over the years, but he never answers when I call. Same for Dad and Dec. It dumps to voicemail. I don’t understand my biggest brother, but I’m about to turn to him.

I knock on his front door. All of my limos are SUVs now, to be less conspicuous, and Gerald’s waiting in the road. The duplex is pretty shabby, but my sense of “nice” in a neighborhood like this is skewed. Who chooses to live in a condo without a doorman and an indoor pool?

I knock again. I know Terry.

I call again, and this time, a deep bass answers the phone, like someone plucked a string on an electric instrument. “Hello?”

“Terry. It’s Andrew.”

“I’ll be right down.”

The phone disconnects and I hear thump thump thump. I don’t even know if he lives upstairs or downstairs, or how this building works.

I know so little about him.

The door flies open and I’m face-to-face with him, looking down slightly. He’s covered in little smears of colored paint, his hair streaked with occasional long strands of grey, and he hasn’t shaved in forever.

Wild brown eyes meet mine.

“What’s wrong? Is it Dad or Dec?”

“What?” I slide a hand into the front pocket of my suit trousers and hold my clenched fist in there. “What are you talking about?” My other hand holds a bottle of Terry’s favorite wine. At least, Grace told me it’s his favorite.

Terry’s breathing hard, looking like someone who just sprinted across a basketball court. “Did something go wrong with Dad? Is Declan hurt?” He’s always had this crazy-deep voice, something I envied when I was an awkward teen who hadn’t gone through puberty yet, when I was all paws and gangly limbs but could still qualify for the Vienna Boys’ Choir.

“Why would you think that?” I ask slowly.

“Andrew,” he says, the single word ringing out like a low gong. “You’ve never been to my place. Ever.”

“I was here,” I protest. “To see that tribute painting to Mom.”

He frowns. “That was eleven years ago. You couldn’t grow a mustache back then.”

I resist the urge to touch my chin in protest. “Right. But I was here.”

His eye roll is epic. Ah. There it is.

The resemblance to Declan.

“No one’s hurt?”

“No. I tried to call. It went to voicemail.” Like it always does.

He grimaces. “You’re here because….?”

I hold out the bottle of wine, wrapped in a handmade fabric sleeve with a handle. “To get to know my brother better.”

His eyes narrow and he chuckles. It feels like boulders rolling down a mountain.

“I’ll take the wine, and come on in, but you’re setting off all my Stranger Danger alarms.”

The scent of old wood and fresh paint fills the air as I follow Terry up a set of gleaming, varnished stairs. The window at the top of the landing is stained glass, a modern abstract combination of colors I didn’t know glass could hold, vibrant reds and near-neon greens. Another short set of stairs and we’re in an open, loft-like room with a kitchen set-up against one wall, the ceiling soaring to a tall inverted V, support beams crossing the entire room. Dried herbs and various stained glass ornaments hang from all the beams, many of them containing lights.

And the furniture is, well…what the hell is this?

Terry goes to the kitchen—if you can call it that, with speckled granite counters atop wide barn-wood cabinets, the length of the fridge, oven, sink and dishwasher about the size of one of Dad’s limos—and searches through the drawers for a corkscrew.

“Have a seat,” he says.

I look at the furniture.

“Where?”

His laugh rumbles again, like stones in a clothes dryer.

His living room is one wide-open space, with an easel and a workbench by an enormous window at the peak of the front of the house. Three huge area rugs cover the floor in primary colors, thick shag. Red, blue, and yellow.

And surrounding those carpets are beanbags.

That’s right.

Beanbags.

“You run an unlicensed day care center from your home, Terry? Is that how you supplement your income? I know you can’t live off the money from Mom’s family trust alone.”

He snorts. “Of course I can. It’s more than triple the average income in the United States, Andrew.”

I know damn well how much it is, and I also know you can’t live on that amount. It wouldn’t even cover the mortgage on my condo in the Seaport District.

If I had a mortgage.

“What’s with the beanbags?”

“Sit before you judge.”

“I’m not judging.”