The Scotch Series: The Complete Series (Scotch #1-3) - Penelope Sky Page 0,170

opened my wallet and pulled out some cash. “How much do I owe?”

“Shut up and eat.” He sat down and pulled out the two trays of food and chopsticks.

I opened mine and began to eat, unsure what to say to him. It was the first time we’d been alone since he dropped me off at the airport a month ago. We talked on the phone, so he knew I had a job and a fairly normal life. “This is good.”

“It’s awesome. I haven’t had Chinese in nearly a year.” He scarfed down his food, grabbing large chunks of food between those two small sticks.

I hadn’t had it in just as long.

“So, how are things going?”

“Good. I really like my new job. Everyone is nice.”

“That’s cool. Your friends are glad to have you back?”

“Yeah, but they walk on eggshells all the time, like if they say the wrong thing, I’ll lose my mind.”

He watched me as he chewed his chow mein, the stubble along his chin thick because he hadn’t shaved in a while. Joseph and I didn’t share a lot of characteristics, but we had the same eyes—green like our mother’s. “They’re just being sensitive. Can’t blame them for that.”

“I know. But no matter how many times I tell people I’m fine, they don’t believe me. They tell me I need therapy.”

“Therapy isn’t a bad idea.”

“I don’t need therapy,” I said coldly. “Crewe treated me well.”

He shook his head. “I’m not a therapist, and I can tell you have Stockholm syndrome.”

“I do not,” I snapped. “Crewe always gave me a choice. He never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. Everything between us was consensual.”

“Except your freedom.”

“Well…” I didn’t have an argument against that.

“The guy kidnapped you. End of story.”

“It’s not black and white, Joseph.” I stirred my food with my chopstick, suddenly losing my appetite. “I cared about Crewe. He cared about me. If I had the chance to talk to him about everything, he probably would have let me go.”

“Doubtful.”

“You don’t know him the way I do.”

“And I’m glad I don’t.”

I stared at my brother and felt my rage come to the surface. “I told you not to hurt anyone. I told you not to shoot Crewe.”

“His men fired first. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Because you were ambushing his castle with guns and tanks.”

He shook his head. “They still fired first. And I wasn’t planning on shooting Crewe until I looked at him… Then the anger took over.”

“He didn’t deserve that.”

“And I didn’t deserve to have my sister kidnapped for six months. You just lost your mind in the process.”

“I didn’t lose my mind, Joey. Crewe is a good man.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Have you heard anything about him?”

“What do you mean?”

“How’s he doing? Is he working again?” The doctor told me he would live. I just hoped that meant he would live a normal life.

“As far as I can tell, he’s back to normal. I haven’t seen him with my own eyes, but I hear he’s still running the scotch business with Ariel and taking care of his royal duties like the douchebag that he is.”

I shot him a glare. “Don’t talk about him like that.”

He met my fire with his own. “What the hell is wrong with you? He stole you from your bed in the middle of the night and kept you as a prisoner. As in, he broke international law. Why are you protecting him?”

Joseph would never understand. No one would ever understand. “It was more complicated than that. Crewe and I had a relationship…we were friends. We were close.” There were no words to describe what we had. I wasn’t even entirely sure what the two of us shared.

Joseph set down his chopsticks in the center of his food and looked at me, his expression hard. It was a stare he’d given me countless times as we were growing up. It usually meant he was pondering what he was about to say. “London…did you love this guy?”

I told Crewe I loved him, but I thought it was just an act. I was tricking him into caring about me, being an actress in a play. But maybe those words weren’t meaningless. Maybe I meant them from the bottom of my heart. “I…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he whispered. “The fact that your answer isn’t a simple no is concerning to me.”

“It’s concerning to me too.”

He’d hardly eaten his food, but he pushed it aside like he was finished with it. “London, I don’t