not be as physical as theirs, but he was still up at four, in the office by six, and after that it was in back-to-back meetings until dinner, schmoozing potential investment partners until he got home and fell asleep reading emails in bed at around midnight.
“Hard work has never scared me,” Will said.
“Great,” Weston said with a curt nod. “We’ll start in the morning. Be ready by dawn, and we’ll take you out on snipe patrol.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Hadley glaring at her brothers. Of course she didn’t want him to win their sorta bet that her family would fall in love with him. Well, she was going to have to get used to losing on that front, too, because Will always won—no matter what.
Stephanie cleared her throat, silencing everyone at the table. “Not tomorrow, I’m going to need Hadley and Will to go on down and get PawPaw for the wedding festivities.”
Was that a dog? A peg-legged possum? He was about to ask a follow-up question when he noticed Hadley’s glare had transformed into a shit-eating grin that would look perfectly in place on a lottery winner’s face.
“You don’t mind coming with me to get my granddad, right?” she asked. “For some fun family togetherness?”
The sweetness in her tone should have warned him about the trouble ahead, but the always-needs-to-know-the-answer part of his brain had just taken a hit of that’s-the-answer dopamine. “No problem—anything for you.”
“So sweet,” Hadley said, resting her head on his shoulder and really playing up the fake-girlfriend role. “It’s only a three-hour drive down there, so we should be fine to leave in the morning and be back home by dinner.”
Fuck me.
She got him. Again. There was no way to back out of it now without admitting weakness—a definite not-gonna-happen if there had ever been one. He’d concede this battle to her, but she’d better enjoy this victory while she could, because it was going to be her last one.
And that determination made it all the way through dinner, toasts to the bride-to-be, and Adalyn’s favorite dessert—s’mores over the firepit. However, as soon as they got back to the cabin and he saw Hadley’s shoulders slump at the sight of the chair she’d napped in, he gave in—for strategic purposes, of course. It was smart to keep your competition off-kilter by throwing some no-strings-attached free will every once in a while.
“You can have the pull-out.”
Now, this was where she’d feign protest for politeness’s sake—that fake generosity would be the smart move for someone trying to slyly move in on his brother for all the dollars in his bank account.
Hadley didn’t even hesitate before grabbing ahold of her suitcase and rolling it behind her as she walked down the short hall toward the bathroom. “We’ll take turns. Me tonight, you tomorrow when we get back from driving PawPaw home.”
With her, it was always what he didn’t expect. Just like how she’d managed to get him to agree to another gut-wrenching drive. “You set me up with that.”
“I did,” she said, glancing over her shoulder and winking at him.
Will was in a pair of sleep pants and brushing his teeth over the kitchen sink when Hadley sauntered back into the living room in a silky red tank top and matching shorts trimmed in lace. Most of his blood went south before the realization settled in that she’d packed those pajamas thinking it would be his brother who’d see them.
A good man would have pulled himself back from the edge and remembered a gold digger played the long con. He recalled that last bit all right, but he was still balancing right there on the edge of lust and loathing without a clue which side to fall on, while he watched her set up the fold-out bed and slip between the sheets already on it and promptly closing her eyes without ever looking his way or uttering a single good night. He would have thought he would have gotten his ability to breathe back again, but no.
“You gonna turn out the light?” she asked in a bored tone, “or are you just standing there in the kitchen with a mouth full of toothpaste and staring at me while I’m sleeping—because that’s not creepy at all.”
Face hot at getting caught, he swallowed the toothpaste without thinking. It tasted like mint-flavored poor choices. “I’ll be done in a second.”
She didn’t answer, just rolled over and tucked the sheet up high under her chin. By the