I Slept With My Fiancé's Hot Uncle novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Guest of Honor's Brother

Brooke does Keeva's makeup and lies sweetly; at the lunch Russell announces his long-exiled brother, and Costa walks in as Nigel's uncle.

Brooke was waiting in our suite with a garment bag and a coffee for me.

"There you are!" she said. "Your dad's been pacing for an hour."

She hugged me hard, and she smelled like the vanilla perfume I had given her last Christmas.

I stood in that hug and didn't move my arms.

I had known her for twelve years.

She had held my hair back at sixteen, driven four hours to my mother's funeral, and told me Nigel was the kind of man who didn't come along twice.

"You look tired," she said, pulling back. "Did you sleep?"

"Not much."

"Nerves." She squeezed my arms. "Sit. I'll do your makeup."

I sat.

She worked with the brush in small, practiced strokes, humming, and in the mirror her face was kind.

That was the worst part.

If she had looked guilty, I could have hated her cleanly.

"You're so lucky, you know," she said. "He loves you so much."

"Does he?"

"Keeva." She laughed. "He talks about you all the time."

I looked at her in the mirror.

She did not blink.

My father came out of the bedroom in his one good suit, with his tie crooked.

My father, Eugene Coombs, is fifty-eight and has been fixing other people's leaks for forty years.

He looked at me, and he was afraid.

"Honey, you ready?"

"Dad, sit down a minute."

"We don't have time."

"I need you to listen. When this lunch is over, whatever Russell says, I want you to trust me."

He took my hand, and his was shaking.

"Keeva, if there's something wrong, you tell me after. Not here. Please."

I nodded.

I couldn't make myself promise.

The ballroom was full by noon.

White roses on every table, a string quartet in the corner, and two hundred people in linen, all of them watching me cross the floor.

Nigel met me at the bottom of the stairs.

He kissed my cheek, and his lips were dry and warm.

"You look unreal," he said.

"Thank you," I said. "You look rested."

"I slept like a baby."

I smiled at him.

He smiled back.

Brooke touched his elbow, gave him a little nod, and went to find her seat.

I watched her cross the room in her pale blue dress, and I watched her not look at him.

They were good.

They had been good for a long time.

Russell Pickering stood at the head table, silver-haired and straight-backed, and tapped a spoon against his glass.

The room settled.

"Thank you all for coming to celebrate my son and his bride," he said.

He had a voice that made people lean in.

"Family is the whole point," he said. "A man builds a house for them. A man would do anything to keep them under it."

He looked right at my father when he said it.

My father looked at his plate.

"And I have a surprise," Russell said. "Someone who couldn't be here for a very long time. My younger brother, home for the first time in six years."

A murmur ran through the room.

I saw Nigel's head turn.

"I told him he'd be welcome," Russell said, lifting his glass. "Please, rise for my brother. Costa!"

The doors at the back of the ballroom opened.

I turned in my chair.

A man stood in the doorway in a charcoal suit, tall and dark, with gray at his temples.

I knew the width of those shoulders.

I knew exactly how his mouth had felt on my neck eight hours ago.

I felt sick.

Costa walked down the aisle between the tables without hurrying.

He did not look at me.

He walked straight to Russell, who put a hand on his shoulder and held it there.

"My brother," Russell said. "Nigel's uncle."

Nigel leaned toward me and whispered, delighted, "Dad swore he'd never speak to him again. Look at that. He came for us."

I couldn't answer.

Costa turned to face the room.

Then, for one moment, his eyes found mine across the roses.

He did not look surprised.

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