My Fiancé Chose My Brother, So I Chose My Brother's Best Friend novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Nobody Knows

Estelle and Rhys agree that last night never happened, and she walks into a family that wants her to marry Spencer anyway; she refuses, loses her cards, and Hugh tells her his best friend is coming to dinner.

Rhys opened his eyes and looked at the phone in my hand.

I watched him read HUGH on the screen.

Then he looked at my face.

"Sam," he said slowly. "Is it Estelle?"

"It was Sam until about a minute ago."

He sat up. The sheet fell to his waist.

"I flew in from London last night. My plane sat on the runway for six hours. I never made the wedding." He rubbed his face. "Hugh sent me a photo of the bride in March. A blurry one, with a hat on."

"I never met you," I said. "I only knew you as Merc."

"No one has called me that in years except your brother."

The phone buzzed again in my hand.

I held it out to him.

He didn't take it.

"I'm not going to lie to him," Rhys said. "If he asks me straight, I won't."

"Then don't let him ask."

"Estelle."

"He told me to marry a man who was in bed with our brother, Rhys. He stood in the doorway and asked who else had seen." My voice cracked on the last word and I pushed on over it. "I can't handle him knowing this too. Not today."

Rhys looked at me for a long moment.

Then he thumbed the call to silent and set the phone face down.

"One night," he said. "Nobody knows."

"Nobody knows."

I took the dark sweater off the chair because my dress was a heap of silk I could never wear down a hotel corridor again.

I pulled it over my head.

It smelled like him.

"I'm sorry about the room," he said.

"Don't be."

I went out before he could say anything else, and I didn't look back, because if I did I wouldn't go.

My mother's house on Eighty-First Street smelled of lilies.

The wedding flowers had been delivered there and nobody had told the florist.

My mother stood in the front hall with her arms folded.

Hugh sat on the stairs with his phone in his hand.

Teddy sat on the bottom step with his knees pulled up to his chin.

Nobody said hello.

"Where have you been?" my mother asked.

"Out."

"You humiliated this family in front of three hundred people."

"Spencer humiliated me in front of nobody. He kept it private, which was kind of him."

"Estelle," Hugh said, tired and reasonable. "Sit down."

"I'll stand."

My mother looked at the sweater.

"Whose is that?"

"A friend's."

"You were with a man."

"I was with someone who didn't lie to me," I said. "That's more than I can say for anyone in this house."

Hugh stood up.

He walked down the stairs without hurrying and stopped an arm's length away.

"Spencer's father called at six this morning," he said. "The Lyles are willing to forgive this. Saturday, the courthouse, small. Spencer will apologize."

"Apologize for what? Teddy?"

At the sound of his name Teddy dropped his head onto his knees.

"For his indiscretion," my mother said. "And you will apologize for the scene in the ballroom."

"I'm not marrying him."

"You signed the contract."

"I signed an engagement. I did not sign my brother."

"Don't be crude," my mother snapped.

I heard the front door open behind me.

Spencer walked in with a bouquet of white roses and a face rehearsed in a car mirror.

His father came in behind him, a heavy man in a grey coat, and looked me over from the shoes up.

"Estelle," Spencer said. "Babe. I'm so sorry for everything."

"It meant nothing," his father added.

Spencer held out the roses.

"It meant nothing," Spencer agreed. "Teddy knows that."

I looked at Teddy.

He wouldn't look back.

I took the roses from Spencer's hand and dropped them into the umbrella stand.

"Get out of my mother's house," I said.

"It's not your mother's house," Spencer said, smiling. "It's Hugh's."

He was right.

Our father had left the house, the company and every vote to my brother.

I turned to Hugh.

"Tell him to go."

Hugh didn't say a word.

That was my answer.

My mother lifted her chin.

"Your cards will be closed by noon," she said. "Your office key as well. You can come back when you are ready to behave."

"You're closing my cards because I won't marry a man who sleeps with Teddy?"

"I'm closing them because you won't be reasonable."

I laughed.

It came out wrong and Teddy flinched again.

"Fine," I said. "Do it."

I went up the stairs for my bag.

Hugh caught my wrist on the landing, and for the first time he looked directly at me.

"Rhys is coming to dinner tonight," he said in a low voice. "I want you at that table, smiling. He's the capital behind this entire merger, and I'm not letting you ruin it in front of him."

My stomach dropped through the floor.

"Rhys," I said.

"My best friend. You'll like him."

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