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Alexis was in her house looking over everything for the last time, engraving on her memory what the house looked like before Henry and all his support team worked their magic to fix it up for her and her children.
She didn’t know how to thank Henry for all he was doing for her. She was emotional, hopeful, happy.
Floyd could not believe the luck they were having.
The twins had a week of hyper-activity from the excitement at the thought of having a new home.
That house now had walls full of damp, which had worn out, eaten-away pipes. A noble old woman of a house that deserved to be taken care of.
Alexis knew she couldn’t do what Henry would, not then, nor in the near future and she doubted that even in the distant future would she be in a position to make a similar investment with her own money.
Unless she won the lottery, obviously. It was impossible to win though, because she didn’t even get as far as buying a ticket and trying her luck.
Since Henry had explained the proposal to her, she had thought about it a lot, turning it over and over in her mind. Then she had stopped being silly and given Henry an answer.
An affirmative one, of course.
She had let Bonnie know on the girls’ outing that they’d had, and she supposed that she might have let something slip to her father, but no. The girl had kept the conversation from that outing suspiciously secret and Alexis realized that she was bonding with her.
Henry was happy with her answer and assured her that she wouldn’t regret it, that everything would turn out fine.
They would be staying in the house next to Henry’s for those weeks.
Alexis brought up the payment of rent but after seeing the man’s angry face after her comment, she gave up on the idea and instead pressed him to let her design the property’s garden without him needing to pay a cent.
He just limited himself to a brief ‘mmm hmm’, which made it clear that she wouldn’t be contributing any more than her opinion, and if she wanted, her commitment to the garden.
She would do it, how could she not? Henry was treating them like no one ever had before, so she felt she ought to return the favor in some way.
It was a hectic week. Between work, picking up things for the move, for the remodel, and getting everything ready.
The kids, the community work at the school that Principal Martin had increased, deciding that between all of them, they should organize the prom.
Which meant she had to see, and speak to, Bethany more frequently, who that week was punishing her with the whip of indifference as she enveloped Henry in hypocritical flattery and macabre interest. He was having great fun playing along with the woman.
Alexis couldn’t understand how he did it because it turned her stomach just thinking about it.
Henry told her that it was better for him to play along than to go against her. In the end, he always ended up doing what he wanted to do. He had learned it with his mother, although sometimes it was hard for him to get away with it when it came to his mother.
She didn’t doubt it.
That week she had also had the bad luck of running into Mrs. Price and she had had to explain to her, again and with a more bitter edge to her voice than the first time, that there was nothing going on between Henry and her. They were just friends.
Of course, she hadn’t been satisfied with that reply and the rest of the time they were together in Henry’s house, the way Mrs. Price had looked at her made it very clear what she thought.
That she was a complete disaster, but perhaps what she thought was not the problem.
No. Alexis’s problem was that what Mrs. Price thought was true, and she couldn’t see a simple solution for her disaster of a life.
Henry was putting things in order a little but that didn’t change the lack of money, how little her children followed instructions, the guilt she always carried around for wanting to be a better mother to her children and not knowing how.
She hoped that the decision to let Henry and his associates do the charity project on her home would serve to expiate the guilt that she always carried.
It would give her children a better home. That had to count for something. Didn’t it?
She had a hard time thinking about what she wanted to take from the house. It was even harder to get rid of her old furniture. That secondhand furniture that she had fixed with her bare hands after rescuing it from the trash of someone who had decided they didn’t want it anymore.
Henry talked about repairing the house’s structure and then he’d gotten it into his head that he’d also finish off by decorating. She’d wanted to stop him, but the man told her not to refuse, to think of the kids. And he gave her a look that in that moment turned Alexis to Jell-O.
A strange sensation she had never felt with anyone before. Well, with her kids, yes. But of course, this was a different version.
The kids melted her, but without the tremors. It was something so strange that she didn’t even want to think about it, she chalked it all up to the emotions she was going through that week. The anxiety about the move and about the newness they would find in the place that they now called home.
A before and an after.
She had the feeling that her life and the lives of her children would change from this moment on.
Her heart definitely harbored hope and after a week of once more engraving on her mind every corner of the home that belonged to her, packing the few things she had and collecting the few things of her children, she arrived with them at the temporary house and they moved in in one day.
Henry’s second house was gorgeous. Roomy and with a lot of natural light, something which Alexis adored and which her old home didn’t have.
Would the new one?
She smiled, thinking of all the questions she couldn’t stop asking herself.
What material would the flooring be?
Would the house still cover the same space?
Would they destroy her garden?
The kids also drove her crazy with questions that she knew they were also asking Henry, and what he did, instead of answering them, was to inquire more about what they wanted and what she would like.
In embarrassment, Alexis stopped telling him things when she rumbled his game.
What was he doing with her house?
She didn’t want anything luxurious, nothing enormous, and she had let him know when she accepted his offer.
Was he complying with her requests?
And the unavoidable question was: would she like what she saw?
Would she like the finished job?
Of course, she had no right to be demanding because she wasn’t putting in a cent, and the only thing she could be was very grateful for what they were doing for her and her children.
She was. More than grateful, in fact. Even so, the question never left her mind.
She suspected that it would all turn out fine. Henry didn’t seem to have bad taste. Although she hadn’t said anything to anyone, she had checked out his associates to find out whom he was dealing with, and the properties that they had for sale and those that they had built, were beautiful.
She had to find a way to disconnect from those thoughts because there were still a few weeks ahead before she could see the final result of the work. It would be masochism to keep thinking every hour, every day, about how the house would turn out, if she would like it, if the kids would like it, if the garden would be alright.
The garden.
Her eyes settled on the garden of Henry’s house, which she now occupied with Floyd and the twins and then had her first idea for that garden, which was small in comparison with Henry’s. It looked cozy.
Her vision for the gardens or green areas of homes was not exactly elegant or modern.
No.
Alexis believed that in a home, those spaces were special. A connection with nature on hand every day, to be enjoyed with a pleasant cup of tea, an afternoon playing with the children or a weekend picnic when money won’t stretch to anything further.
She smiled again thinking of the adventures that she and the children had had.
She took a sip of coffee and noted down what she would need to start to make that green space look different.
The front door opened, and she looked up.
Henry had taken all the children to school that morning because Alexis had taken some vacation days and he had told her that during those days, he would take them to school and she should pick them up because he would be busy overseeing the remodel at her house.
Could she refuse after all that Henry had done for her? No. So she accepted with no problem.
Henry warned her that his brother, Finn, had to finish painting the living room in the house she was in now, but who knew when he would do it because Finn was special, and he did what he liked.
The truth was Alexis had not formed a good image of Finn in her mind. However, that all changed when he was standing in front of her and he smiled sincerely and happily at her.
“You must be the girl from the charity project?” He asked curiously.
“And you must be Finn.” She replied, causing him to narrow his eyes.
“I don’t want to know what the great Henry told you about me.”
Alexis, who had been left dazzled by Finn’s charming smile, blinked a couple of times, trying to break the spell that she knew she was trapped under, in order to respond. It didn’t work, and he had realized.
So, he widened his smile because he knew it was his weapon in seducing women.
He was similar to Henry in height, though he was thinner. The deep, husky voice suited that rugged look of a just woken up, sexy man you don’t want to let get away.
He had a good tan, by the way.
And a decent butt.
She scrutinized it when he turned to the side and saw how pronounced the curve of his lower back was in the exact moment that he lifted his shirt to take it off and start his work painting the living room.
Alexis swallowed thickly and felt a heat that made her shiver.
How did this man have so much allure over her?
She blinked again and he looked at her now with delight.
“Are you alright?”
“Perfectly,” she replied, trying not to give herself away although she suspected that Finn was able to read even her most hidden thoughts. “I need to go out to do some shopping. I’ll see you later,” she said simply and almost ran out of the house wondering what the hell was going on with her. She demanded that these thoughts in her head about Finn stopped now, because he was Henry’s brother, and Henry was her friend, the friend who was helping her have a better life.
Moreover, she couldn’t forget that she shouldn’t be interested in any man.
She had decided that years ago and nothing could change that part of her life.
Nothing. Not even Finn’s butt or his magical smile.
***
Finn had painted two walls in the living room when he decided it was time to take a break in the garden and smoke a cigarette in peace. Maybe he would have a beer too.
He opened the refrigerator of the house where he was working, and he didn’t find any beers. Actually, he found very little inside and he wondered what the hell the woman and her kids lived on if the refrigerator was almost empty.
She was hot, he couldn’t deny it; although he found her simple compared to the kind of woman that he liked.
He knew he had conquered her with his lethal woman hook.
His smile. Yes, a soap-opera cliché but it had served him well all these years to get the girls into bed without making problems later. And that’s how he lived the life he’d always dreamed of, with no obligations and no ties.
And if the smile didn’t come through, well he let her see that ass he had, and her mind went foggy immediately, leaving her open to his manipulations.
Yes, yes, pure cliché, but who cared if it worked.
He took a drag on the cigarette while he crossed the space between the property his brother rented out and the one where he lived with his daughter, Bonnie, entering the latter by the back door, which as rule stayed open.
He was heading straight to get a beer from the refrigerator when he heard his brother’s truck in front of the garage door.
He went out into the garden, almost running so that the great Henry wouldn’t give him a ticking-off for smoking in the house. He uncapped the bottle with the first thing he found handy that would do as a bottle-opener and drank it in one long swallow.
It was a hot day.
As hot as his body thinking about the meeting it would be having later that same day with the woman who’d been driving him crazy for a few months.
Since he had started working there as a gardener and had seen her for the first time in the pool, he had felt a tension in his crotch strong enough to impel him to seduce her and take her to bed in her guesthouse.
Something which had already become routine and for which gardening was still the cover.
Actually, he was going there to water and pamper the woman neglected by her husband and who was turned on by all his clichés.
A woman he somehow didn’t know how to detach himself from and he knew it was because he liked her more than he realized. However, he took it in stride because he knew there was nothing she could do to change his status as her lover.
She would never leave her husband and her fantastic life for him who had nothing and didn’t even intend to do anything because his parents did it all for him, and life was pretty good like that.
It wasn’t perfect... But what was?
Exactly.
The door opened and he smirked at his brother while he blew the smoke out of his nose like a raging bull.
“How many times have I told you not to smoke inside?”
“I’m outside.”
“Yeah, with a beer from my refrigerator in your hands and your trail of smoke up to here. It’s disgusting, for Christ’s sake,” Henry frowned at him, as usual, it seemed like he hated him. “Are you taking a break after arriving at work a half hour ago?”
“I didn’t arrive a half hour ago and I’m almost finished painting the living room. Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow,” Henry’s ears reddened, which made Finn keep adding the indignation to his perfect brother’s day. “And I had to take a beer from your house because the girl,” he motioned to the rental property, “doesn’t have any in her refrigerator. In fact, she doesn’t have much in there at all.”
Finn was accomplishing his aim, seeing the red glow on Henry’s face.
“Don’t even think about touching anything over there and do your damn job because I’ll fire you if you don’t.”
Finn snorted, pleased.
“You know you won’t because then you’ll have to see Mom.”
“You have a signed contract, Finn. Don’t test me.”
“I’m your brother.”
“Exactly, my brother. Not my damn unending charity project.”
“Ah! But a stranger can be?”
Henry pinched the bridge of his nose and Finn told himself to dial down the attack because the next thing he knew Henry would be dealing him a couple of blows as had happened years before when Finn had wanted to take some liberties in the company his brother ran.
Well, one of the many times.
It amused him and just that one time, Henry had knocked him flat because the truth was, he had crossed all lines. He knew it. Henry had been going through a rough time with Jenny’s death and he couldn’t control his emotions.
“Anyway...” Finn tried to cut it short by throwing out a question he had no idea was going to annoy his brother so much: “You don’t like her, do you? The girl? What’s her name? She didn’t say.”
Henry looked up and his eyes found Finn’s.
They flashed.
What was going on with Henry?
He went up to him and spoke through his teeth threateningly, like a rabid dog.
“She’s called Alexis, Finn, and I’m going to demand that you stay away from her.”
Finn gave another snort, amused and ironic.
“Are you her father? Because she seems old enough to me not to have you demanding things for her. Unless, of course, you’ve got her in your bed,” he moved closer to his brother, challengingly. “If that’s not the case, I’d like to get to know her. She’s pretty and she seems nice.”
Henry closed his eyes again and breathed deeply.
“I’m going to forget you are my brother if you hurt her or those kids. Is that clear?”
“Do you like her?”
Henry blinked a couple of times and Finn smiled sarcastically. He was doubting his feelings and it showed in his face.
“No. I don’t like her. She’s a good woman and I only want her to have a bit of peace in the hard life that she’s had.”
Henry turned around and walked towards the house with his fists clenched.
Finn finished his cigarette and threw the butt into the garden without any qualms.
He ground it underfoot and then smiled spitefully because he thought it would be fun to take the woman his brother liked away from him.
He’d never done it before because he’d never had the chance with Jenny, but now...
Who could stop him?
***
Henry watched his brother walk away.
Idiot, he thought.
He opened the refrigerator to take out a beer and realized that the idiot had drunk the last one.
He picked up the car keys to go to the supermarket and buy more.
He would also buy some things that he needed at home and use the opportunity to buy some steaks as he liked to barbecue them for dinner.
Bonnie would love them and maybe Alexis and the boys could join them.
Now that they were neighbors, there was nothing wrong with sharing a barbecue, was there?
But it was true what his idiot of a brother had told him about the contents of Alexis’s refrigerator.
What if she needed money for food?
He shook his head. It didn’t seem like Alexis, surely it was just that with the move and everything, she hadn’t bought groceries for the week. She was a very responsible woman and she wouldn’t let her kids go hungry.
The barbecue would let them talk about that a little more. Also, he had to warn her about Finn, because his brother was unstable in all areas of life and he changed his women like his underwear. A new one every day.
Same attitude with money; with life in general.
He slammed the door as he left and saw that Alexis was arriving home next door. The woman parked, got out of the car, and showed him a smile.
He was unaware that he was frowning at her, hands on his hips.
“Something wrong?” She moved a bit closer to him.
“No.”
“You don’t look good. Is it the house? Henry, if it’s too much of a problem, we’ll leave it as it is and...”
He breathed deeply and tried and to calm down.
Why did he have to behave like a caveman when he thought that Finn might get close to Alexis?
What’s more, she was an intelligent woman and she would realize straight away what kind of man his brother was, and why he wanted to get close to her.
Still, he felt obligated to warn her.
“Really, Henry, it doesn’t matter if...” Alexis looked really worried.
“No,” he interrupted, “excuse my attitude. I’m in a hurry now but we could talk better over dinner. I was thinking about a barbecue with the kids, my body’s crying out for a good steak. My daughter’s too, she said so last night,” he smiled at Alexis, a little calmer. “What do you say? Barbecue to get out of cooking for the kids?”
The door of the woman’s temporary home opened and out came Finn smiling his characteristic sarcastic smile.
“Barbecue? At your place?” He looked at Alexis with interest and Henry felt a sudden pang in his chest. “I’d love to come. Is around six OK?”
Alexis smiled warmly at Finn, who was watching her lips and Henry felt like he was burning up inside.
What the fuck was happening to him?
Alexis turned back to face him.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yes,” he muttered, and looked threateningly at Finn. “You don’t have anything else to do tonight?”
The younger Price brother pulled his lips down into a frown and shook his head, pretending to think.
Alexis looked Henry in the eyes again, and he read her look so well it scared him.
She wanted Finn to be there.
So, she liked him.
All his alarm bells sounded; it was urgent that he warned her about Finn.
“If you dare come empty-handed, I swear I’ll chop you up myself and throw you on the grill. Is that clear?”
Finn smiled in amusement and victory.
“I’ll do what I can.”
The girl turned around and smiled nervously at Finn, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. They said something that Henry couldn’t understand because of the strange ringing in his ears, blocking out sound.
This looked worse than he had thought.
Finn and his smile had already had an effect on Alexis, just like on the thousands of girls that had passed through his brother’s arms in the past.
The difference was that Alexis wasn’t like the other women and she didn’t deserve a man like Finn.
***
“Are you going to give us a swimming pool at home?” Dylan interrogated Henry, who marinated the meat to put it on the grill.
Toby looked at him expectantly, with the glow of excitement in his eyes. And yes, if it was up to him he would have built them a pool, but he didn’t want to abuse the trust that Alexis had placed in him in allowing him to bring a little happiness into her life.
He understood that she didn’t know how to trust people, and the few times that she had tried it hadn’t worked out. So, he didn’t want to make her feel more embarrassed than he knew she already was for not being able to pay herself for everything he would start doing in her house that week.
The permits were delayed a while because Henry’s associates hadn’t been expecting the charity project to be carried out so soon.
Henry didn’t want to wait to get them because he knew that that time could cause Alexis to change her mind and not let him work on her house.
He saw she was determined to move forward, but there was always the possibility that she would take a step back.
He didn’t really understand what was going on with her and why he felt an overwhelming need to help her.
He wanted to see her smile and free from worries.
Maybe it was because he would have liked for someone to have done the same with his darling Jenny if he had been the one to have died and she had had to take charge of everything, without having her own company or a house.
From his point of view, Alexis deserved it. And he, without knowing why yet, wanted to take the credit for changing the lives of this woman and these children.
He had tricked her a little regarding the remodel but she had let him know, from day one, that she was a smart girl and she had suspected that she might find something like this... Something different than what he had suggested as repairs to the house’s structure.
You could say that he had been honest but that he hadn’t completed the sentence: Repairs to the house’s structure... With repairs to the interior too.
He had an entire team assigned to the reconstruction and decoration of Alexis and the children’s new home.
They would like it. What was on the plans and design sketches allowed for a lot of natural light, wide and welcoming spaces, a strong roof that would always protect them, and a completely new structure.
That morning, studying the structure of the house in depth with a special team, he had decided that it would be much easier for them to pull everything down and put up a new structure on the old foundation. Less money, definitely. It would take longer which made Henry a little uncomfortable because he had told Alexis that she could be in her new home in a month.
However, everything he talked about that day with the experts in each field, had resulted in longer projected timeframes to complete the work and it was something he had to tell her.
“Will there be a pool or not?” Asked his brother, breaking his ideas, thoughts and plans into a thousand pieces. Just the sound of his voice was enough to sour the moment and Finn had been breaking records that day in souring his existence since midday.
Since he had arrived at his house and mentioned that he wanted to go out with Alexis.
Since she had seemed to like talking to him.
Alexis was preparing the salad with Finn and she looked at him worriedly.
“You’ve been really weird today, and I hope there’s not a pool.”
Her eyes said so many things that day.
Had they always been like that?
He couldn’t remember the times before when he’d been in front of her.
“No. There won’t be a pool and I’m weird because there’s been a change of plans regarding the house.”
Alexis dropped everything and stood before him, eyes enquiring, arms crossed in front of her chest.
“Explain.”
The twins looked at her with worry.
He felt like he was being interrogated by the CIA.
“Well, you see,” he turned his back on Alexis and started placing the steaks on the grill while they spoke, “it’s simple, but complicated, because we had thought one thing, and now it turns out that another...”
“Dad, quit beating around the bush.”
He closed his eyes and wished that Bonnie would keep her mouth shut sometimes.
He placed all the steaks on the grill and closed the lid.
He turned around to face Alexis.
“Look, I know I told you you would be here about four weeks...”
“There’s a complication and it’ll be longer.”
Henry nodded.
“Henry! I thought you were going to tell me something worse,” now she put her hands on her hips. “Can you stop acting so strangely?”
“He’s nervous,” intervened Finn and Henry looked daggers at him.
“Why?” Asked Bonnie with interest.
“Because this morning I asked him if Alexis was going out with him.”
Everyone laughed except Henry, who remained serious, looking at his brother angrily, while the other taunted him with his gaze.
“I’m getting tired of this supposition from your family about our relationship, which is just friendly,” Alexis looked at him genuinely amused and then turned to Finn. “Your mother is obsessed that Henry and I... You know...” She looked around to indicate that she wouldn’t state things more clearly because there were children there with them.
Finn’s face and smile changed when directed at her, and Henry felt his blood boil.
How was he so skilled in manipulation?
“Well I’m glad that’s clear because I have to confess I’ve thought you were very attractive since I saw you this morning, and the truth is I’d like to get to know you better,” Finn let these words escape in a whisper close to Alexis.
She smiled bashfully and looked down to hide that she was blushing.
Henry knew everything that was happening around him, and although he didn’t move an inch his face still contracted in disgust at his brother.
Alexis instantly understood that something wasn’t right between them, and from the little that she had talked with Finn that day and from what she’d learned in her time getting to know Henry, which though not long, had allowed her to come to know him well, she understood that they were very different.
The life goals of one and the other were polar opposites.
And yes, Finn was very attractive to her. However, she couldn’t get involved with anyone at this point in her life.
“For me, it would be nice if we could just be friends, Finn. I’m not interested in romance at this point in my life,” she looked at him and regretted it because he showed her that charming little smile he had that seemed to seduce her completely.
“Well, I can accept that for now.”
Henry listened to every word of the exchange between his brother and Alexis, and heard a growl escaping from his throat.
He was glad that no one else seemed to notice it because he was behaving totally irrationally.
He had listened to Alexis. She wasn’t looking for romance in her life, not with Finn nor with anyone.
If his mission was to protect her from Finn, well he could relax already.
He clenched his fists and felt another spontaneous growl escape and this time, Finn did notice and gave him a look that showed he knew what it meant.
A woman’s rejection of Finn became a challenge to him that wasn’t over until he got her naked and into bed.
“I’ll help you serve the food,” Alexis placed a hand on Henry’s arm feeling the built-up tension in his muscles.
Henry nodded, not losing sight of his brother, keeping him as busy as possible and as far as he could from Alexis.
And that is what he’d do from that day on to protect her.
Another growl escaped from inside him and Alexis looked at him, confused.
“I’m OK. Just hungry. Come on.”
***
Alexis watched Henry in silence.
The twins helped Floyd and Bonnie to clear everything up and wash the dishes in the kitchen while Henry’s gaze was lost in the dark blue of the night and he sighed continually.
“Are you going to tell me what’s really wrong or do I have to make up a story in my head?”
Henry laughed easily, Alexis’s questions and wisecracks always brought out a smile.
“I’m worried my brother likes you.”
Alexis looked at him doubtfully and sarcastically.
“Seriously?”
“Very.”
“I’m not a little girl, Henry, and I know how to handle myself with men like Finn.”
Henry shook his head. She had no idea what she was saying.
Alexis knew that Henry meant well. However, he seemed a little over the top.
“Finn is not a good catch, Alexis,” he sighed and looked her in the eyes with such intensity that the woman felt her body temperature rise. “He doesn’t like obligations, responsibilities, ties; and your life brings a little of all that. I know what my brother is like and I know how he works with women.”
“I’ve dealt with men like him, Henry.”
Alexis wasn’t being clued in to anything new.
She liked Finn and knew the risks that came with being with a man like that.
Which is why she had insinuated, earlier that same night, that she preferred to be friends.
As she preferred to be friends with all the men who got close to her.
Of course, none stuck around.
With the exception of Henry, who was clear in his intentions towards her.
He wasn’t the least bit interested in her as a woman and for that reason he behaved towards her as a very good friend.
Anyway, nothing was perfect in life.
She sighed.
“Maybe it’s what I need in my life.”
“What?”
She blinked and realized that she was thinking out loud. She didn’t take it back or apologize. She felt she had enough trust with Henry to speak loud and clear.
It was one of the reasons she had felt so comfortable being with him since they had met.
“I was thinking out loud,” she said as an excuse. He paid her the necessary attention, frowning again, as if he hadn’t liked her comment. “I think what I perhaps need is a little adventure in my life. Sometimes I think distancing myself from men like Finn is the right thing to do because I don’t want more complications than the ones I have,” she saw Henry scrutinizing her as if he thought it was strange that she would think this way, “but what if this is what I need to let my hair down a little?”
Henry’s frown deepened.
“Why does that bother you so much?”
“Because Finn always gets his way and you’ll end up giving in.”
“He’s your brother, Henry. Even if I wanted to start letting my hair down and having a fling with someone, it wouldn’t be him. I can’t deny that I find him attractive, but I think the right thing is to not get involved with him.”
Henry blew out air.
She noticed, uncomfortable.
“You don’t like that either?” She asked calmly, and he shook his head. He moved his legs fretfully, as if he had a nervous tic. “I consider you a good friend, Henry. I’d say you wear the ‘Best Friend’ ribbon in my life, you’re maybe the only one I’ve had in a long time or my whole life even,” she said thoughtfully, and he smiled, “I’m not going to ruin our friendship to have a fling with your brother.”
“I wouldn’t change anything between us. What I don’t want is for you to get hurt.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, don’t worry.”
He nodded and then there was a silence between them. The kids had sat down in front of the TV in the living room.
Henry sighed again and turned his face towards hers.
“To be honest, I’d prefer nothing happened between you, but who am I to stop either of you? I’m being overprotective with you and I think I’m exaggerating.”
“A little,” she said happily.
Henry shook his head and smiled, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m looking out for you,” he nodded, maintaining the intense stare with which he had been looking at her that night, “and truly, whatever ever happens with you two, you can relax because it won’t change anything between us.”
Alexis knocked the neck of her bottle against Henry’s in a toast to his words.
Now it was her turn to let a sigh escape, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw how Henry was studying her.
She didn’t want to look at him again because then it would be obvious.
She would avoid a fling with his brother at all costs, but the truth was she liked the man and she wasn’t very sure she could keep her attraction for Finn under control.