I avoided them both the next morning.
I arrived at Windsor Industries early, head down, a black pencil skirt hugging my curves, and my emotions tightly zipped behind my red lipstick and smooth bun.
The kiss haunted me.
Not because I regretted it.
But because a part of me—deep, dangerous, and desperate—wanted it again.
But James didn't act like a man who kissed me in the rain last night.
When I stepped into the boardroom, he was all business. Cold eyes. Clenched jaw. Perfect suit. He didn't look at me once during the presentation. Not even when I accidentally dropped my pen and he reached for it at the same time. Our fingers touched, and still—he said nothing.
Fine. Two could play that game.
After the meeting, I stormed into his office, locking the door behind me.
"Is this how you're going to treat me now?" I snapped.
He didn't look up from his laptop. "We're at work."
"Oh, and last night wasn't 'work,' was it?"
His jaw tensed. "You're the one who walked away."
"Because I don't kiss my boss in the rain and then pretend nothing happened!"
He finally looked at me—eyes burning with something I couldn't name.
"You think I've pretended?" he said, standing. "Do you have any idea what it took not to kiss you again the moment I saw you this morning?"
I froze.
He stepped closer, voice low. "You think I've spent the last seven years building this company just for money? No. I built it because I knew one day you'd come back—and I needed to be a man worthy of you."
My throat dried. "Then why act so cold?"
"Because I'm scared, Amelia."
My heart stuttered.
He continued, voice breaking. "I'm scared if I let myself love you, I'll lose you like I've lost everything else."
Before I could answer, there was a loud knock.
Then the door burst open.
Ethan.
His eyes flicked between us—the closed office door, our proximity, my flushed cheeks.
"What's going on here?" he asked, voice dangerously calm.
I stepped back, but James didn't.
He looked Ethan dead in the eye. "You need to leave."
"I'm not going anywhere," Ethan said, glaring at me now. "Amelia, are you sleeping with him?"
My stomach dropped. "No! I—"
James cut in, his voice firm. "That's enough, Ethan."
Ethan turned on him. "She's like my sister, James."
"No," James replied. "She's not. And if you can't see that she's not a little girl anymore, then that's your problem—not mine."
Silence.
The tension crackled like thunder again.
Ethan looked at me, pain in his eyes. "You think he's better than me? That after all these years, you can just walk back into our lives and fall for him?"
"I never belonged to you, Ethan," I said quietly.
His lips parted. His face hardened. "You've changed."
"No," I replied. "I just stopped needing your permission to be loved."
Ethan turned and walked out—slamming the door so hard it rattled.
James reached for my hand.
But I pulled away.
"I can't do this, James."
"You already are."
I opened the door slowly, stepping into the hallway, heart shattered and unsure.
Because now I wasn't just the girl who once loved her brother.
I was the woman standing between two men… and a secret that could destroy all three of us.