He loved her.

Nothing had ever been so perfectly, blatantly obvious.

All these years he'd tried to tell himself she was all about taking. But he'd been blindly, stupidly wrong about her.

She'd given and given to him, never once asking anything for herself. And looking at her with her niece and nephew, seeing, knowing how completely open and joyous she was with them, the truth hit him like a ton of bricks.

He'd lied to himself all those years—wasting each and every one of them—to try and keep himself safe. Safe from losing someone he loved again.

When it turned out that the only true safety he'd known since he was ten years old was with Janica.

It didn't make any sense. He wasn't at all sure how—or if—she would fit into his world, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. If the two of them had to go live on a remote island to make it work, that's what they'd do.

Travis came around the corner just then, clapping him on the shoulder. “Hey bro. Just in time for the grilling to begin.”

That was when Janica looked up and finally saw him, her eyes going wide, her face flushing an even deeper shade of rose.

He didn't answer his brother. Instead, he walked straight over to the woman who meant everything to him. The woman who had given him her heart again and again.

“I—”

The part of him that still couldn't believe he was going to say it—to Janica of all people!—made him pause.

Damn it. What was wrong with him?

She needs to know how you feel. And then maybe, if you're the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet, she'll take you back. Just spit it out already. You might not have picked her, but that doesn't matter anymore. It wasn't your choice to love her, but that doesn't change the fact that you do.

It isn't going to kill you to say it, to admit the way you really feel. Maybe it will even save you.

“I love you.”

The kids continued to dance around her as the song played on, but Janica just stood there and stared at him.

Why wasn't she throwing herself in his arms? Why wasn't she saying the words back to him.

“I love you,” he said again. “I can't help myself. I've tried for so hard, for so long to stop feeling what I feel for you, but the truth is I've never been able to help myself, Janica. It shouldn't have taken me this long to figure out that I love you. So much, sweetheart.”

The tension between them grew so palpable that even the kids stopped dancing. Lily, Travis, and both kids stood in silence, all of them waiting for what came next.

Finally, Janica dropped the children's hands and moved toward him. His heart had just started to beat again when she said, “Thank you for letting me know.”

And then, instead of walking into his arms, she walked past them.

All the way out the door.

And out of his life.

* * *

He heard Travis say, “Take the kids, Lily,” and then his brother was right there in his face.

“What the fuck was that?” His twin was incredulous.

“I love her.”

And he'd lost her.

Travis shook his head, looking more confused than he ever had. “I don't get it. You and Janica? How? When? Where?”

“A few weeks ago. I went to her apartment.”

He'd been in pain and she'd been the person he'd turned to. The only person who could give him what he must have known he desperately needed.

Not just her body.

But her heart too.

“She's right, you know. I don't deserve her.”

“Look, Luke. I don't know what the hell is going on with the two of you, but you've got to see that it could never have worked between the two of you. I mean, Janica is—”

He had his brother's shirt in his hands so quickly neither of them saw it coming. “Janica is what?”

After thirty-five years of Travis playing the tough guy and Luke playing the nice guy, everything switched in an instant.

“Say it,” Luke dared his twin, wanting nothing more than to pound his brother's face into the pavement.

Clearly seeing the raw violence pounding through Luke's veins, Travis backed down. “I'm sorry, man. I like her. You know I do. I'm just surprised by your coming here and saying that to her.”

Luke forced himself to drop his brother's shirt. “Tell Lily I'm sorry I can't stay.”

Chapter Twenty-two

An hour later Travis walked into Janica's studio as if he owned the place. She purposefully ignored him. Which wasn't easy to do when he was hunkering over her, huge and angry.

“Hey sis. How's it going? Since you missed dinner, I brought you a burger.”

She didn't buy the greeting. There was nothing easy, nothing nice about it apart from the actual words.

“I'm busy. What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

Still not bothering to look up from her computer where she was double-checking orders for the month, she said, “Fine. Talk.”

“What the fuck kind of game are you playing with my brother?”

Knowing her own eyes were blazing now, she shot back, “You want me to draw you some dirty pictures?”

His mouth tightened, the mouth that was so like his twin's and, yet, so completely different. Of course she saw the surface similarities between Luke and Travis, but to her, that's all they were. Surface stuff.

She wasn't in love with Travis. She would never, ever be in love with Travis.

But she loved Luke with every goddamned cell of her body.

She watched Travis take a step back from her desk, walk to the window to look at the crowded city streets below.

“You know I've always thought you were a little bit crazy, right?”

He wasn't trying to be mean, and the truth was she didn't take offense. It was just the way she and Travis talked to each other.

“Yup,” she agreed. “And you know I've always thought you were a little bit of an asshole, right?”

Finally, the hint of a grin.

“But here's the thing—I never thought you were stupid, Janica. You're one of the smartest people I've ever met. Both you and my brother have big, huge brains.”

Her stupid heart skipped a beat at the mention of Luke, damn it.

“So then why the hell are you acting so stupid now?”

It killed her not to combat his awful words with worse words of her own. But, really, what was the point? Nothing Travis did or said was going to change the truth of the matter.