Page 10 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
But we also can’t work with her. Not when I know exactly what she looks like in that dress. Not when Ethan has practically dared her to wear it. Not when Asher is looking at her like she is a puzzle he wants to dismantle.
We are trapped. She should run.
Monday morning is going to be a bloodbath.
3
ETHAN
Control.
My life is built on it. My company is built on it. The code that runs the backend of Mosaic is a masterpiece of logic and order, designed to bring chaos into alignment. I don’t like surprises. I don’t like variables I can’t account for. And I absolutely do not like walking into my own office on a Monday morning, feeling like I’m walking through a minefield.
I stare at the empty glass desk across the open-plan floor. It’s the Lead Brand Strategist’s desk.
Her desk.
“Stop looking at it,” I mutter to myself, turning my back on the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the Austin skyline.
I march to my own desk, a slab of black marble that costs more than my first car, and sit down. I have forty-eight emails marked urgent. The investors are asking for updated user-retention projections. The legal team needs a signature on the revised privacy policy.
I stare at the screen. The words blur. Instead of quarterly projections, all I see is red silk.
Help. Red or Black? Which one guarantees I get laid tonight?
I squeeze my eyes shut, pinching the bridge of my nose. Two days. It’s been over two days since the party, and the image hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s gotten sharper.
I can still see the flush on her face when she realized who we were. I can still see the way her pupils blew wide when I cornered her on the dance floor. I can still feel the weight of the deception—standing next to Harper, pretending I hadn’t already stripped that dress off her in my mind.
Tessa Hartley. Harper’s best friend. The girl with the scraped knees who used to cry when she lost at hide-and-seek. The girl I am supposed to protect, not fantasize about bending over a conference table.
“Get it together, Branson,” I growl.
She’s an employee. She’s family. She’s a no-go area.
I open the first email. I force my brain to engage. Subject: Series B Funding Timeline.
I type out a reply. My fingers hit the keys with a little more force than necessary. Strict. Professional. Distant. That’s the strategy. We treat her like any other hire and ignore the text and the dress.
We bury the memory of Friday night in a shallow grave.
The door to my office flies open. Not like a normal door. It slams against the stopper with a force that rattles the framed patents on the wall.
“We are golden!”
Owen strides in, looking irritatingly fresh for a Monday morning. He’s wearing a crisp navy suit, holding two coffees, and wearing a grin that usually means trouble.
“Knocking is a concept, Owen,” I say without looking up. “You should try it sometime.”
“Knocking is for people who bring bad news,” Owen counters, kicking the door shut behind him with his heel. He sets a steaming cup on my desk. “Black, two shots of espresso. You look like you need it. Did you sleep at all?”
“I slept fine.”
“Liar,” Owen sits in the chair opposite me, slouching in a way that wrinkles his jacket. “Asher has been here since four. I think he’s rewriting the entire messaging protocol.”
“Good,” I say. “At least one of you is working.”
“I’m working,” Owen protests. “I just got off the phone with the venue coordinator for the launch party. They agreed to the branding overhaul. And…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “... I secured the feature in TechCrunch. They’re running a profile on the ‘Phantom Trio’ next month. We go public with our identities to the world right after the app drops.”
