Page 2 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

He doesn’t respond to this. He simply moves, one hand at my elbow, steering me away from the doors with the calm efficiency of a man returning a book to a shelf, and I’m apparently going with him because my feet are making that decision before my brain files its objection.

“I can explain why I’m here, just let go,” I say, mostly to his profile, which does not react.

We stop in front of a door I hadn’t noticed, tucked into the wood-paneled wall of the corridor just inside the lobby, and he opens it, and we are, inexplicably, in a coat closet.

A very nice coat closet, because this is the Elysian Hotel and even the places they store things are lovely—cedar and dim warm light from a single overhead fixture, coats and jackets on a long brass rail, a shelf above stacked with hat boxes that probably contain actual hats. The door closes behind us with a soft, definitive click.

And I’m trapped in a room with a man three times my size and zero sense of humor about these things. I turn to face him in about fourteen inches of available space, which means I’m also tipping my head back to maintain eye contact, which I resent on principle.

“I’ve been to smaller apartments.”

Still nothing.

“Not mine,” I clarify. “Mine is a reasonable size. I’m just saying, as closets go?—”

“You’re Luna Ambrose.” His voice is low and vibrates in my spine, as if he growls more than speaks. It stops me mid-sentence, the same way a hand on a shoulder stops a spinning thing.

I guess Hugo expected me. Dammit.

“Twenty-eight,” he continues, unhurried. “Candle shop on Wicker Park. Previously engaged to Hugo Dumas for approximately eight months, during three years together. The engagement ended within a week of his newest engagement’s beginning.”

“Are you—” I pause, and then restart. “Did Hugo hire you to keep me out? Because I didn’t realize he took me so seriously, considering everything.”

“I’m not employed by Hugo.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Then how do you know who I am?”

He looks at me for a moment, and his expression doesn’t change in any meaningful way. “I make it my business to know who attends events at my hotel.”

“Yourhotel.”

“My hotel.”

I process this. “So you’re not security.”

“No.”

“You’re—” I stop again. Look at him. At the suit, the scars. “Who are you?”

“I’m Ivan Fedorov. Hugo’s stepbrother.”

Hugo never spoke much about his family, or his friends, or anything too deep. He kept that part of his life in a separate compartment with the lid on tight. At first, I thought he was just private. But over the years, I realized he was connected. I knew enough to understand that his family’s business was not the kind of thing you Googled unless you wanted the FBI to start a file on you.

I knew he had an older stepbrother, but the name was never offered.

“You’re at your stepbrother’s wedding,” I say slowly, because I’m still orienting.

“I am.”

“In a coat closet.”

His lip twitches. “Temporarily.”

“With me.”

“Also temporarily,” he says, and then, with no change in tone whatsoever, “though that’s negotiable.”

“And what are we negotiating, exactly?” I fold my arms across my chest. “If you know who I am, you know I’m not a real threat. I was just going to go in there and say my piece and?—”