Page 3 of Ethan & Grace

I hesitated anyway. I could count on one hand the conversations Henry and I had had over the last year. His request to talk to me now both piqued my curiosity and made me nervous.

My curiosity eventually won out. I nodded, and Henry gestured for me to follow him.

Although I’d been back in London for a year and a half, I’d not once set foot in Henry’s penthouse, the door to which he now held open for me. His flat was a mirror image of mine, yet it looked very different. His penthouse felt like a home, while mine was just a stopgap. Where my walls were bare, he had framed photographs of friends and family hanging on his. Plants and decorative touches gave the room character, and a shelf next to his television held his impressive London Has Fallen DVD collection, which I’d only ever heard about. It was some kind of inside joke with our brother, Logan, whom I knew even less well than Henry. My flat seemed lifeless in comparison—at least when I didn’t have five dozen people around to help me trash it.

“Do you want a drink?” Henry asked.

“No, thanks.”

He indicated for me to sit on the couch and took a seat a short distance away. I waited for him to say something, but for several seconds, there was silence as he sized me up from head to toe.

“Is everything OK?” he asked finally.

“Yeah. I’m great,” I lied.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

I frowned. “What’s with the interrogation?”

Henry gave a heavy sigh, and only now did I see that he was exhausted. “Olivia texted me earlier.” James’s sister, Olivia, was one of Henry’s best friends. “Apparently James is worried about you. He says you’re drinking a lot at the moment. More than usual. Is that true?”

“No,” I replied instinctively, perhaps a little too fast. Then I backpedalled.

“OK, maybe I have been drinking more lately. But it doesn’t mean anything. It was the holidays. Christmas, New Year’s Eve—and in between, there was the Pearl Gala and Nate’s birthday. I’ll slow down. And why do you even care? It has nothing to do with you.”

“No, but it has to do with you. And you’re my brother.”

I snorted. Blood ties or not, we were still strangers. “Once again, what’s it to you?”

“Ethan . . .”

“Henry,” I mimicked, but he didn’t take the bait.

“I know we’re not particularly close, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you when I hear things like that,” Henry said, rubbing his hands together in a nervous gesture that, to me, didn’t seem like him. Until now, he’d always struck me as unflappable. Calm, like someone with no problems, only solutions. I’d always been a little envious of that quality of his. If I were even half as organised as Henry, my life would be so much easier. “I’m not here to make you feel guilty or judge you. Quite the opposite. I understand better than anyone how hard this situation is. We’re all trying to find a way to deal with it, but not every way is the right one.”

“Sounds pretty judgmental to me. You seem to think your way is right and mine is wrong.”

Henry laughed loudly, but it was a cold and joyless sound. “Believe me, no way is as wrong as mine. I . . .” He interrupted himself, his gaze suddenly tight with self-control. Once again, he eyed me before continuing. “If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it to yourself?”

Surprised, I frowned. I had no idea what kind of a secret someone like Henry could possibly have, but I was already keeping so many of my own that one more wouldn’t make a difference. “If I have to.”

He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for his next words. “I have an addiction problem.”

It was the last thing I expected to hear coming out of his mouth. I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. I tried to process the information. “Is this a joke?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Alcohol or drugs?”

“Drugs,” Henry replied. It was clearly not an easy admission to make. “Vitalyn, to be precise. It’s a prescription medication I’ve been taking for the last few months, but without a doctor’s prescription.”

I stared at my brother in disbelief. His words shook the foundations of what I thought I knew about him. He always seemed so collected. So controlled. But addiction indicated the opposite: a total abandonment of control.

“I’m not here to tell you what to do. I don’t have the right, especially given the way things are between us,” Henry continued. I was finding it hard not to be affected by the worry in his voice. “But I know from my own experience how tempting it can be to make the wrong choices when you’re looking for a quick fix.”