Page 75 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“Leave me alone. I can do it myself.”

He went up to his room, and slammed the door.

I sighed, and sat down on the steps.

“That was tough,” said David quietly. “Is he always like that?”

I looked at David despairingly. “No,” I said. “He used to be so…lovely. So kind and patient. And now I just don’t…”

“It’s his age,” said David. “It’s a teenage thing.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not, David. Kyle’s confused. He loves Lucien—adores him. And now he hears us talking about plotting against him? It’s a mess. This whole situation.”

“What are we supposed to do?” David whispered quietly, quietly enough so that he was sure Kyle wouldn’t hear from upstairs.

I looked up at him. “I don’t know. But maybe Kyle’s got a point.” Who was I to turn my back on Lucien, to begin scheming with David to discover his secret? Shouldn’t I have been happy with Lucien as he was? The romantic way he treated me, the kindness he’d shown to my family. Was this really how I repaid him?

And yet, I’d seen the dead look in his eye when I entered the room. The changes that came over him when I asked about his past.

No. Not even when I asked about his past. When I mentioned my past.

When I mentioned Conor.

There was something there, some dark secret that Lucien was keeping from us. But as I sat there on the staircase, holding back tears, I realized that I no longer knew where my loyalty lay. With the reality, the present, and Lucien? Or with the past?

With Conor?

Chapter 24

Conor (Lucien)

I tried to call Laura over the weekend, but she was unavailable. I guessed that she must have felt awkward about David barging into the house on Thursday. But after I while, I began to wonder if it wasn’t all a little too convenient.

Laura had told me she was available to work late that day. And somehow, the gate’s automatic mechanism had been changed. Laura would have been able to do that when she arrived in the morning. But was I just being paranoid? The system was good, but it wasn’t foolproof.

Could I trust her?

The next week, things got off to a fine start. We were making tracks on my plan to begin building the hospital as soon as possible. With any luck, before the month was out, they’d be breaking ground on the site. All I had to do was to drop the planning application off at city hall.

On Tuesday afternoon, I drove down and deposited it there. On the way out, I saw a thin young man skulking around the entrance. At first, I thought he was just a passerby, but then I saw him raise the camera from around his neck and snap a picture of me. I frowned, then turned and went towards the car.

“Hey,” the young man waved at me as I got to the car. “Hey, Lucien Barnes, right? Was that your planning application you just submitted?”

“Top marks for investigative journalism there,” I muttered.

“I just wanted to know if you had something to say to the US Forest Service. You know, since you’re building on a nature reserve.”

“I’m not building on the reserve,” I frowned.

“That right?” said the young man.

“Yeah,” I said indignantly, as I turned around. I was at least a foot taller than the young guy, and he shrank away from me a little. “I’m building on the old hospital site but I’m leaving the rest of the Parkland untouched. You got that?”

The guy slunk away, and I shook my head and got into my car.

When I got back to the house, Laura was leaving for the day. I pulled up on the driveway, without parking the car. I got out and waved to her.

“Oh, hey Lucien,” Laura waved slightly. “I was just finishing up.”