Romance By the Book by Sarah Ready

Will

“I’m calling off the wedding,”Gavin says.

It takes a second for his words to sink in. When they do, a slight pinch of panic begins. I take a deep breath and look up from my desk at my twin brother.

He leans against the doorframe of my office. It’s on the fourth floor and takes up the entire converted attic space in the old Romeo house. The walls are light blue, the floors wide oak plank, and the windows look over the grassy field, the old oak tree, and the country road that leads to town. I have a large desk, a desk chair, and a couch that I sleep on when I’m deep in work and want a few minutes’ rest in the middle the night before starting up again. The rest of the space is empty. I had all the boxes and old furniture cleared out and donated when I converted the space to an office.

“You’re calling off your wedding?” I ask in a calm voice, which is hard because I’d like to knock Gavin’s head against the wall.

Gavin sighs, pushes off the doorframe and walks into the room.

“Yes,” he says. He paces back and forth and clenches and unclenches his hands.

I stand up and walk out from behind the desk.

“No,” I say.

Gavin stops pacing. He looks at me and shakes his head. His eyes are bloodshot and have bags under them. His clothes are rumpled.

“Excuse me?”

I roll my shoulders. “No. You aren’t calling off the wedding.”

“Dang it, Will—”

“Also, welcome back to good ol’ Romeo. You look like hell. How was your flight?”

Gavin scowls at me. “It was crap. Do you know how much I hate flying from Bali to New York on short notice? There I was, on this sweet little catamaran…dang it Will, I’m calling it off.”

I study my brother. We're identical twins, but nearly thirty years of living completely different lives has made noticeable differences in our appearances. Where I’m pale from living at the office and bulky from letting out stress at the gym, Gavin is more wiry and bronzed and has lines around his eyes from a decade of pursuing every outdoor activity on the planet. Scuba diving in the most exotic places in the world. Hang gliding in Rio de Janeiro. White-water rafting in forgotten rapids, which is how he met his fiancée, Lacey Duporte. She treated the snake bite he got while camping alongside a river in Cambodia.

Lacey saved Gavin’s life. When he called me on the satellite phone, feverish and only half-lucid, he told me it was love at first sight and he was going to marry the woman who sucked snake venom from his leg. Turned out, Lacey was Dr. Lacey Duporte, an ER physician on a Doctors Without Borders trip. She lived in New York City and was close to her family.

The keywords here are “family” and “Duporte.” Her father is Alan Duporte, owner and CEO of our largest competitor and our pending acquisition. The business deal hinges on Lacey and Gavin’s wedding.

“Let’s have a coffee.” I take the back stairs down two at a time to the first floor. They’re the old narrow servant stairs that lots of old mansions have. They’re also the most convenient way to get to the kitchen from anywhere else in the house.

I start the industrial machine and make two espressos. Gavin tips both of them back, so I make another two. When it seems like the frantic, hunted look has somewhat left his eyes, I lean back against the cold marble counter and take a sip of the hot black espresso.

“So, why do you want to ruin your life and our family business by doing a stupid thing like calling off your wedding?”

Gavin closes his eyes and rubs his temples.

“I can’t do it. She keeps asking me what color bedsheets I want, and what pattern of china, and if I want bath towels made in Turkey or Egypt.” He looks up and his eyes are wide and desperate again. “I don’t care where the damn towels are made. But she does. She does.”

“Okay? And?”

He starts to pace the length of the kitchen, then stops.

“She wants a family, Will, and a home.”

I nod. “That happens sometimes when you get married.”

“I don’t want a family.” He smacks his hand against the marble counter. “I don’t want a home. She wants me to stay in New York City all year long and care about the origin of bath towels.”

Gavin doesn’t have to say any more. I understand. We were both completely screwed up by our childhood, only in completely different ways. Gavin copes by running to the next adventure, never being serious, never staying long enough with anything or anyone to form a deep enough attachment to care if they disappear or disappoint. People like him because he’s fun and exciting and always the life of the party. Lacey was the first person other than me to see Gavin for more than an irresponsible adrenaline junkie.

“Have you told her?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “She’s in Uganda on a vaccine trip. Contact is spotty at best for the next few days. God. Look at her. She’s a doctor, she’s smart, she’s sexy, she thinks I can run an international charity with her. It’s insane. I…I moved too fast, I’ve only known her six months. I was an idiot to propose.”

“Funny. I thought it was the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

He raises his eyebrow and I suddenly realize how annoying I look when I do the same thing.

“You say that because you want the Duporte merger.” He wipes a hand down his face.

I shrug and shove my hands in my pockets. I’m in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I usually wear a suit when working, even at home, but not tonight.

Gavin leans his elbow on the counter and studies me. “You know, sometimes when I’m cliff diving or skydiving or doing some other inane thing, I envy you.”

“Really?”

He nods. “You know exactly who you are, you know what you do. You’re William Williams IV, CEO, business tycoon. Every day is laid out for you. Hell, the next 60 years are mapped out. You don’t have to worry about a thing. No surprises. You have it made.”

There’s a hollow space in my chest that aches at his words. I have everything except the one thing I’ve always wanted most. I look away and roll the espresso cup between my fingers.

“I think, if you throw Lacey away, it’ll be the stupidest thing you ever do.” I say this with the certainty that comes from experience.

“Yeah. But I’m the stupid one, aren’t I? Gavin’s the stupid, fun one. Will’s the smart, boring one,” he says, echoing our father who always said it with a bitter laugh. Two halves, neither of them whole, he’d say. If only we’d been one boy, he’d have the perfect son, instead of two disappointments.

I set the cup down and it makes a sharp clinking noise against the counter.

“Anyway,” Gavin says, “the envy only lasts until I land. Two seconds max. Then I remember you’ve worked eighty-hour weeks since you were 14 trying to please our bastard father. You saved his company, turned yourself into a machine, just so he’d say’ good job,’ but did he?”

I shrug. I stopped needing my father’s approval years ago. I work now because I love it. Unfortunately, the consequences of striving to please him lasted longer than I could’ve imagined.

Gavin continues, “He approves of my wastrel life more than he approves of your business drive. Because at least I didn’t show him up by saving his ass as a child. The hit to his pride was too much. He can’t stand it that you did what he couldn’t.”

I smile ruefully. “Please wait until Lacey gets here for the engagement party before making a decision. Don’t do anything you’ll regret. She’s good for you.” I’d like to see at least one of us happy.

Gavin stretches then rubs his eyes.

“I’ll think about it. But I’d rather have fun than think. Isn’t this the town of love? Soul Mates, USA? I haven’t been here in years, but I seem to remember there’s a real hottie that used to stalk me with her eyes. Maybe I’m here to find my true love.”

“No,” I say. All the good, brotherly feelings vanish.

“What? She doesn’t live here anymore?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

He narrows his eyes and looks me over from my too-long, needing-a-cut hair, to my jeans and bare feet.

“Dad did a number on you, Will. I remember when you used to be fun. When you laughed, told jokes and messed around. When you let yourself have friends. Jeez. Have you had a single friend besides me in the past twenty years?” He waves his hand dismissively. “No need to answer, I already know it’s a no.”

I clench my jaw and try not to think about Jessie sitting in the oak tree with binoculars hanging from her neck. I come back to work in Romeo dozens of times a year, a day or two every few weeks. Not because I talk to anyone or have friends here, Gavin’s right, I have no one. I come here for her. Sometimes, just seeing her, Jessie, on the street, or in the store, makes me feel less alone.

And if she scowls at me, or says something cutting, I hold onto it like a treasure. Pathetic, I know. But I’ve known for 13 years that she only wants Gavin. She thinks she loves him and she has the opposite feelings for me.

Gavin says he’s envious of me for two seconds at a time. I’ve been envious of him for a decade and a half.

If I had known when I was 12 how hard it would be to undo all the things I’ve done, I never would’ve started down this path. I didn’t know that once you lose someone’s friendship or respect, you often lose it forever. I didn’t know once you start on a path it sometimes feels impossible to step off. Jessie has disliked me for so long, I don’t know how the world would look if she didn’t.

“I’m going to fix this,” Gavin continues. “It’s gone on long enough. Just because Dad said you were boring, barren of personality, and lacking a sense of humor—”

“Don’t hold back.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s right.”

“Obviously.” I raise an eyebrow.

Gavin grins. “Tomorrow morning, after I sleep off this hellacious case of jet lag, we’re heading into Love Town USA and breaking out the fun Will that’s been hiding for twenty years.”

“I’d rather not.” I have an international business to run and a merger to complete.

“If you don’t, I’ll go have fun without you,” he threatens. I think about the fun he’d find. Breaking my two-hundred-million-dollar deal in the process. He’s got cold feet and Jessie has her arms wide open waiting for Gavin to run into them.

I’ve loved Jessie for as long as I’ve known her. The thought of her and Gavin together hurts worse than the thought of losing two hundred million dollars.

“What time in the morning?”

Gavin thinks for a minute. “Ten.”

“Fine. We’ll have some fun.”

“That’s the spirit.”

I hold up a finger. “On the condition that you don’t do anything stupid, don’t mess with the process of the merger by talking to Alan Duporte, you don’t break it off with Lacey while she’s in Uganda, and you consider that maybe your own issues stem from Dad saying you were the stupid, fun-loving, irresponsible one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gavin says. He saunters out of the kitchen.

I make another espresso. I still have at least four hours of work to do tonight.

And I need to make a strategy on how to prevent Gavin from tripping and falling into Jessie’s arms.