Break Me by Evelyn Glass Read Free Book Online

birthday.”
     
    She jabbed him with one pointy finger. “I wondered, the way you’ve been lost to everything lately.”
     
    “A last opportunity to humiliate you in public by playing the part of the overbearing big brother? Never going to let that pass me by.” He winked at her, and she poked him again.
     
    “The point is,” she said, with extra emphasis on the words, “That I invited Zoey, and she promised to be there.” Claire batted her eyes, and Alex took a moment to be worried, not on Claire’s behalf, but on behalf of everyone who she might bat those lashes at in the future.
     
    A cold dread settled through Alex’s belly. “Claire. Olivia made Friday’s party dressy. Do you think Zoey has something to wear? I won’t have her embarrassed in front of—”
     
    Claire already had a hand up. “You think I didn’t think of that, oh grand high brother? I’ve got this under control.”
     
    He narrowed his eyes as he studied her. “Claire, I wasn’t kidding when I used the term 'house arrest.' I got in touch with Cindy Walden about how she was going to vote on the board, and now she’s dead. I want you where I can protect you.”
     
    “And yet, you’re planning on heading out to your fancy board meeting in an hour,” she said. “I don’t see you calling up that bodyguard detail for yourself.”
     
    When she crossed her arms and leaned back like that, she looked so much like their father that it would have driven him back a pace, if he’d been standing. He was being overprotective, but hell, he was the only person that had ever bothered to even try and protect her. He had more than the average amount to make up.
     
    It was like they had the conversation silently. He told her that wasn’t the point, and she said it absolutely was, and she wasn’t a child. He countered that she actually was, legally, for four more days, and she resisted the urge to prove him right by stomping off to her room and slamming the door. And they didn’t speak for two days, and she finally decided that it wasn’t worth the fight. But it all happened in those couple of moments, as he met her gaze and waited for her to speak.
     
    “Fine,” she said, finally. “I’ll stay on lock down until Friday night. But Saturday morning, I am going out with Lucia and Maggie, and you can’t make me stay in.”
     
    “After this morning, kiddo, it may all be moot anyway. Just chill for today, okay? And we’ll talk tonight.”
     
    She gave him a stubborn chin, but the look in her eyes as she stood and gave him a hug was positively childish. “An excuse to kick back my heels and Snapchat my friends all day long? How can I resist?”
     
    “You can’t fool me,” he replied. “I know damned well you worked on physics all day long yesterday.”
     
    She gave him one last glare as he stood. “I’m going to need to reconsider if this cultivating a sister in law scheme of mine is actually as good of an idea as it sounded like in my head.”
     
    “You do that,” he said. “I’m going to shower and head in to work. If I can, I’ll come home after the meeting is done.”
     
    “I won’t wait up,” she said, grinning. “Just in case you decide to swing by Zoey’s place. Make it up to her.”
     
    “I couldn’t do that,” he said. And then the possibility filtered into his mind and made him grin. “I couldn’t do that, right?”
     
    Claire shrugged. “You’re the one who’s all experienced in the ways of love,” she said, drawing the word out into a mockery of pronunciation. “But it seems like maybe part of the problem is that she thinks you’re a rich snob, and that you’ll get sick of her and throw her out like last year’s jeans.”
     
    Alex found himself staring at his little sister. “I’ve been wearing the same jeans for four years.”
     
    The look Claire shot him was endlessly patient. “I know that,” she said, and he thought that she was exerting a real effort not to finish the sentence