Rising from the bed, I kiss the top of her head and head to the door. I’m going to get my woman.
My mind is racing with arrangements and solutions. I can stay here and grow the company, and I’ll need to replace myself in Boston. None of that matters, though. All I needed was to know if my girl was on board with this. I can make everything else work. Now I have to make sure Pippa still wants me.
I’m barely out of Julie’s room when I find myself flanked by Max and Blake. This will be interesting.
“You son of a bitch,” Blake says. Ha! I glance at Max, hoping for some support, but judging by his expression, I will have no ally today. Which serves me right, I suppose.
“Look—” I begin, but Max immediately cuts me off.
“Our sister is hurt,” he booms. “We demand an explanation.”
“I was an idiot,” I reply coolly.
Blake raises his eyebrows. “I wasn’t expecting a confession so quickly.” Looking at Max, he adds, “We’re that intimidating.”
“I don’t have time for this,” I inform them, starting to get annoyed. “Is Pippa at home?”
“Yeah,” Max answers, and he takes a step back, his expression transforming from aggressive to curious.
“You goin’ to grovel?” Blake inquires, now equally curious.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s hear it,” Blake says.
“What?” I ask.
“We want to hear your groveling plan.” I don’t know what’s more fascinating, that he’s saying this with a straight face or that these two actually think they can question me.
“How’s that your business?” I retort.
Max answers. “She’s our sister, Eric. She’s been hurt before by a dickhead. You seem like a decent guy, but you’ve hurt her too. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Anything less than a plan which includes you not fucking off to Boston isn’t going to cut it.”
I have to give it to them; the Bennetts stick together. And I have to admit, if I had a sister, I’d do the same. Hell, I’d do the same if someone went out with Julie. Come to think of it, any guy who’ll go out with Julie will go through a worse interrogation than this one.
“I plan to stay here and propose to your sister. How does that cut it?”
Blake and Max look at each other, and then nod.
“Okay,” Blake says, “We should give him pointers.”
I stare at them, astonished by the change in attitude, but I’m not about to complain. “What do you mean?”
“Our sisters are there,” Max says. “They’ll eat you alive.”
“We should go with him, distract Alice and Summer,” Blake tells his brother.
“I’m not going to have a committee when I talk to Pippa. I’ll handle Alice and Summer,” I assure them.
Blake elbows his brother. “This one’s so full of himself. We have way more experience with the women in our family than you do.”
“Tell Alice that you have a plan and that you’re sorry,” Max says.
“And say it the second you see her, or she’ll cut off your balls,” Blake adds seriously. “And tell Summer some romantic stuff. That’ll soften her up right away.”
“I can handle this,” I repeat. “Have a good day.”
With that, I walk past both of them and into the elevator.