“You all are delusional.”
“The only one here not seeing reality is you, if you think the way you two feel about each other isn’t obvious to the people who know you best.”
“I would prefer my baby brother not speculate on my sex life.”
He made a gagging sound. “Definitely not doing that.”
“It can’t be any more than that.”
“It already is.”
“It can’t be,” she emphasized. “And you know why.”
Her brother was silent long enough she hoped he had dropped it.
“He’s the youngest, not the oldest,” Luke pointed out, though. “He doesn’t have to have children for primogeniture.”
“Ooh, big words.”
“I use big words all the time. I run a genetic research lab.”
More like a group of labs, but why quibble over terminology?
“Listen, brother mine, even if there was a chance that Dima and I could have ever had something...” And she was convinced there was not. “There isn’t one now. I can’t trust him.”
“Because he made you stay silent about what happened?”
“That’s part of it.” A big part of it.
“But here we are, talking about it because he made that possible.”
“Stop. You probably think that’s awesome of him, but you aren’t the only one Skylar had a file on. I can’t go to any of those other companies or designers and warn them.”
“You’d get fired if you did.”
“Maybe.”
“Would it be worth it?”
“Maybe.”
“Jenna, sometimes we have to do the hard thing because one set of priorities trumps another.”
“His will always be his family. You think I want even a casual relationship with someone who will throw me under the bus so easily?”
“He didn’t.”
“That’s how it feels.”
“Again, take some time. You need to figure out what is reality and what is feeling.”
Luke had a point. Though she could argue that feelings were as real as anything else in life. Only she knew Luke didn’t share that viewpoint.
He was a scientist and a businessman.
He and Dima probably had more in common in how they thought than Jenna and the prince did.
Still, she felt the need to elaborate. “The fact Dima doesn’t understand how important it is to me that Skylar be arrested for her crimes, that she be prevented from waltzing into another company and doing the exact same thing, shows how far apart our priorities are.”