wanted her to be happy, and until now he’d thought she and Mason were the ideal couple. As much as he wanted Crissanne for himself, her happiness had to come first. And Mason might be an ass when it came to women, but over the years he’d noticed that they seemed good for each other. Mason had been the one to encourage Crissanne to set up her travel vlog, which had turned into a financial boon for her and given her a career she was in control of.
“I’m sure. He and I have grown apart lately. And I know he’s your friend so I’m not going to talk smack about him to you, but we want different things out of life.”
That was news to him. Obviously. But he’d sort of avoided hanging out with them too much lately because it had become too hard to be around Crissanne and not want her. Business had brought him to the West Coast more frequently and as dinner plans with Mason had fallen through because of his shooting schedule, it had been just Ethan and Crissanne. And he had hated that weakness in himself.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, long strands of hair sliding over her shoulder to rest on the curve of her breast. “Not right now.”
“Well, how about I show you to your room and you can clean up, and then I’ll treat you to dinner? I didn’t have my housekeeper prepare anything.”
“That sounds great,” Crissanne said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Positive,” he said.
“I’ll start looking for my own place right away,” she said. “LA was always Mason’s town and I’d been thinking of living in the center of the country instead of staying on the West Coast...so it’s here or Chicago, and since I know you...but I can definitely stay at a hotel. In fact, I should have gone there.”
“Stop. You can stay here. There’s no hurry for you to find a place. This house is big enough for both of us,” he said. And Mason would be out of the country for a few weeks, so Ethan had time to figure out what to say to his best friend when he got back home.
“You really are the best friend a girl could ask for,” she said.
He tried to tell himself that he could settle for being friends, but it had been a lie for a while now, and he knew that having her in his home was going to make it even harder.
* * *
Crissanne had hoped for this reaction from Ethan. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed that Ethan had always had a little crush on her. She had hoped he’d take her in. She wasn’t the kind of woman who made friends easily. Part of it was because she was competitive, but also she’d never really learned to trust. She remembered how the psychologist her last foster family had sent her to when she’d turned eighteen had stressed that this was going to be a barrier to her happiness.
Maybe it was what had driven the wedge between Mason and her. But the truth was, she had nowhere else to go. She’d rung her friend Abby, who lived in San Francisco, but she’d just started a relationship with a new guy and thought it would be weird if Crissanne moved in with them.
She had a good relationship with her brand manager at one of the large luggage brands that sponsored most of her vlogs and gave her most of her work, but she didn’t want to call her up and ask to live with her. She had needed a friend and someone who wouldn’t judge. And Ethan was that.
Also, he was busy. As an attorney, he was in court a lot so she’d have some quiet time to figure out what was next. She would make this work. Because staying in the house she’d shared with Mason after that horrible fight where things were said that could never be taken back was something she simply hadn’t been able to do.
She wanted to be someplace where she felt accepted and Ethan always made her feel like she was someone. Not a girl who had been abandoned by her crack-addicted mother or passed from foster home to foster home because she was too quiet and weirded people out.
“This is your room,” Ethan said when they reached the second-floor landing and he opened the third door on the right.
She stood in the doorway of one of the most luxurious bedrooms she’d ever seen. She’d never visited Ethan before; he’d always come to the West Coast. The house had a lot of Spanish design influence, from the tiles in the entryway to the large sweeping arch that led into the great room, but this room had more of a rustic Western feel. The carpet was thick and lush, and as she stepped into the room she wished she’d taken her shoes off so she could feel it on her bare feet. A large four-poster bed with dark navy drapes and a canopy on it dominated the space. The nightstands on either side of the bed each had a lamp. There was a sitting area with two overstuffed leather armchairs, a small table between them, and a landscape painting depicting the Texas Hill Country on the wall.
“This is a gorgeous room,” Crissanne said.
“Glad you like it. There’s a desk in the alcove over there leading into the walk-in closet and then to your private bath,” he said, gesturing toward them. “If you need anything at all just let me know.”
“I’m really low-maintenance, so I don’t think I’ll need anything,” she said.
“Hey, you know, I bet once Mason lands in Lima he’s going to be on the phone apologizing,” Ethan said.
She didn’t think so. Mason couldn’t get away from her fast enough when she’d suggested maybe they should get married and think about a family. She’d expected him to balk a little, considering their life together was meetings in airports and nights together in the different apartments he owned in major cities around the world. But the outright rejection had stung.
When they’d talked, he’d said he didn’t want to have a family...well, that had changed things for her. A family of her own had always been her dream, especially after her rough, lonely childhood.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Crissanne said.
“Well, like I said, you’re welcome as long as you need to be here,” Ethan said. “Take your time settling in. I’m going to be in my study working. I have to be in court early tomorrow and want to go over my notes again.”
“We can skip dinner if that would be better for you,” she said.
“No. I was planning to eat out. And my daddy would kick my butt if he knew I served you cereal after you came halfway across the country,” Ethan said with that crooked grin of his.
“How are things on the Rockin’ C?” she asked.
“Not too bad. Dad is retired but that doesn’t mean anything to him,” Ethan said. “He still sticks his nose in all the time, making Nate crazy.”
Ethan was one of four brothers. Nate was the oldest. He’d taken over running the family ranch, the Rockin’ C, and was the CEO of the company that had interests in oil and mineral rights. Another of his brothers, Hunter, was a former NFL wide receiver who had recently been exonerated in a scandal that dated back to college. And then there was Derek, who was a surgeon in Cole’s Hill.
Ethan was way too sexy to be an attorney. She felt no guilt whatsoever in thinking that. He had thick, dark blond hair that curled onto his forehead despite the fact that he had styled it to stay back. His tailored shirt hugged his frame, showing off his muscled arms and hugging his lean abdomen.
“Does he make you crazy,
