My Next Lover Is My Ex's Brother

EMILY.

“I, Kevin, take you, Emily Smith, to be my wife and promise to be faithful to you in all circumstances, happy or unhappy, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish you all the days of my life.”

“I, Emily, take you, Kevin Parker, to be my husband, and I promise to be faithful to you in all circumstances, happy or unhappy, in sickness or in health, to love and respect you all the days of my life.”

“May God, in His goodness, strengthen this consent which you have given before the Church, and may He be pleased to fulfill His blessing in you. What God unites, let not man separate,” said the priest. Emotions overwhelmed me to the limit and two crystal clear tears rolled down my already flushed cheeks.

The kiss at the end of the service was the most wonderful moment of my life. That was the sweetest kiss he had ever given me, and that was because from that moment on I was his forever. It was the happiest day of my life. Like every girl I had long dreamed of this day, when we swore our love to each other.

I was lucky that Kevin enjoyed taking care of the organization, so I let him take care of all the details of the event. I would have liked something simpler, except he wanted a sophisticated wedding. He had quite a few friends invited, which I didn’t mind. That proved to me he was a respected and appreciated person. The only thing that made me a little nervous was that I didn’t know all of his friends. I honestly wouldn’t even have wanted to know them because there was something about them that panicked me, but I didn’t know why. They spoke to me as respectfully as they could, which showed that they were from a different social class. Even the ladies’ outfits showed they were part of high society.

I thanked God for endowing me with a rich imagination and good luck, and I became a famous writer who earned well and could meet all expenses.

I loved the fact that he agreed to have the ceremony and the wedding party in my backyard. I have dreamed since I got to this house that I would have the wedding by the lake that crossed the backyard. It was a huge pond that offered a divine beauty. When my mother gave me this house as a gift, she knew what I loved. That didn’t mean I was selling the house I’d bought with my hard work. Even though it was small, it was very important to me because I bought it.

The decorating and all the arrangements for the wedding, Kevin was very keen that he and Susan did it, which helped me enormously because I could get on with the release of my new book. I could continue the series which became a bestseller, and that was thanks to Olivia. Plus, the two of them were always organizing events that took place often at the hotels where Kevin was a landlord, probably from there he also had so many friends from the wealthy world.

Ever since Susan joined his firm, the two were always together. Kevin hired her as an event planner, but she proved she could do more and now helped him with everything. It overjoyed me that the two of them were so close. Even though my mom and Olivia told me over and over that their relationship wasn’t good, I just didn’t think they could do anything wrong. Now seriously, how could they even think that? Susan was my childhood friend and Kevin was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and after all, he loved me too, or so I thought.

I loved the way they set up the courtyard for the wedding. They did a great job together. I couldn’t understand why some doubted their relationship, but in the end, it was their business.

On the lakeshore, they set up the altar made of flowers specifically for our wedding, a red carpet that would walk me down the aisle. On either side were arrangements of white flowers. They dressed the chairs for the guests in white silk covers.

All appreciated the round tables with white flower arrangements on them, with chairs dressed in the same type of white silk covers, the guests. The cutlery, glasses and tableware were of the highest quality. Also on each table were name tags with each guest’s name.

Also, they set the stage for the singers and the dance floor up as beautifully as possible. The flower decorations delighted everyone’s eyes.

If I had to describe this wedding in two words, it would be something like a princess’ wedding. Only famous names sang, and among the guests were some of our city’s personalities.

I could have said it was a bit much for me, but I loved it. It didn’t matter that I spent much, and I didn’t want to look at the finances until after the wedding. After all, we were going to be a family after this day and everything was going to be put together. If my budget ran out, he would fix the financial problem that he had at his company and then hopefully we would be out of the financial bind fairly quickly. The whole wedding happened out of my accounts, which I didn’t mind. Only Olivia was furious with me about it. She and my mom didn’t like Kevin and didn’t want him around me.

“Have you ever heard of a bride paying for a wedding? Seriously Emily! Wake up before it’s too late!” Olivia always told me before the wedding. But when she saw I was going through with it, she dropped it.

The day was perfect, with one exception. I missed my dad, who was supposed to walk me down the aisle. Mom didn’t want to take me, and her words kept echoing in my head.

“I’m not taking you to ruin your life. That’s your job! I don’t like it and I won’t rest until I prove to you I’m right.”

“He’s my future husband, so please respect him!”

“First, he must respect my family and then I will respect him too,” my mother used to tell me whenever I asked her not to leave me alone on my special day. Only her heart couldn’t be softened.

Being at a dead end, I went to Olivia, who, like my mother, refused me. I went to my sister, Gaby, who told me she didn’t want any trouble with my mother and eventually my best friend ended up helping me. Susan offered to walk me down the aisle, even though people denigrated her and my mother was always telling me...

“You don’t see because your eyes are blindfolded. Kevin and Susan are screwing around behind your back. Only you see Kevin as a saint when everyone else admits something is wrong with him. And his relationship with Susan, are you blind?” My mother always yelled at me. Even on our wedding day, she told me that.

“Please, Mom. At least be reasonable today. Be happy once for me.”

Susan, being my best friend, always supported me. As little kids, we helped each other. I’d help her at school and she’d defend me if anyone picked on me. So I was glad when she offered to walk me down the aisle. She’s basically always been part of my family.

I had a perfect day, even though I thought I would be uncomfortable. It seemed like too much for me, but it turned out it wasn’t. I had a great time. I enjoyed every minute of the music and met a lot of important people in the world. There were a few celebrities who congratulated me on my book. As Olivia warned me, people were waiting for the sequel and others wanted it translated and published in the most important countries in the world.

The only thing that annoyed me to no end was my mother, who kept coming up and telling me when she didn’t see Kevin around anymore.

“Where is he now? Do you see Susan is missing, too?”

“Mom, seriously! Stop it! Susan is my childhood friend. She won’t do this to me. You want to ruin this day for me? It’s the first time I’ve ever felt truly wonderful.”

Whenever Kevin left, Susan disappeared and vice versa. I didn’t care at first. They said something wasn’t right and went to check it out, except these escapades kept happening and I was the only one at our wedding. That made me quite angry, but there was no way I was going to make a scene in front of so many guests. Then there were the strange looks coming from a friend of his. It felt like a squeeze. It was something that scared me, but I tried to ignore it.

I refrained from talking for as long as I could, thinking that we were going to talk eventually, when the wedding was over. Everyone was in a good mood and happy about the wonderful event.

I was glad when the guests left because Kevin and I were finally going to be alone and I could tell him how much his behavior bothered me, but we could also enjoy each other, except for one surprise.

“Honey, just know that Susan is going to stay here because her car broke down and there’s no one to take her home and her car won’t start,” Kevin told me after everyone had left.

Now I couldn’t get upset because she was my friend, but it just didn’t sit well with me. There was no way I was going to send her off alone and put her in danger. I just wanted to talk to him and only him, not third parties. Sometimes there was too much of her presence in our lives.

“Okay, baby. But I wanted a magical night. It’s our wedding night, right?”

“Hey, we’ll have a lifetime ahead to enjoy nights like this. We can’t kick her out now. She helped us a lot with the wedding.”

“You’re right. Let her stay with us. I’ll go to bed. Are you coming?”

“You go ahead and I’ll catch up. I’ll have another glass of wine and be right up”

“This is like her home, so she’ll go to her room alone. I don’t have to stay after her,” I told him, and I left full of hope, thinking he was preparing a surprise for me before he came for me.

Susan already had her room in my house. She had it before I met Kevin, so it didn’t bother me that much.

I quickly retired to the master bedroom and got ready for what I hoped would be a night to remember. I got myself a red see-through lace night suit. Underneath, I had only a pair of bikinis, also red. I unpinned my hair and combed it back, letting it fall down over my shoulders. I placed the box I had prepared for him on the dresser in front of the bed. I wanted to give him a wedding present that night, as I considered it. It was a gift that God had given us both. Everything was ready for the night I had dreamed of and planned in detail.

I lay in bed comforted by the blue silk sheets. I waited impatiently to see him walk through the door. It felt like time stood still. I waited until at some point I felt sleepy from the accumulated tiredness of so many days. After sleeping for an hour or two, I woke up and realized my husband was still missing. I grabbed a thin cape and my cell phone for the flashlight and went to see what was keeping him. I heard whispering coming from Susan’s room and went to her, thinking she knew where Kevin was. Except I got the biggest surprise of all. The two of them were in bed, naked. Susan was whispering love words in Kevin’s ear as he kissed her all over. On my wedding night, my husband and my best friend were having sex in my house, just a few rooms away from me.

I froze in the room's doorway and turned into a statue of stone who could only stare at the nightmare before my eyes. I wanted to wake up, but it was impossible. My movements seemed to be immobilized by something that was squeezing me tighter and tighter. The words they spoke to each other felt like arrows of fire coming and piercing my heart, making it more and more restless until it hurt. All I could do was put my phone on video and film everything I saw. I felt a vast emptiness in my abdomen that slowly turned into a painful lump that went up into my soul. Even though I felt like someone was cutting my abdomen in half, I continued to stay still and kept filming. I think it was all done mechanically.

After about ten minutes, Kevin spotted me and jumped up like he was on fire trying to come towards me. At that point, I reacted and ran for the exit and stopped directly in my SUV, which luckily had the key in the ignition. I locked the doors before he could catch me. Kevin was pounding on the window shouting for me to wait to explain everything I saw, but all I could do was step on the accelerator and drive away. And after all, what was there to explain since they were both naked in front of me?

OLIVIA.

Look how quickly time passed and how some of what I set out to do I failed to accomplish. I tried to stop Emily’s wedding, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could have done to warn her about anything. Things would have escalated for the worse and if Kevin found out about our plans, the chances of catching him would have evaporated.

Whether it suited me, today I had to watch my sister marry the most dreaded gangster and I couldn’t do anything about it. It gave me a toast to the most dangerous people in society. I was dreaming of a time when they were all caught and locked up, but I certainly still had a long way to go before I got to see my dream come true. It was hard enough seeing Emily surrounded by so many dangerous people without me being able to protect her. It was the hardest day of my career.

After such a tense day, the only thing I wanted was to curl up in my comfy bed and get my thoughts in order. And look how instead of planning my next steps, my thoughts were flying back in time to my home, to my father.

I had many achievements in life, but catching the most feared criminal would have been the most important of my entire professional history.

Becoming a chief agent was an honor, but I couldn’t afford to languish behind a desk full of charts and just stick to organizing people. That wasn’t what I wanted out of life. Of course I couldn’t give up my job now. Fortunately, my father worked at the same agency as me. He was an excellent professional, drastic and fair, but also a veteran of the agency. I took advantage of all that and made him my deputy chief agent. God, I could remember it like it was yesterday. The conversation I had with my dad and his reactions that I had never seen before. They were absolutely heartbreaking.

“Olivia, but you know very well that I signed the retirement papers. I’m of pensionable age,” he told me, trying to pull back. Luckily, my colleagues were running away from their responsibilities and jumped to my aid.

“Mr. Andy Brown, Olivia is right. No one better than you will be able to take over this job. We’ll talk it over higher up and ask their permission to stick around for a while until the waters calm down.”

“You boys don’t realize that I need quiet and rest, too. I’ve been working all these years. Besides, I never enjoyed leading. It’s been an honor to be your colleague and especially my daughter’s, but giving you orders I don’t like at all.”

“Agent Brown, let me set you straight on a few things. In our agency, we are all like family and like any family, we need a leader. “

“Well, we already have a leader. You’re a very good and competent chief captain.”

“Dad, I didn’t have time to tell you they stationed me at the agency in England for a while. Chief Agent Frank needs someone competent to go undercover and follow Kevin Parker.”

“Kevin Parker? That dangerous interloper? The most feared outlaw?”

“Yes! That’s him!”

“I don’t think so. How are you going to get close to him? Olivia is very dangerous. I know our job is perilous, but right now it’s way too unsafe.” Dad’s voice was strained. It was the first time he’d ever really been afraid. I’d never seen him like this in all the time I’d known him. To him, his job was sacred, and he valued it more than his life. He never cared about danger.

“You know when you went on that dangerous mission to Austria to catch that mafia clan? Remember what you said to me when I said I feared for your life? My life is worthless if dangerous people are running loose in the world.”

I looked into his eyes carefully, carefully, trying to read his thoughts, but I couldn’t. He was so good at it. I could never read his face.

“It’s hard for me to give an answer now!”

“Dad, Kevin is Emily’s boyfriend! I have to protect my sister from him. They’re getting married!” The reaction he got still gives me chills to this day. He clenched his hand into a fist and punched the table so hard we all flinched. His teeth were so clenched I could hear them grinding. “I’m going to be heading up a publishing house as editor-in-chief and I’m going to entice Emily to join me by publishing the novels she writes, which are wonderful anyway. She’s an exceptional talent. She’s a really talented writer. From there, we’ll see how things go, but I need your help.”

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and her!” That was all he could say before his eyes flooded with tears.

“I take it I’m counting on you?”

He nodded affirmatively, then hugged me warmer than ever. It was the most emotional thing I’ve ever experienced, but also the most wonderful. To know that someone loves you unconditionally is a divine thing.

Frank’s unexpected visit chased away the homesickness that had been nagging me ever since I returned from the wedding. Now I had to admit that it was a very pleasant visit for me. When I was around him, we had some mixed feelings and, frankly, I think he felt the same way I did.

“How was today?”

“Honestly, it was harder than I imagined. Witnessing my sister’s unhappiness is so hard. Having the most feared gangsters under your nose and not being able to arrest them....”

“Olivia, there was nothing you could do. We don’t have enough evidence to prove his actions yet. If you’re with her, it’s the best thing.”

“I wish I had at least told her she was my sister.”

Frank walked over to me, clasped my right hand in his and said in a warm voice. “You realize that she could have pushed you away from her and then you would have lost touch with Kevin too, but also lost the chance to make great friends with her. The best thing is to be there for her and support her when she’s having a hard time. You need to be prepared to defend her because it won’t be long before she shows up crying at your door. Protect and support her. You’ll have to pick her up from the bottom and show her she can always count on you.”

“You’re right! Thanks for always cheering me up.”

“No need to thank me. You’ve come to my rescue on my most difficult mission, so I have you to thank. By the way, what did you find out about Mike, his brother?”

“Nothing to compromise him. He’s just another one of Kevin’s victims. He’s so trusting. I feel so sorry for him. His only fault is that he has the same father as Kevin. I’ll always stand by him. He needs support.”

“Of course, you do well to stay by his side. He’ll need a friend like you. And later, who knows?..”

“If you’re insinuating that maybe I’ll fall in love with him, I’ll think someone has short-circuited your mind. Really! How can you think of such a thing? You believe I have time for love now that we’re in the middle of the most important mission of our careers?” I said with a downcast look. “And besides, how do you know I don’t already love someone else?” I continued in my thoughts.

I knew I loved this man, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. It wasn’t because I was afraid of love, or maybe it was because of the past that haunted me relentlessly. But also because I wasn’t sure of his feelings for me, and a romance would have drawn us away from our business, something we couldn’t afford at the time. It was no longer our personal lives that mattered, but the lives of those innocents who were suffering at the hands of heartless evildoers who believed that everything could be bought and sold. Those people who believed that even love could be bought and sold at will. Although my heart ached, I could not love at those times.

The ringing of the phone quickly took me out of the tense situation I had entered. I sensed that something was wrong with Frank, but I was not in the mood to have an argumentative discussion with him.

“Emily!?” I asked, surprised that he was calling me on the wedding night.

“Kevin... Susan... pregnancy...hurts Olivia!”

I couldn’t understand anything, but I could tell what it was all about. What I couldn’t understand was the pregnancy thing.

I looked at Frank, who quickly figured out what it meant. He helped me find out where she was. I reached her in a heartbeat. She was in a terrible state. I hugged her and vowed that I wouldn’t rest until Kevin was behind bars. I would make him pay for every tear Emily shed.