Tempting Fate by Amber Lin

that he would likely make a full recovery, that he was a lucky man. Those were his words: He’s a lucky man.
    I sagged with relief even while my empty stomach heaved. Only Philip’s arm around my waist kept me from sinking to the blue speckled floor. Philip thanked the doctor and asked about visitation. When he woke up, and even then it would be severely restricted. One person at a time, thirty minutes each.
    When the doctor left, Philip pulled me into a wonderfully painful hug. Tears sprang to my eyes. I threw my arms around his neck.
    “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He frowned, as if the strangeness of the situation had just dawned on him. “But what…why are you here, anyway?”
    Lies flitted through my head, some reasonable, some ridiculous. I was just asking his advice on the lease. We were planning a surprise party for you. Whatever.
    I didn’t have the heart to lie anymore, and as much as I feared Philip’s reaction, I knew he wouldn’t really harm Drew, especially when he was already laid up in the hospital.
    “Philip. There’s something else you should know. That crush you mentioned, it’s…” I searched for the right words, thinking of what he’d said about waiting for me to return those feelings. “Well, it’s reciprocal. In fact, you could say we’re a couple.”
    He stared at me with an incredulous expression. “What exactly do you mean?”
    I wasn’t about to spell it out for him. We’ve been having sex in your house. Never mind that we were both consenting adults. The fact that we’d felt the need to hide it was indictment enough.
    Guilt had been a thick, jagged pill all this time, and now that he knew, it burned like acid in my stomach.
    “He has feelings for me,” I said as neutrally as I could manage.
    “And you return them.”
    The flatness of his voice was more worrisome than yelling would have been. His eyes were cold, his jaw set.
    Part of me had hoped all my worry was unnecessary, overkill, and he would accept my relationship with Drew with grace and forbearing as he’d done for my ballet studio.
    But it was clear that he was pissed. Royally pissed. The only thing I could do was lay my cards on the table.
    “I care for him a lot. This isn’t just… I think it’s serious between us.”
    Philip laughed, a harsh sound. “That’s a lot of uncertainty. Which is it, are you serious or not?”
    “Well,” I stammered, “it’s still early.”
    “Right. Early. And what the hell am I supposed to do if things don’t work out?”
    I blinked. “How would it—”
    “How would it affect me if my sister breaks the heart of the one man who’s indispensable to my work? What am I going to do if he suddenly quits? This is the business that keeps us all strong, all safe, and you’re risking it for a fling you aren’t even sure about?”
    “No. I’m sure about it. About him.”
    He made a disbelieving sound. “Hundreds of other men in the world, and you had to pick him. I knew you would date eventually. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but it was inevitable. But him? He’s the one man who’s off-limits to you.”
    The subtext sounded more like you can’t have him. He’s mine. I half expected him to pee on Drew just to mark his territory.
    Anger bubbled up in me, a welcome respite from the hurt I felt. “That’s not up to you to decide. You don’t own him, where you can decide who he dates. And for that matter, you don’t own me .”
    Ruthless calculation filled his eyes. “Are you sure about that?” he asked quietly.
    The words dropped like lead. Was this what we had come to? “I have my savings. I don’t need your money or your protection anymore.”
    “But he does. I can ruin him, make it so he’s run out of the city. No one will hire him.”
    I glared at my brother. Drew’s job was everything to him. The long hours he spent, the years of loyal service proved it was far more than a paycheck to him. His story about how he’d come to work for my brother had been