Chapter 41

Miles couldn't think straight. Elise was watching him without blinking.

The moment he put pen to paper, she might notice something was wrong. But if he refused to write, what would become of all that talk at the table? He'd just told everyone how hard he was working.

Mrs. Bennett, especially, had looked at him differently after that. Her surprise had turned to warm approval. Now she was waiting to see him solve the problem, looking positively pleased with him.

With every pair of eyes in the room on him, he finally gave a reluctant little nod.

It was mostly formulas, anyway. He wasn't copying pages of ordinary writing. And Dylan's handwriting couldn't be that difficult to imitate, could it?

Put like that, it suddenly seemed easy.

Dylan covered his forehead. He could hardly bear to watch. Perhaps he should find an excuse to leave. No, that would be disloyal. He ought to stay and help pick up what was left of Miles afterward.

Elise slowed her explanation, taking care that her brother could follow.

“This uses the function we were looking at... Once you substitute into the formula, you can work it out. Try it, Miles.”

She put the pen into his hand and smiled at him. He'd never devoted much attention to school, but he was clever. She'd explained it clearly, and there weren't many hidden complications in this question. The formula he'd learned a couple of days ago should be enough.

His pen hovered over the paper. He could vaguely remember the teacher working through a similar example in class. It really wasn't difficult.

But remembering the lesson wasn't his immediate problem.

He tried to picture Dylan's notes and began to write, shaping each stroke with agonizing care.

Just getting through the heading, “Solution,” nearly finished him.

When he'd written it, he glanced up. Elise was looking at the word without any particular expression. Encouraged, he bent over the page again.

He wrote very slowly. Perhaps he was imagining it, but the room seemed to grow quieter with every line.

By the time he put down the pen, his heart was racing.

Elise hadn't said a word.

“Did I get the right answer?” he prompted.

She studied the writing. The letters sprawled in every direction, each apparently determined to go its own way. All that careful slowness hadn't helped. It was still terrible.

She'd actually complimented the handwriting in the notes he'd sent. She remembered being quite surprised that he wrote so neatly.

As his anxiety became unbearable, she asked softly, “Miles, did you write those notes yourself?”

His heart almost stopped. He'd tried so hard to copy Dylan's writing. Apparently handwriting wasn't something a person could master in a few minutes.

“I...”

Lying through a messaging app was one thing. Looking his sister in the face and lying was another. He couldn't get the words out.

Elise understood. Her gaze moved past him to Dylan and the other boys. Their anxious expressions told her they all knew. The instant she looked their way, they dropped their eyes.

Mrs. Bennett noticed something was wrong, too.

“Ellie? What's happened?”

Julian and Adrian exchanged a look and let out almost inaudible sighs. A lie always carried the risk of being exposed. Neither approved of Miles deceiving her, but Elise had believed him so completely that there had been little they could say.

“So when you told me you were studying seriously, was that a lie, too?”

She stood, her face composed. Of course she was angry. If Miles worked at school, he could avoid the desperate circumstances he'd ended up in during their previous life. She'd been happy for him, genuinely happy, and all the while he'd been fooling her.

He hadn't wanted to work hard and improve himself at all.

Then her expression began to give her away. Miles panicked. Had he really got this so badly wrong?

He scrambled to his feet. “Ellie, the notes... I didn't write them, but I have been paying attention in class. Please don't be angry.”

“He has,” Dylan put in at once. “I can vouch for that. He listens in every lesson. It's just that his writing's so awful he used mine. He wanted to make you happy. I've never seen anyone go to so much trouble for his sister.”

The notes were false evidence; the effort was real. But although both boys insisted that Miles had been studying, Elise no longer believed them.

He had lied to her. That much was beyond doubt. She'd encouraged him, defended him, and said so many good things about him.

Her breath caught and quickened. The hurt came over her all at once. She turned to say goodbye to her parents, then ran out.

Miles was frantic. Had she been about to cry?

He wanted to slap himself.

He started after her, but Mrs. Bennett caught him and pulled him back.

“She's angry right now. Chasing her won't help,” she said with a sigh. “I know you wanted to make her happy. You meant well. But this was a foolish thing to do. Of all the ways you could have gone about it!”

She looked thoroughly disapproving. Miles lowered his head like a child caught doing something wrong, at a loss for what to say.

Mrs. Bennett went on for several more sentences. He stood quietly through all of it, looking increasingly miserable.

Dylan and the others scarcely knew where to look. What had happened to the Miles who'd never answered to anyone? If somebody had lectured him like this before, he would have argued back or simply hit them.

So much for their formidable leader.

Eventually Mrs. Bennett stopped. He'd listened so meekly, without a single objection, that she could only sigh again.

He'd wanted to please Ellie. He'd chosen a terrible way of doing it, but what unruly boy never made a mistake?

Now that she'd seen how her daughter's brothers doted on her, even dreaming up ways to make her happy, the last of her worries about the Whitmores had eased. She couldn't stay angry with Miles.

She and her husband went back to putting things away, leaving him some room to reflect.

Julian looked at his dejected brother.

“Go home and apologize to her properly.”

His voice was cool. Seeing Elise so upset had hurt him, too, and he wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic toward Miles.

Adrian was less restrained. He gave a mocking little snort.

“You lied to her. You deserve it. See if she wants anything to do with you now.”

Miles had accepted every word from Mrs. Bennett. Being lectured by these two was a different matter.

He lifted his head, his familiar defiance returning.

“You two can talk. Do you need me to remind you what those presents you give her actually cost?”

Both expressions froze. For a moment, neither brother looked at all well.

Miles glanced between them. Did they think he didn't know? The bracelet on Elise's wrist and the clip in her hair were worth a fortune. They'd been showering her with jewelry lately.

She was frugal. They'd only got her to accept those things by telling her they weren't worth much.

He'd watched them do it. Let them enjoy his downfall while they could. Their turn would come.

Julian recovered his expression and stood to say goodbye to the Bennetts.

“I'll get going. I'll come and see you another day.”

Miles's reminder, coming so soon after Elise's hurt and anger, had been a warning. What if she discovered that the bracelet on her wrist was fabulously expensive? He'd told her it was cheap. He'd lied.

She might refuse to speak to Miles, but what if she stopped speaking to him?

He had to get home and give her more reasons to like him. Perhaps, when his own lie finally came out, she'd have enough affection for him to forgive it.

Whatever Adrian was thinking, his face changed as well.

“I won't keep you any longer, either,” he said brightly. “When you've finished the tea, I'll bring you some more.”

Mrs. Bennett came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands.

“Why are you all leaving so suddenly? Stay a little longer.”

Adrian smiled and declined. Stay here doing what? They needed to get home and cheer their sister up.

Miles knew perfectly well that they meant to get ahead of him. Without stopping to say goodbye, he darted downstairs before either could move.

Elise went straight to her room when she got home.

She'd returned to this life at a time when her brothers were still ignoring her. She'd decided to keep her distance, expecting the same indifference she'd known before. Instead, they'd done everything they could to look after her, protect her, and make her smile.

Her determination to stay away had begun to weaken.

Since coming back, she'd wanted Miles to study so he could escape the ruin of his previous life. She'd thought she'd succeeded. She'd spent days being glad for him.

And he'd been lying.

Someone else had written the notes. Who could say how much studying he'd actually done?

She felt defeated, and hurt in a way she wished she didn't. Perhaps she shouldn't have softened at all. Perhaps she should have stuck to her decision and left her brothers alone.

Quiet footsteps approached her door. More than one person, by the sound of it. They stopped outside.

Quite a while passed before anyone knocked.

“Ellie? It's Julian. Would you open the door?”

His voice was gentle and unusually cautious.

She was still angry with Miles. When she was upset, she didn't want to talk to anyone. She wanted to hide until the feeling passed.

After thinking for a while, she finally answered in a muffled voice, “I'd like to be alone for a bit.”

Low voices immediately rose on the other side. Julian clearly hadn't come by himself.

There was a pause.

“All right,” he said.

He didn't know what to do. She wasn't angry with him, but she was unhappy, and he wanted to put that right as quickly as possible.

He'd never dealt with anything like this. It seemed harder than the projects waiting for him at the office.

Should he go back to his room and search online?

Beside him, Adrian looked equally troubled. What did you do when your little sister was angry? What did you do when a girl was angry?

He'd never had a girlfriend. How was he supposed to know how to cheer a girl up?

He would have to go and ask somebody who knew. He shot Miles a furious look. This was all his idiot brother's fault.

Miles had almost scratched his own hair off.

He would never lie to Elise again. He wouldn't dare.

What if she never spoke to him again?

He might as well die.

Three grown men stood outside her door, utterly miserable.

By dinnertime, most of Elise's anger had faded. She still felt awkward, though, and didn't want to go downstairs and eat with Miles.

She took out a practice paper instead, cleared her thoughts, and began working.

Her phone vibrated on the desk. She opened the message.

Julian: Hungry?

Julian: I had the chef make lots of your favorites. I'll have someone bring them up in a little while. Will you open the door?

She pressed her lips together. She wasn't hungry. She had no appetite at all, and she was still upset.

She was about to type a refusal when another message arrived.

Adrian: Ellie. Ellie!

Adrian: Stop being angry with that idiot. Look at me instead. Am I not handsome enough?

Adrian sent a photo.

Then another.

Then a third.

The pictures kept coming, all of them carefully retouched. Elise scrolled and scrolled without reaching the end.

A laugh escaped her. He was calling Miles an idiot while sending her an entire collection of his own pictures. How full of himself could he be?

Did he think a good look at his magnificent face would make her forget she was angry?

Adrian: All right. Time for my secret weapon. [Smug face]

Adrian: Want me to sing for you?

She was about to tell him there was no need when the app showed that he was already recording.

Quietly, she deleted what she'd typed.

A minute later, a fifty-six-second voice message appeared.

She tapped it. Adrian's voice came through the speaker.

Singing had made him famous. His own songs and that distinctive voice had brought him success from his debut; even without accompaniment, its rich, compelling sound was enough to hold her attention.

This song was slow and tender. Elise raised her brows. She knew he was a singer, but she associated him with rock and fast rhythms. She'd never heard him sing anything so lyrical.

She didn't recognize the song, either. It hadn't appeared on any of his albums.

Adrian: I wrote it. Do you like it? [Shy face]

The lyrics were beautiful. He'd deliberately softened his voice, until the song came gently to her ears like a lullaby.

Elise: You wrote this?

When had he started writing songs like that? It was such a change from his usual style.

Adrian: It's called “Elise.”

He followed it with a hands-on-hips emoji.

The idea had first begun to take shape on the day he'd returned to this life. After ending his contract with the record company, he'd set up his own studio. He meant this song to be the lead track on his new album.

Plenty of singers could sell an album on the strength of having one song written by him. Requests poured in. He'd turned them all down.

He only wanted to write a song for his sister.

He'd intended to wait until the album came out, then tell her about it as a surprise gift. But Miles had proved completely unreliable. The boy seemed capable of nothing except upsetting her.

So Adrian had told her early. If it made her happy, the surprise could wait no longer.

Elise stared at the title, her eyes widening.

Her name.

For a long time, she simply sat there. Adrian had written a song for her? He'd even named it after her.

Her fingers rested above the message box. She couldn't think what to say. She hadn't been prepared for anything like this.

Then someone knocked.

She put down the phone and looked toward the door.

“Ellie...”

Miles's voice reached her faintly through it, sounding thoroughly wretched.

Between Julian's messages and Adrian's song, the last of her anger had gone. She let out a helpless sigh.

She'd come to see that persuading Miles to study couldn't be the work of a day. After years of disliking school, was he really going to turn into a model student overnight? Perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised that he'd resorted to a trick like this.

She'd been asking too much of him.

She got up and opened the door, meeting his anxious eyes.