Read Island Road: The Billionaire Brothers for Free Online Page B

defense. “She can be a little overprotective, but it comes from a place of love.”
    “Of course.” Miles shook water from his hair like a dog surfacing from a lake, blinking furiously. “I would never dream of implying otherwise. I can only imagine how it felt to come so close to losing you.”
    Perversely, Miles’s easy acceptance of her mother’s struggle made Greta want to argue the other side. Stomach in knots from the roller coaster of her emotions, she pressed a fist to her belly button. “It was hard for her, I know. My dad died when I was a baby, so it was just Mama on her own, with this passel of boys and me. The lone, sickly girl. The whole island helped out, babysitting and holding pancake breakfasts to raise money for treatments, but still—I know she felt very alone.”
    But does that justify the way she keeps me close to her, never wants to let me far enough out of her sight to actually live my life?
    Her voice dried up around the words, too disloyal to think, much less to say. But from the barely leashed power of Miles’s body as he surged to his feet and paced across the pavilion toward her, Greta had the insane feeling that he could read her mind.
    His words, spoken softly against her cheek as he lifted his fingers to burrow into the damp tendrils of hair behind her ear, confirmed it. “Have you ever been off this island, Greta?”
    The ache of longing that rose up her throat stole her voice for a moment. Swallowing it down, Greta looked away, out into the rain. “Sure. I was such a frequent visitor to Harbor General, the big hospital on the mainland, that the nurses joked about naming a room after me.”
    A strange tone came into his voice. “And that’s it. You’ve never been farther from home than the podunk town at the other end of Sanctuary Island’s ferry line.”
    “Hey, don’t knock Winter Harbor! That’s the metropolis to us. They have a grocery store there that sells packs of sushi in the deli department!”
    “Well, if you can get grocery store sushi, what more do you need from life?” Miles stood to pace the confines of the gazebo, the motorcycle boots he must have borrowed from Dylan striking hard and loud against the wooden boards. “There’s a whole world out there, Greta. You must have wanted to see it. What about college?”
    “Mama … I mean, I decided it was better to take courses online through the EVCC. Eastern Virginia Community College.”
    “Right, you decided.”
    The skepticism in his heavy-lidded blue eyes got Greta’s back up. Tilting her chin, she glared at him. “Yes, I decided. My brothers all left the island for school, and there was no one else to help Mama with the store. She needed me. And after everything she’s done for me, the sacrifices she’s made—how could I do anything else? So yeah, I stuck around. And for the most part, I have no regrets. It was the right thing to do.”
    “Doing the right thing for your family.” Understanding smoothed the ragged edges of Miles’s tone. He shook his head, and the light brown hair he usually swept back fell forward over his forehead to give him a sudden boyishness that made her want to hug him. “It’s amazing how little comfort that is, at times.”
    Greta licked her lips, tasting clean, fresh rain. Drawn like a magnet to her true north, she moved to sit sideways on the bench beside him, drawing her feet up to rest on the seat by his hips. She leaned back against one of the pillars holding up the pavilion roof and watched Miles. “You get it. I know you do. I’ve seen the way you are with your brothers.”
    Sighing, Miles settled deeper into the bench. He didn’t turn his head to face her, and the stark lines of his profile stood out against the silvery air like a marble statue. “According to Dylan and Logan, how I am with my brothers is domineering, overbearing, demanding, hypercritical.”
    “Some people might say that about my mother,” Greta pointed out. “From the outside, she may