“See that you do. I don’t want any more complications. This marriage is a big enough blip on our radar.”
“It’s for damn sure not something I was expecting.” After a beat, Cade cracked up. “I never would have thought you would be the one getting married now.”
“Why?”
“Man. I don’t know. You’re the head of our family. It’s enough work as it is. You have to right all dad’s wrongs and you take it way more seriously than you should.” There was rustling. “Ivy’s back. We’re going to eat a snack. A little advice, bro. I’d start letting your fiancé know a bit more about what’s coming up. You have a damn charity gala to attend for the oil ports in a week. Does she know?”
“There’s nothing to know. She’ll get dressed and go. We can announce our engagement publicly and put together a small ceremony a week later.”
“You're planning all this without your bride like it’s going to go over so well.” He chuckled into the phone. “I’m excited to see how it all crumbles.”
“You’re a sick fuck most days, Cade.”
“Proud of it too.” He mumbled something to Ivy and then said to me, “Be a pal and let Katie know we’re safe and sound if she calls you.”
Then he hung up.
Not twenty minutes later, Katie’s number popped up on my screen.
There was a time way back when I thought she and I could be more than what we were. She was this powerful girl who didn’t bend to anyone. We found out she had ties to the bratva and slowly she chipped away at all their businesses and ours. She’d become one of the most powerful people in the world and I loved that we had a great relationship, the type between colleagues, but also like a family. We all worked together to make sure our businesses ran smoothly, that our families stepped in line.
“Yes, Katie?” I answered on the fifth ring and eyed the tall building that my penthouse was located in. We still had another 30 minutes of traffic to navigate before I arrived.
“So, your brother says his fucking flight just landed with my child.” Her voice was filled with venom.
“I had nothing to do with this.”
“I don’t know if I believe that. Except that you’re probably hiding from your soon to be fiancé and so that may just be the case. Either way, you now have everything to do with it. Ivy can’t stay up all night flying back on a plane. So, she’s staying with you and Morina. Take her to the park, feed her well, and watch her like a hawk. Those parks have got to be crowded. Cade needs to get a team together if it’s to be safe.” She paused. “I can’t get there fast enough, Bastian.”
The concern at the end of her commands put out all the fight in me. “I got her, Katie. She’s fine. We’ll have fun, huh?”
“Oh, you won’t have fun. It’s going to be absolute hell. If she comes back unhappy, though, I’ll break all the bones in your body before I skin Cade alive.”
She was the second person to hang up on me that day.
I didn’t flinch at her words. I’d been threatened enough times. I knew she meant what she said. I also knew that I would die before anything happened to the little monster that was about to tornado through my penthouse.
I told the driver to speed the rest of the way, but we still didn’t get there in time to intercept my family. Instead, I’d have to face the woman I’d been avoiding for days with my brother and niece there to witness the awkwardness.
As the elevator ascended to my door, I swear I could smell her scent already. She wore something spicy enough that it had lingered in my jet for days. I’d thought I’d be happy when it started to fade but instead I remember contemplating asking someone what the smell was.
Now, I’d get to smell it for six months.
That had to be some sort of rude karma that she probably believed in.
I shut my eyes, frustrated with myself for being irritated with her. Her grandmother’s will wasn’t her fault. The fact we’d slept together and I couldn’t stop thinking about her bent over naked as fuck wasn’t her fault either.
I didn’t dislike the girl’s company. I just thought I’d never have to see her again. She was young and shot off at the mouth and wasn’t at all what I needed for this venture. It was my last one. The last loose tie my father had left for me. And he’d left a lot over the years.
This was the one thing I needed to right to give the family a new, fresh slate. It meant I was doing this clean as hell. No hiccups.
No loopholes.
If Maribel had willed that she wanted a marriage for me to prove I was going to make this company thrive, that’s what she would get. Morina would see I meant business.
And no pleasure, even if I’d watched her hand drag across that mosaic tile and wanted it to be my dick instead. The way her bracelets jangled as she did it and her clean nails grazed each piece with a delicate touch, she was enticing.
And infuriating. I didn’t need the complication of wanting her. So I stayed away.
Now, my brother was forcing a damn intervention even if he didn’t know it.
When I exited the elevators, Ivy was running around my waterfall island with all the near dead plants directly in the middle. They were a complete eyesore. And the salt lamp was on as if it provided some sort of natural element to the space.
It didn’t.
Morina believed in hocus pocus. None of it made sense to me, but instead of being completely fine with her bringing it into the penthouse, I’d lashed out immediately.
That wasn’t my nature, but with her, it was. Normally I would have agreed, set on us getting along.
She stirred some emotion in me that I couldn’t control and that only infuriated me more.
Cade winked at me when Ivy came running, her long curls everywhere. I was ready to catch her when she jumped right at me.
I might not have been a great person for Morina to live with but I was a good ass uncle. I caught Ivy before she was even halfway in the air. “My little poison Ivy. How did you get here?”
She squished my cheeks together and giggled. “On a plane, Uncle Bastian. You’re so silly.”
“Silly?” I lifted a brow in mock terror. “I’m not silly. I’m your very serious uncle.”
She thought about it for a second, looked back at Cade who wiggled his tattooed fingers at her, and then pulled me close. “You’re right. Cade’s sillier than you.”
I nodded solemnly. “Someone’s got to be the oldest.”
“That means you’re the boss too, right? Mommy always says she’s the boss but I think maybe daddy and you are bosses too.” Then she leaned in and pulled my ear out way too hard for it to be comfortable. I didn’t even wince because the little girl with her gray eyes and big dark curls had my whole soul, and I wasn’t wiping that smile off her face for even a second. “Cade’s not the boss though.”
“Careful, you little monster,” Cade said, even though he was looking into his phone now. “I hear everything. It’s my super power and it might just make me the biggest boss of all.”