CHAPTER FOUR
WELLS
U shering Ivy out to her car and sending her on her way took far more strength than it should have.
Especially since she hesitated in the driveway, first with an awestruck gape at the house, much like when we had arrived, but soon, that morphed into a lingering ogle on my eyes and lips, accompanied by shallow breaths, as though leaving wasn’t something she ever wanted to do.
Which nearly broke me.
She fucks with my head, her vanilla-raspberry scent waking up my cock when that is the last thing I can afford to be focusing on right now.
I down the last of my Macallan, Ty promptly passing me another one from our back patio bar.
He pulls up a wrought iron chair beside me at the white stone table, sipping his Kraken and Coke. “Seems like it went well.”
The stars are so bright out here when we keep the string lights on the lowest setting, like they are now, even better when they’re off. Peaceful.
I nod, searching the diamond-dotted sky, visible through the slats of the pergola, wishing some of that peace could wash over me now. “It did.”
He chuckles. It isn’t his typical mirthful bellow. It’s patronizing. “So, that’s why you chomped on that raspberry Tootsie Pop like you had something personally against it when you came back inside? ”
I cracked that bastard wide open. No licks. My brows arch in feigned confusion.
He kicks up his feet with another all-knowing chuckle. “Anger? Sexual tension?”
“Both,” I bark, the raspberry sweetness still coating my tongue with longing. “Such a fucking mess.”
“Is it?” He swishes the dwindling liquid in his glass. “We’re close and, if all goes right, in a better position than we expected to be a few months ago. Hell, far better than four or five years ago.”
“I know.” The scotch burns my throat with a twinge of comfort, but I’m not sure a bottle will suffice tonight. Everything is falling into place with a weight I didn’t fully anticipate.
“Then, what?” His tone holds more anxiety now. For me? Ivy? Achieving our goal? “You don’t think she’ll commit?”
“She’ll commit,” I assure him. “It’s not that. I—”
Liam swings open the French doors, making an entrance, as always. “So, Chief , let’s discuss our little high-society hottie.”
A growl erupts from the depths of my chest, causing Ty to laugh and tip his head with a that’s-what-I-thought expression.
Liam hauls a chair near us, straddling it and studying me.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t we have a code of conduct—protocol if you will?
” He pulls a Marlboro Red from his pack,letting it stick to his lower lip without lighting it.
“And isn’t one of those protocols to never get involved with a client? ”
Christ, I knew he’d be a jackass about this.
I lean back in my chair, calmly drinking my scotch with a serene, unfazed air. “She’s not a client, and we all agreed this was the direction things needed to go.”
“Right.” He takes a long hit of the cigarette he lit, shoving his Zippo into the pocket of his jeans, and blows his smoke out into the yard.
“It’s worse. She’s the job. Her father is our fucking client.
And, furthermore”—he throws out his arms—“we agreed she needed to be brought into our inner circle. But everything tonight suggests you’re going to be coming into her inner circle. ”
Ty laughs, which garners a scowl from me. “Sorry.” He shrugs. “That was funny.”
Children.
I dismiss that and turn my attention back to Liam. “I’m still focused on our mission. This is the best way to entice her into our circle.”
“As a fucktoy?” He howls, and my blood boils as he draws in another long nicotine hit. “Jesus, Chief, I gotta say, when you add an amendment, you go for it.”
Heat rises up my arms and chest, but I remain composed, relaxed. “Not a fucktoy. I’m going to marry her, doubling our reward.”
His eyes light up—he clearly likes the sound of that.
That is Liam’s love language—acquiring more, taking what belongs to someone else—a trait he comes by honestly, but will most definitely be his demise.
He swings his leg around the chair, moseys to the patio fridge, pops the top off a beer, and leans against the stone wall of the house. “So, that’s your angle. And hers?”
“Inheritance,” I explain simply. A development I hadn’t yet shared with him, but the reason our door swung wide open.
He bobs his head in thought. “So, there’s no romantic or sexual expectations from either party?”
Motherfucker.
Ty swigs his drink, shaking his head while his forehead wrinkles with annoyance. “Fuck, man.”
Handling this with Liam will take a bit of finesse, but it’s a walk in the park compared to what I anticipate from Gage, so there’s no sense in letting him rile me. I knew it was coming.
While my patience is dwindling, my tone is still placid. “I didn’t say that. For a marriage to appear authentic, certain lines will need to be crossed. Essentially becoming the job.”
Extinguishing his cigarette in the bar ashtray, he roars a pissed-off laugh and props himself against the house again. “Jesus Christ, talk about pulling rank and finding a self-serving way of completing a job. ”
I slam my glass onto the table and stand, the force pushing my chair back with a screech on the flagstone patio. “Shut your suck, Graves. I’ve been carrying your ass for nine fucking years. If I say this is how we’re handling it, then all I need out of you is quiet compliance.”
He salutes me with his middle finger. Asshole . “Yes, sir. Completely on board, Chief, but—”
Ty groans, his head falling back against his shoulders. “Don’t be a dick, man.”
Liam ignores him, pinning me with his arrogant gaze again. “You may have seen her first, but we’re all invested. It doesn’t mean she’s yours.”
That’s true. It doesn’t. She isn’t mine because I saw her first. She’s mine because she was made for me and because everything changed the second I laid eyes on her, which he knows damn well.
But Liam is my family, and strictly forbidding his interest will only spur him on, so I’ll indulge him. “It doesn’t?”
“No,” he says with an edge, followed by his signature twinkle. “And I’m far less temperamental than you. Ivy seems like the kind of girl who wants a man who can shed a little light in her world.”
The fucker doesn’t get her at all. Ivy is brighter than every star in the inky sky.
A field of fireflies blinking nostalgia.
A goddamn bonfire illuminating the stale night air.
I’m skilled at hiding emotions, but at this moment, with my pulse thudding between my eyes and my fingers flexing with an itch to fist, it’s a struggle.
“Ivy is the light.”
Ty claps his hands with a victorious whoop. “The man can say more in four words than you can say all damn day, Liam. Let it go so we can move forward. He’s staked his claim.”
“That’s fucked up,” Liam balks, plucking the cigarette tucked behind his ear, lighting it with his Zippo, and taking a hasty drag.
“I refuse to accept that. We’ve changed the rules, so my hat is getting thrown in the ring whether you want it to or not.
” He smirks, plainly goading me, as he flicks the glowing cherry into the ashtray.
“But I’m not greedy. If she’s open to it, we can share her. ”
My glare is surely burning a hole through his skull while I consider killing him, slow and torturous, but Ty interjects my sentiments in a more civilized way. “Now, that’s fucked up, man. What’s gotten into you?”
Liam snickers with another puff. “I’m trying to think through this. We both want her. And we can’t let pussy come between us, so why not? She’d be spoiled by the two of us, and then no one loses.”
“Except Ivy!” Ty spits out. “She’s a traditional girl. Marriage. Babies. PTA and cocktail parties. Jesus , as if she doesn’t have enough shit to faceright now. She won’t be towing her two lovers along to events. What the hell?”
Liam is like the fraudulent mother who was willing to let Solomon cut the baby in half so she didn’t have to see someone else with the infant. Fucking narcissistic fool. It confirms what I already knew to be true. Ivy is mine. Always has been. Always will be.
With swarming visions of flattening him for his flagrant disregard of her value, I grit out my objection. “I. Don’t. Share.”
He shrugs, his lips peeling south in a slight frown. “Fine. Your loss. I’m fairly certain I can charm my way into her—”
A snarl bellows out of me as I lunge at him, my forearm securing him to the house at his throat.
“Do not finish that fucking sentence. Throw your hat in the ring, Liam. It won’t concern me in the least. But you do not touch her unless she asks you to marry her.
” No fucking way that’s happening. “Understood?”
His face is tinged red, breathing strained, but the son of a bitch still narrows challenging eyes. “Don’t want me to deter her with my—”
I smash my arm tighter against his bobbing Adam’s apple, cutting off his air supply. “Your blood on my hands would be unfortunate, but I would not lose any sleep. No. Fucking. Touching.” Letting up slightly on my hold, I shoot a glare toward Ty. “You jumping into this boxing match too? ”
“Nope.” Ty raises surrendering hands. “You and Liam are family, as is Ivy . She’s like a sister.
You assholes can cockfight and risk losing her completely, but I’m keeping her forever.
” He walks toward the entrance to the great room, obviously over this, pausing once he opens the French doors.
“If you don’t settle this shit, you’ll get her killed.
And trust me when I say, I won’t repeat my mistakes.
I’ll protect this sister from anyone necessary. ”
And that’s why Ty knew my plan before anyone else. That’s why I’ll trust him with Ivy. This job has become as personal to him as it has for me, just in a different way.