Chapter 12
M onday morning, bright and fucking early, I open my front door, not surprised at all to find all my siblings and most of their significant others on the other side.
Why? Couple reasons. One, I haven’t seen them all weekend and that includes Sunday dinner, which we always go to as a family at my parents’ compound.
I was called into the hospital for one of my patients and couldn’t go.
Two, I was photographed with Bianca, the two of us leaving my place Saturday morning.
And I refused to answer their calls or texts about it other than to say nothing happened, she’s my assistant, and I was helping her out.
It makes no sense. Not to them and not to me why I allowed her into my house. Why I allowed her to stay. Why I insisted on spending the day with her, making her breakfast like she had spent the night in my bed with me, and then helping her buy a car.
Why I told her exactly what I wanted to do to her.
I don’t do those things with women. Any of it.
Worse yet, I had a really good time with her.
Now here they are, seeking answers under the bullshit guise of we want to wish you luck on your first official day as CEO and oh, yeah, we brought you breakfast from that place you like in hopes it will relax you and you’ll start spilling the beans on the girl.
I won’t.
“Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, wearing clothes?” Grace asks, her nose scrunched up when she sees I’m only wearing gym shorts and sweat. Her reaction is not nearly as adorable as Bianca’s and that right there is the problem.
“Considering I didn’t invite any of you over, no.”
“He’s moody. Something is definitely up,” Rina comments, casting a glance over to Landon who just shrugs because if anyone knows and understands being moody and not wanting to talk about shit, it’s him.
Landon lost his wife nine years ago now in a tragic car accident.
For years he blamed himself for her death and it’s only now that he’s starting to forgive himself for his mistakes.
“Amelia and Elle send their apologies for not crashing in on you this morning,” Oliver informs me, pushing past me and stalking through my house toward my kitchen. “Both of them had to get the girls to school and get to work and didn’t have time to make the trek into Boston.”
Amelia is Oliver’s now real fiancée, though for a while, she was his fake fiancée.
They live together in Chestnut Hill with Layla, Amelia’s little sister who Amelia is guardian over.
Elle is Landon’s woman, his daughter Stella’s teacher, and neighbor as it would be, but Elle and Landon are getting serious enough that the house Landon is building he’s doing for all of them.
“And Raven said she wasn’t going to get out of bed this early to badger you about something you clearly don’t want to talk about, so she didn’t come,” Luca finishes.
Ironically, Raven is probably one of the few I’d actually talk to about Bianca.
“Other than being disappointed in not seeing them, you all should have taken a page from Raven and not come. I have to get ready for work and unfortunately today isn’t a scrubs day like it is for the rest of you.”
“I’m not in scrubs,” Brecken, my baby sister Rina’s now husband drawls as he munches on a piece of toast while staring down at his phone. By the looks of it, Rina dragged him here. I like that about Brecken. He knows when to insert himself into family drama and when to back off.
“We’re obviously not leaving until you give your siblings something and I’m starving,” Grace says, opening a take-out box piled with waffles and eggs.
“Why don’t you just tell them all the details about this woman—er I mean the new job—and get it over with.
” She winks at me as she pours syrup over the entire thing and then digs in with gusto only to moan.
“God, I’m going to miss eating for two when this pregnancy is all done. ”
“You always eat like this, pregnant or not,” Oliver quips.
“True,” she concedes, sucking the syrup off her fingers.
Snagging the egg-white-and-cheddar sandwich I know is for me, I creep backward toward my stairs. “How about I just go up and shower while pretending you guys aren’t here?”
“We already told them everything you told us the other day,” Luca informs me, waving a finger back and forth between him and Carter.
“You tell us you didn’t fuck her and we believe you.
But you also told us you couldn’t stand her and that she couldn’t stand you and then you’re photographed Saturday morning walking out of here together.
Incidentally, Mom and Dad were all over us last night about the picture and the press were all up our asses as we walked in. They’re waiting on you.”
I groan. “If our bank accounts didn’t have nine zeros, would anyone give a fuck about us?”
“Likely not. But we’re hot and amazing in bed so we have that going for us too.”
I smirk at Oliver because he gets it. Of the six of us, Oliver, Luca, and I are stalked the most by the press. Rina, Landon, and Carter have always managed to maintain a lower profile. Especially Rina and much of that is her big brothers being protective and keeping the press off her ass.
“Just tell us about the girl and then you can eat your breakfast and shower in peace.”
“Rina, why do you care?”
Something hits her eye, a gleam I don’t quite understand. “Did you see the picture?”
“What?” I shake my head. “No. I only know it’s out there because you assholes told me it was.
” I didn’t look it up because I didn’t want to think about Bianca any more than I already was and I didn’t want to see a picture of us together leaving my condo because deep in my bones, I knew it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I don’t know if it was a fuck you to Millie—who has been up my ass, talking about our future that we will never have and who brought up how magical penthouse apartments in Paris are no less than five times during our one-hour ambush lunch—or my parents for setting up that lunch and planting this stupid arrangement seed.
Yeah, that lunch was supposed to be just my mother and me and then “oh, look who’s here in the restaurant too, you have to join us”—or to the press because Bianca is so far removed from the women I’ve always been photographed with.
I’ve already called Morgan Fairchild, Raven’s father and also our family’s head of security to get a detail set up. Between the foundation and the hospital and my home it’s a mess and I can’t do it alone. It’s simply not safe anymore.
“Here.” Rina pulls up what I assume is the picture on her phone and then flips the screen around so I can see it.
It’s a picture of Bianca and me walking to my car.
It’s harmless, other than it’s obvious we’re right in front of my door.
But then I look a bit closer, and I see it.
The smile on my lips. The way my eyes cling to the side of her face.
The way my head and body are angled toward her.
The way her hands are moving as if she’s saying something that visibly has me enthralled.
Christ. This is not what I wanted to deal with this morning. Especially not before I have to go into the office and not only face her but the entire office who will no doubt be talking about it.
“She was telling me how she makes her art. She works with metal and has to use hammers and pliers and shit to make it. That’s all this is.
The crazy-ass woman takes an Uber to some industrial part of Chelsea in the middle of the night to work on her art and I wasn’t going to let her do that because it’s dangerous as hell.
She came over and we watched a movie and she fell asleep on the couch in my crow’s nest. That’s it.
That’s how un-fucking-scandalous this is. ”
“Except you’re you,” Carter cuts in. “Boston’s last billionaire bachelor who wants nothing to do with dating or relationships or marriage. You’re the ultimate catch, Kap. Especially now that the rest of us are off the market.”
“Exactly,” Luca agrees. “What does Raven call you? Doctor Untouchable. That’s you to the world and yet now you’re photographed smiling with your new assistant leaving your home. We believe you that it’s nothing, but the world won’t.”
“Right.” Oliver nods, picking at the food on his plate. “All we’re saying is, be careful. Watch your back. They’ve caught a scent and they won’t stop until they’ve got what they’re after.”
* * *
I have to hand it to my family. They’re very good at pulling the attention away from me. All of us leave my condo together, Grace and her large belly in the front, her hand on it and a grimace on her face as if she’s in pain.
“Carter,” she cries. “We have to get to the hospital now.”
She’s not lying. Both of them are OB-GYNs at MGH and they have shifts this morning, so yes, they do have to get to the hospital now.
“Oh!” And there’s Carter on one side of her, Oliver on the other, the waiting press already calling out her name instead of mine, giving me the perfect distraction to take a left toward my car that I had parked on the street off to the side instead of in my spot unseen.
Just as I hit the unlock button, two tall, dark figures stifle my shadow. “Sir,” they say in unison, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Morgan Fairchild didn’t fuck around. He sent me his biggest guys who are so massive they block out the sun.
“Axl. Slash,” I greet the twins whose mother obviously had a thing for Guns N’ Roses. “Good to see you both this morning. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“Our pleasure, sir,” Axl replies since he’s the only one who speaks regularly of the two of them. Slash tends to grunt instead. “Mr. Fairchild has me in the vehicle driving you and Slash tailing us. Other than the ones in front of your residence, the front of the foundation is surrounded by press.”