CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Raina
A s Griffin and Shane kiss their wives, Connor leans down and presses his lips to mine with no hesitation. It’s a quick peck, but his firm lips say: this is real. Permanent.
Gulp.
Wives are not invited, but Sabine disappears behind the office door. She’s not part of Quinlan Empire, but she is family.
Her husband, not looking emasculated at all, says, “I’ll watch the boys to make sure they don’t level the place.”
“Just remember, Grayson, they’re Quinlans, your boy, too. These little brats have it in their blood to do damage,” Norah says with good humor at the stove. “Go into the living room, lasses. My girls and I will have dinner ready shortly.”
“I’m going to put baby Norah down for a nap, Ma.” Lennox strolls behind the kitchen to a quiet sitting room with gentle amber lighting.
Ma . She called her mother-in-law Ma.
Ava hands me a glass of the same wine she’s drinking and motions for me to follow her through the hall and into the living room. Grayson is sitting on the floor with his son Aiden and her twins, pushing trucks and plastic cars. I settle into a comfortable chair while Ava takes a seat on the sofa.
“You were DEA?” she asks sharply with no lead-up.
“Yeah, and I got kicked out.” I raise my glass, not being one of these people who boast with exaggerated fluff and made-up shit about myself.
“You fit into this family,” Ava snorts. “I was Navy and almost made SEAL. But failed out. More than once.”
I choke on the wine. “You trained at Coronado?”
“It was hell.” Ava nods. “Then I worked for a CIA covert unit. Until one of my lovely brothers got me kicked out of there.”
My jaw slackens, and I don’t know what to tackle first with that list. “That’s just, wow!”
Lennox returns with a glass of water and adds, “She left off that she was kidnapped for five months, and that Griffin found her and rescued her.”
“Sounds romantic.” I hold my chest.
Ava visibly shakes from five months in captivity.
Being rescued is probably not what she remembers the most. “He agreed to marry me so my brothers would stop slaughtering the Irish. We had a rocky start, but now, Griffin is my whole world. Gave me everything I never knew I needed.” She smiles at her twin sons crawling on the carpet.
“What do you do, Lennox?” I ask Shane’s wife, who’s as stunning as Ava, with the same dark shiny hair that is perfectly styled.
“This one owns a nightclub.” Ava raises her glass to Lennox, like she’s too shy to admit that to me.
Lennox blushes and runs a hand with a massive rock through all that long hair. “Luxe is more work than excitement.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “ The Luxe?”
She nods, and now I get why Connor and his brothers went there every night.
“Darcy, who’s not here, is a nurse,” Lennox adds about Ewan’s wife but doesn’t dish on the niece part.
Damn.
But with the wives all working impressive jobs and Sabine being the head of security at The Sterling, the Quinlan women are powerhouses. From what I can see, their husbands adore and respect them .
I take a sip of wine and wonder what will be expected of me as far as job and family if I become the next Mrs. Quinlan...