Chapter 23
M atthieu stared at her door with a frown. If she didn’t appear soon, he would have to try and track her down. She had a late start today so he’d just thought she was sleeping in.
He’d let the chickens out as well as opening her door to let Gummy and Dougie out. He’d fed them and Marshmallow the hamster as well as Princess Priss.
But he wasn’t sure about opening the spare bedroom door. The other days he’d left them to Maya. Maybe he’d open it and give Tank and Big Berry the option of leaving the room.
And he could feed them outside like Maya did.
He put the food and water out first, then walked in to open the door.
No one emerged. His phone started ringing and he saw it was Ink. He’d been expecting him after the call he’d made last night to Brody.
Brody hadn’t answered, so he’d left him a message.
Hopefully, he found something Matthieu could use on Ryan.
Because he had a feeling the idiot wasn’t going to take his threat seriously.
His accent had started to slip last night as he’d grown agitated.
That control that he’d treasured had become whisper thin.
But he'd pulled himself back from the edge.
The fire was burning but it was firmly under his control.
He hoped.
“Morning,” he said.
“Really?” Ink replied. “That’s what you have to say to me? Why am I having to call you? Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
“Someone woke up grumpy.”
“I didn’t wake up grumpy!” Ink told him. “I woke up to Brody calling me and telling me all the ways that he could fabricate dirt on some guy who you tried to strangle last night.”
“I barely touched him.”
“Brody sent me over the camera footage,” Ink replied dryly.
“So Brody is a narc.”
Ink started swearing for a moment and there was the sound of him moving around. “Listen, if you value your life, never, ever say anything bad about Brody. Understand?”
Sheesh, talk about intense.
“Sure. I understand.”
“No. I’m being serious. You don’t know anything about Brody’s private life and it’s better that way . . . or I thought it would be. Brody has two partners. Autumn, who is a sweetheart. And then, well, let’s just call him Raev. He goes by that name sometimes.”
What the heck did that mean? What was his real name?
“And he’s fucking dangerous. I can’t emphasize this enough. He is deadly and he has his own morals. But he will protect Brody, Autumn, and Sunny to the death. So never speak badly of them.”
“Sunny?” he asked, confused.
“Yeah, he is very close to Sunny. Considers her a sister.”
“You sound like you know him well.”
“I don’t. I just know he’s dangerous and unpredictable.”
“I wasn’t really criticizing Brody. I like Brody. I just didn’t expect him to turn around and tell you everything.”
“He works for me,” Ink replied. “It’s his job to tell me everything.”
“Has he got some ideas on how to ruin Ryan?” Matthieu asked.
Ink sighed. “What was the asshole doing that you had to go and strangle him?”
“I didn’t like what he had to say to Maya.”
Ink groaned.
“Oh, and he’s been stalking her. He was also watching her undress through the window while jacking his less-than-impressive dick.”
There were a few beats of silence.
“He was doing what?” Ink asked in a low, deadly voice.
Yeah. Matthieu knew the other man wasn’t going to like that part. Who would?
But Ink also had a huge protective streak for women.
“I’m surprised you were able to stop yourself from murdering him,” Ink said.
“I had Maya with me. And I don’t like to make my kills out in the open.”
Ink grunted. “So we go in for the kill secretly. I’ll go through the scenarios that Brody left me and choose the one that will hurt him the most.”
“I want him fully out of her life. But I also don’t want him doing this to anyone else.”
“I hear you, brother,” Ink replied. “I’m going to choose one that ends with him spending a nice long time in jail.”
The tight knot in his stomach unraveled. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought Ink would have his back.
But it didn’t mean it wasn’t a relief to hear that he had his back. And that Ryan was going down. Matthieu could do it himself, of course. However, he was kind of busy at the moment.
“Good. Is that all?”
“Ahh, yeah, there’s one more thing,” Ink said, sounding amused. “Spike isn’t happy.”
Matthieu raised his eyebrows. “And that has something to do with me?”
“Well, with your charge. Apparently, she made Millie the godmother of all her pets?”
Ahh. Right. “Yes, she did. But that has nothing to do with me. I don’t think that’s actually a thing. Millie was rather happy about it, though. Spike should really talk to her.”
“Millie is all fired up to come over and visit her godbabies.”
“Here?” he asked. “That’s not a good idea.”
Ink let out a grunt of amusement. “Well, Spike is trying to dissuade her but when Millie gets an idea . . . she’s like a runaway train. She just gathers up more and more momentum.”
“Then Spike should try harder to control his woman.”
Ink burst into laughter. Matthieu waited impatiently for him to stop. He didn’t think what he said was particularly funny.
“Oh, I would love for you to tell him that. Please do that when I’m around. I need to go now. Call me if you need anything else. Like if you have anyone else you want us to ruin.”
Matthieu rolled his eyes at that request. Like that would ever happen again. This had been a special circumstance.
Shit. He checked the time.
He was going to have to wake her. They didn’t have time for her punishment now. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was a ploy to get out of it.
Well, she was soon going to find out that that wasn’t happening.
Matthieu knocked on her door. “Maya? Maya, wake up.” He knocked again when there was no answer.
Something brushed his feet and he glanced down to find Princess Priss rubbing against him. Then she reached up and scratched delicately at the door with her one front leg as though she was copying him.
That amused him.
He’d never thought of himself as an animal person. He liked them, he just didn’t have room in his life for one. But these animals were growing on him.
Especially the cat.
Dougie raced toward them, banging into his leg as he obviously saw him too late to stop. Then he sat and barked up at Matthieu.
Gummy still hadn’t forgiven him for the chicken incident. And the chickens only responded to him when he spoke in a really high-pitched, ridiculous voice. Tank and Big B did their best to ignore him.
And Marshmallow the hamster, well, if a fart was affection then he cared for Matthieu a lot. But he figured that likely wasn’t the case.
Dougie and Princess Priss, though. They had his back.
He knocked again and the door opened.
She was dressed in her strawberry pajamas with small strawberry-shaped buttons. Her hair was a mess. She usually had it back in a ponytail. But it was a lavender-colored halo around her face right now.
There were marks on one side of her face where she’d obviously been sleeping and some dried drool at the corner of her mouth.
Damn.
That was freaking adorable.
But the most adorable thing was the fact that she held a toy dolphin in her arms.
She stared up at him sleepily, swaying from side to side. It was clear that she was still half-asleep. A grunt escaped her as she rubbed at her eyes with her free hand.
“Oh, Bébé, I didn’t realize you were so tired.”
Fuck.
What was he doing? She wasn’t his Bébé. She wasn’t his spitfire.
A client. She’s a client.
It was getting more and more difficult to remember that. And he’d only been here for five nights. How would he survive two weeks? Four? More?
Merde . He was definitely in trouble here.
But what he did know was that she was stirring his protective instincts. He didn’t like to see her like this. Clearly tired and in need of more sleep.
Had it taken her a while to go to sleep last night? He hadn’t heard anything through the thin walls between them. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been lying awake and worrying about Ryan.
“Go back to bed, Maya,” he told her in a gentle voice.
“Huh?”
“You’re clearly exhausted. Go back to bed, Bébé. I will call in sick for you.”
“Why’re you calling me that?”
“I . . . just am.” Shit. He had no good explanation for her. He waited for her to tell him how lame that answer was. But she just grunted again. And stood there.
Right. Maybe he was going to have to guide her back to bed. Gently, he turned her and prodded her back toward the bed with his hand on the small of her back.
When they got to the bed, she just stood there, looking at it like she couldn’t quite work out what to do.
“Climb in.”
There was no reply.
Zombie Maya was cute. Zombie, sleepy Maya was even more adorable.
Not yours.
You do not have room in your life for this woman. She is not a short fling, a one-night stand. She is a forever woman. And you cannot do forever.
But it really burned that he didn’t have the right to scoop her up and lay her down. To gently pat her ass and rub her back until she fell back asleep.
Yep. That was what he wanted to do more than anything.
To take over and fully take care of her.
But he did lift her up, then place her in the bed before pulling the covers over her again. “Sleep. We’ll talk later.”
She snuggled into her toy with a sigh as Dougie jumped up on the bed and lay down with his face toward the door.
Like he was guarding her.
Matthieu wasn’t sure how a mostly blind, small dog could be much of a guard. But the sentiment was there. Princess Priss followed him out. He was reaching for his phone to find the number for her work when he heard a screech.
He rushed back into the bedroom to find her standing next to the bed and gaping at the time. “I slept in! I’m going to be late! How did this happen?”
“Did you forget to set your alarm?”
She turned to him, her eyes wide and shocked. “No! I kept hitting snooze! What. Is. Wrong. With . . . eek!”
He stopped her before she got to the last word. Because with each word, she kept whacking her forehead with the palm of her hand. And he wasn’t having that. So he grabbed her hand and held it down between them.
Maya gazed at him in shock.
“No hurting yourself.”
She just kept staring at him. Zombie Maya. He wasn’t thinking it was cute right now, though.
Nope. He wanted her agreement that she’d stop hurting herself.
“Maya. Promise not to hurt yourself again. That was a rule, remember?”
She grunted. “Stupid rules.”
“No, they’re not stupid rules. They’re to keep you safe. No more hurting yourself. Last chance or there will be consequences.”
“Stupid consequences.”
Okay, so this was a tiny bit cute.
“Not stupid consequences. If you don’t break the rules, you won’t suffer any consequences.”
“All stupid.”
“Maya,” he said in a stern voice. Well, he attempted a stern voice, he wasn’t certain he was successful.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “No more hurting Maya. No naughty Maya. Only good girl Maya.”
“I don’t mind spitfire Maya.”
“Most people do.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Spitfire, I’m not most people.”