Thayer
Fucking hell. Watching her kiss her two yachties? I wanted to rip them apart. It was everything I could do to keep my feet tethered to where I was standing. I’m furious. My hand itches in my pocket. I need to get some of this energy out.
Hearing Emily talk about family makes me realize I need to make sure my brother doesn’t come around anytime soon. I’m going to miss our monthly boxing matches. It’s been too long since I’ve been in the ring. But he needs to stay clear.
Turning the corner, I find my chief of security staring at me. He knows and hates my plan, but he’s as resolute as Emily’s little pod of guys. Maybe a little less so.
“Meet me in my study in five minutes,” I say to him and head into my office. For the last two years, I’ve spent as much time as possible here. It’s not home. The most at ease I’ve ever been was in the mountains of Vermont. I didn’t know it then, but it’s the only place I’ve felt at home.
From a locked desk drawer, I pull out my laptop.
I spend a few minutes flipping through the background profiles of the guys.
I want to hate them. To find a reason to tell Emily they have to go.
It’s infuriating, but there’s nothing in here that would give me reason to kick them out.
That’s not saying that the lot of them don’t have secrets.
Because they all do. Ryder’s is the most interesting, though.
I’m going to have to keep my eyes on him.
“Come on in,” I say before Holloway knocks.
He steps in and stops next to my desk. Over the years, I’ve learned to read him. He never shares his opinions with me, but if you look, they’re there.
“She’s agreed.”
He nods.
“You haven’t thought of another way, have you?” Because sometimes being a leader is admitting that you might not know as much as someone else. And I’ve come to respect Holloway’s opinion.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, her agreement comes with some hesitation and ground rules.”
“That’s to be expected.” He cocks his head at me.
“Expected, yes. But not ideal.”
“How so?”
“She wants her friends to stay.” I raise my eyebrows.
“Her friends?”
“The other guys.”
“The rest of the team will be returning tomorrow. Will the prince and the other two be leaving before then?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re leaving at all. She’s grown rather attached to them.”
Holloway drops his arms to his side. “How attached?”
“She’s dating them . . . It’s new, though,” I add.
“So not like on the yacht with her brother?”
I shrug. Because I have no idea what Emily is thinking. But I have a strong sense that she’s not actually thinking. “That’s up to her.”
Holloway’s eyes widen. “We need to be able to sell this to the rest of the team.” When we came up with the plan, he sent a large portion of the team to the house in France, right outside of Switzerland, to set it up for the season.
We had a new alarm installed. One that wasn’t needed but was a good excuse to send most of them.
While I’m confident in my team, my dad’s had some leaks in his over the years.
And the fewer people who know that Holloway brought Emily here in the middle of the night, bringing her in a catering truck?
Yes, it’s best that as few people as possible know about our plan.
We have to sell it to my own guys as well.
“I will. She understands how important this is.”
“It’s her life.” Holloway’s voice drops. “And yours.”
“I know. I know.” Because he’s right. This is the sort of thing that would push my father over the edge.
A fake marriage and pregnancy. It’s a start, but the only way Emily will be safe is if I take out the threat.
I need to get rid of my father. He’s hurt enough people in the world.
“She’s smart. She won’t make a mistake. When will the team be back? ”
“Tomorrow night.”
“That’s enough time.”
“When do you want the doctor to come by?”
“Next week. What about the team? You’ve thought about who you want to bring in?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to the two I think are the most likely to let something slip the next time we’re together with James’s team. It’s hard, though. Either one of them might talk.”
I nod. After the trial and making the mistake of bringing on one of my dad’s crew who turned out to be an undercover operative working alone, Holloway has remade the team stronger and even more loyal.
But we need someone to let it slip to my dad’s men.
No way would my dad believe it if it came straight from Holloway or the few other members of the security team here currently.
“I never thought having the crew be too loyal would be our problem.” Holloway inclines his head. It’s his way of dismissing himself. He stops at the door and turns back. “She’s going to really need to sell it. Otherwise, this whole thing is going to blow up.”
“Yes,” I say.
“You too.” He grips the door frame.
“I’m aware.”
“And you have to let her go when you’re done.
Or you’re just as bad as he is.” Holloway glares at me.
I can count the number of times he’s said something so direct to me in the last ten years on one hand.
He started as my dad’s man. But when I aged into the company, he switched to me.
He’s seen a lot over the years. Including what happened to more than a few of my dad’s exes.
My mother included. “Starting a relationship this way isn’t something you can recover from.
Keep your emotions out of it.” He nods and is gone.
Keeping my emotions out of it is what I have to do, because they haven’t existed in a long time.
Not since high school when I realized my father would destroy anything and anyone I ever wanted.
It’s a come-full-circle moment. Blaming my eighteen-year-old self isn’t going to get me far.
But if I could have figured out a solution to this problem a decade ago, that would have been a fucking wonder.
I work on the legitimate side of the Zambrano conglomerates the rest of the afternoon. I’m four video calls and two long phone calls with the office on the West Coast in when there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I say, and Ryder tosses the door open. I have to admit, I’m more than a little disappointed it’s not Emily. I have to remember what I promised Holloway. If I’m already craving her, it’s going to be a fucking long time.
It’s dark when I head up to bed. I pause outside my bedroom door. Voices come from inside. Fuck. I had Emily put in my room when Holloway brought her from the hotel. I figured it was best to start the lie from the beginning.
I walk in. The fireplace is lit like always, but that’s the only normal thing about the room.
Emily’s sitting in the middle of my bed, cross-legged, her back to the door.
Oliver’s reclining in the leather chair by the window, one of my leatherbound first editions closed on his lap.
Anders has his ass on the pillows, and Ryder’s coming out of the bathroom.
They all freeze like I’ve caught them in the middle of something untoward.
I glare at the guys. “I’ll call housekeeping and have them make up rooms for you.” I should have thought of this earlier, but then I wasn’t expecting any of them to stay the night, let alone go for the whole fake pregnancy idea.
“Your fiancée has guests over. Make sure you knock,” Emily says, tossing her words over her shoulder.
I sit on the edge of my firm king-sized bed with enough force that she bounces, and take off my cufflinks. “I don’t knock on my own bedroom door, Emily. And the staff would find it strange if I started.”
She’s got a deadly glare. Amazing how she’s the same yet not. Time’s marched on, but she’s still in there. There’s none of my younger self left.
Oliver places the book on the aged wooden windowsill next to him. I move across the room and pick it up, placing it back on the shelf.
“Still particular,” Oliver says as his feet hit the Oriental rug in front of the chair.
We lived together for two years in the dormitory, one of Hemmings College’s requirements for bringing Oliver in.
He had to play by the same rules as the rest of the incoming Freshmen.
And then for our last two years there, we lived in an apartment purchased by his parents.
“Watch out for this beau.” I cock my head at Oliver. “He doesn’t know how to pick up his clothes.”
“I’ve learned a thing or two, Zambrano. I even know how to do laundry now.”
Ryder laughs. “Shocking, the prince doesn’t have pink underwear?”
“Who says I don’t buy it that way?”
“Well, time to go to bed. You don’t want your girlfriend to be so tired she’s yawning every time you try to make a quip,” I growl.
“That’s not why my girlfriends end up yawning, and you know it.” Oliver stands and crosses to Emily, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Good night, Em.” He tips her face to him, taking her lips in his. I’m a half a second away from pulling him from her when he lets her come up for air.
Her eyes are hooded. “Uh, good night.”
“I’ll take my normal room.” He slaps me on the shoulder on his way out. “I’ve already talked to the house manager.” He knocks on the panel next to the bookcase and wiggles his eyebrows at me. For fuck’s sake, the hidden wall door echoes and thuds behind him.
Ryder glances at the panel and back at me.
Oliver has always had the ability to get under my skin. “Oliver, your co-worker, has quite an entitled attitude for someone who scrubs toilets,” I remark to Ryder.
“Fuck you,” Ryder says. “Maybe I’ll just stay here and you can find another room.”
Emily hisses. I should regret my jab, but I don’t. I stare at him. “You can take the room next door, on the right. It has two beds.”
“I can stay and sleep on the floor,” Anders says, giving Emily’s foot a squeeze.
“That’s where Thayer’s sleeping.” She throws a smile at me. And for a second, I don’t mind what she’s saying. But there’s no way in hell I’m sleeping on the floor.
“I can keep my hands to myself. We have to sell this. And that means sleeping in the same room. And not having a pallet of blankets on the floor for the housekeeper to find in the morning.”
“I’ll be fine, Anders. I’m more than capable of keeping my hands to myself,” Emily says.
“The walls can’t be that thick. I’ll hear you if you call.” He kisses the top of her head.
“Door to the right,” I remind Ryder when he doesn’t move.
“Say the word, Emily,” he says. “While I think this is a good idea in theory, I’ll find another way to keep you safe.”
“I . . . Thank you, Ryder. But . . . Thank you.”
Ryder forgoes the sweet kiss on the head in favor of a wet kiss that lasts longer than it should.
Emily smiles up at him, one hand on her chest. “Good night, Ryder. I’ll call if I need you.”
“She won’t need you.” I close the door behind him.
“I don’t need you either,” she says and slides off the bed. The door to the ensuite closes with a solid click. And the metallic scraping of the wall sconce turning behind me has me ready to kick them all out of my estate.
Oliver steps though the secret panel a fucking giddy grin on his face. It’s my own damn fault for showing them to him. We spent most of the shorter holiday breaks seducing women here.
He pushes the panel shut. “Thayer.”
I cross the expanse of the room and lean into him. My face inches from him. “No. I’m not doing this. Those days are over for me.”
“The days of sharing a girl? I should say so. Emily’s not a girl, and she’s going to be your wife. But the sharing part . . . I don’t think you have a choice.” He leans against the wall, next to the panel.
I twist the sconce, opening the dusty passageway. “Get out of here before she comes back.”
He cocks his head to the side and with his normal grace slides silently out of my bedroom.