Little shit never stopped over-fucking-achieving.
On the cusp of midnight, Inessa had a new Aston Martin and popped open a ring box with an engagement ring that, by the sounds of it, Camille had helped him pick.
Aidan, in self-defense, putDie Hardon, and I let Camille go hang out with the girls, who were all cooing over Inessa’s gifts.
“Fucker’s making us look bad,” Declan repeated.
Finn shook his head. “Our gifts are good enough.”
“There’s good enough and then there’s this!”
“I thought you got Aela that painting she liked on top of the cottage?”
He frowned at me. “I did. But that’s notthis!Talk about a fucking love letter to her.”
“More like treasure map,” Conor teased. “Declan, they’ll love what we got them.”
“You never said what your gift is,” Aidan prodded.
“I wasn’t going to say it in front of her, dipshit,” I dismissed.
“Well, she’s over there cooing with—” Aidan broke off and glared at Eoghan. “Oi, fucker. What was this about?”
Eoghan slunk into the only seat he’d use on this damn sofa which, of course, was across the damn room from us so we all had to move over there.
He shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Declan punched his shoulder. “You asshole.”
A low-level smirk danced on Eoghan’s face. “I can’t help it if I’m the romantic one of us.”
“The romantic one?!” Conor squawked. “Fuck you!”
Eoghan eyed Conor. “Don’t make out as if your gift to Star won’t be perfect for her.” His gimlet stare skewered each of us ashe growled, “You picked your brides and they picked you. Inessa and I didn’t get that. I was rectifying the past.”
He didn’t have that exactly right. My beginnings with Camille had been fraught with their own stressors—not that they knew that. Not really.
“So you’re not going to show us up next year?” Finn teased, because he seemed the least worried of all of us.
Eoghan shrugged, but I answered, “He set himself up for a fall. He has to beat this.”
When Eoghan grimaced, we cackled.
“Fuck you.”
“No, thanks,” I joked, settling back in my seat.
But for all the shit I gave him, I knew he was right—Inessa hadn’t had a choice, neither had he. With how much time I spent around Inessa and Victoria, I knew they deserved the world.
And if Maxim Lyanov hadn’t figured that out yet, Eoghan and I had ways of convincing a man to agree with us.
Three hours later, Camille and I made it to our parking garage.
“Okay, game plan. You grab Roman’s stuff and overnight bags and I’ll get the gifts?”
After the fam had decided we’d converge on Finn and Aoife’s place, as they were hosting tomorrow, for an impromptu sleepover, all the parents had returned to their respective homes to pick up the gifts.
“Well, wecoulddo that.”
