God knows, I love this man.
My father’s face brightens, and I know he doesn’t like what my husband said in answer to his displeasure.
“Dinner is ready,” a woman announces from the doors to the dining room. If I remember correctly, Grant called her by name, and it’s Rosie.
“Thank you, Rosie,” Grant says, confirming what I thought. “As she said,” he motions us into the dining room, “time to eat.”
My father mutters something incoherent under his breath, but I pay no heed to it.
Grant takes a seat at the head of the table; his brothers scatter around it with Calder taking one to his right. Though he doesn’t sit until I’m seated in the seat next to him. My father sits directly across from me, his beady eyes watching the two of us closely.
I don’t like it. My stomach is in knots. I don’t want to be here, not sitting across from Reggie Campbell.
Calder’s hand comes to rest on my thigh as plates are brought out and set in front of us. The food smells amazing, but I have no appetite to speak of.
“So, where were you two coming from that you weren’t here before me?” my father asks, picking up his fork, eyes going between my husband and me.
“That’s none of your concern,” I tell him, blurting the answer out before I can stop my mouth from running away with me. Calder didn’t want my father to know about our house and wanted him to continue thinking that we live in this one with Grant and the others.
My dad’s eyes narrow on me as Calder’s hand tightens.
“You know better than to speak to anyone as you just did, Emerie.” Of course, he’s going to talk to me as if I were a child.
“I don’t believe my wife was speaking to you rudely. She was plainly stating that where we were was none of your concern. What we do and where we go is a private matter between the two of us, and again, as she stated, none of your concern.”
Oh my God.
Again, I love this man.
Calder Blanche is the most amazing man. Didn’t matter to me if he was known as the Santa of hitmen. He wasn’t that to me. This man was everything beautiful in my life, and I wasn’t expecting it in the least.
He means everything to me, and we still don’t know each other all that well. What I do know about him is that he lives by his actions, and the way he treats me speaks more than words ever could.
“What is it you’re looking for out of this marriage between your daughter and my brother?” Grant asks, surprising me by calling Calder his brother. They’re not related, but from what Calder told me, he might as well be, and it makes me happy that Grant would call him that.
“As I said, an alliance. No more war between the two families.” My father directs his gaze to Grant, and I can see the man calculating behind those menacing orbs. “And I believe you mean to say my daughter and your right-hand man.” Of course, he’d try to correct Grant. “Thinking on this, I’m not sure if that is a good way to make an alliance, he is not of Devore blood.”
Grant sets his utensils down and zeros in on my father with the iciest look I’ve ever seen him have. Granted, I haven’t ever been around him much. But considering the way the room tenses and chills several degrees, this was not good.
“Calder Blanche is a member of the Devore family. He was adopted by my father, which in turn makes him my brother. He does not have to share my blood to be just that. All of this I shouldn’t have to explain, but that’s what I’m doing because you will not sit at my table and disrespect a member of this family.” Grant’s voice was deep and gravely, no longer light and at ease as I’ve heard it before.
Right here is the man who I heard is cold-hearted. Well, in this case, he’s being more protective than cold-hearted.
I knew the rumors about Grant Devore. I’d overheard my father more than a few times speak of him and being willing to kill someone just for looking at him wrong. Yet when I’m around him, just as when I’m around Calder, I’m not afraid of him.
My father does as he always does when he responds to Grant’s words, he shrugs them off and nods. “Of course.”
“You’ll apologize to both Calder and his wife,” Grant orders.
Reggie Campbell has never been one to apologize, and the fact that he’s being put in his place is something he’s not used to.
Through gritted teeth, my father says, looking in our direction, “I apologize for misgivings.”
Calder lifts his hand from my thigh, and the next thing I know is he’s tugging my chair even closer. Instead of resting his hand on my thigh again, he stretches his arm over the back of my chair, fingers curling around my shoulders.
He leans toward me and whispers in my ear, low enough for only me to hear, “You want to leave, we’ll leave. Just nod.”
As much as I want to leave, I don’t want to cause problems, and I know that’s exactly what it will do. I don’t want trouble to escalate.
