Thank God Shep had had less faith in my jungle skills. I was a badass under most circumstances, but he’d known I’dneed saving from that hellhole, because even if I’d been at full capacity, those spiders, anacondas, and demon bats would’ve had me curled up and rocking in a corner.
A shiver raced through me at the thought.
“What’s he talking about, boss?” Lachlan was the first to speak up, uncaring of the tense silence that had fallen over the table.
Shep was stiff as a statue beside me and, judging by the twitch in his jaw, was doing his level best not to lose his shit—whether it be on King or me, the jury was still out. Benoit and Lucien were focused on their leader, eyes narrowed as they seemed to sense something was rotten in Denmark, and Alessio…
Well, he was busy studying his hands beneath the table. The guy had barely looked twice at me since we’d arrived and was doing everything in his power to avoid looking at King.
“Nothing we need to get into now,” King said, pushing to his feet.
“Aw, don’t be like that,” I said, stamping out my kretek, my apparent death wish still firmly intact even after my brief brush with it. “No one here is going to judge anyone else’s actions. After all, you all gavemethe benefit of the doubt when you heard about what was being said and had apparently been done…didn’t you?”
I knew very fucking well that wasn’t the case and that my brothers and King had had their suspicions about the bombing and my removing of my tracker—which, granted, was the whole point of whatever this plan, scheme, in-house treason was all about, right?
But the fact that they’d all questioned me still stung.
So sue me if I wanted to get a few jabs in of my own.
“Theo,” Shep said, then placed a hand over mine on the table, and I wasn’t sure if it was the move or the distraction itself that had King turning on his heel and heading for the door.
Either way,Iwasn’t distracted, and I wasn’t letting him go without a final comment.
“Your leaving seems to be a running theme lately?—”
“Theo.” Shep’s voice was much harsher then, cutting through the sudden tension in the air like a knife. He’d wanted to keep things all copacetic now that we were back, and sure, maybe we’d get there. But not yet. Not until King acknowledged his part in all of this.
King’s broad shoulders stiffened as he stopped in the doorway, and then he glanced back at me, dark eyes full of an emotion I’d never seen before—guilt.
“We’ll talk about this,” he said as though we were the only two in the room. “But not here. Not now. I need to go. I have some phone calls to make. But Theo?”
“Oui?”
“Iamglad you’re back. And I’m glad you’re safe. We will get to the bottom of this.”
I gave a clipped nod and, as he walked out of the room, finally let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Dieu.I hadn’t known how angry I was at him. How frustrated I was in his lack of faith in me. How disappointed I was that he found me lacking when it came to being good enough for Shep?—
Oh shit, Shep.
I turned to see that intense blue stare zeroed in on me, his mouth pulled into an all-too-serious line. When I gave an absent shrug, a sexy smirk curved his full lips right before he leaned in and planted a long, hard kiss on me.
“Holy shit.”
“Do we need to step outside?”
“Une fois que tu as goûté au charme à la Monégasque, tu ne reviens pas en arrière.”
“I knew it.”
That last voice belonged to Lucien, and as Shep pulled back and grinned at me, I said, “Bullshit. You didn’t know a damn thing.”
“I called it at the wedding, but Kai didn’t believe me.”
“The wedding?” Benoit’s mouth fell open. “As in your brother’s wedding?”
My eyes shot to Shep, who didn’t look surprised by Lucien’s words. “Wait, you told him?”
