“That jackass?”I scoffed.
Aya turned toward me, eyes wide.“What’s wrong with Malcolm?He’s successful and kind.”
“And has never done a day of actual labor in his life.”I lifted the knife and redoubled my efforts on the potatoes, chopping with more force than needed.
“Aya’s right.Malcolm’s only ever been nice to us,” Nash said, eying me.Something flicked through his gaze.I turned away, busying myself with tossing the potatoes in the ice bath so they didn’t brown.
“Doesn’t mean he knows how to put in a full day of physical labor,” I snapped.
Nash frowned.“It’s not like he’s going to be cutting down trees for Mama Grace.Why do you care who she sees, anyway?You two speak to each other.Well, except during Christmas Eve dinner.Besides that, I didn’t think you’d interacted much.”
“Not since our wedding,” Aya piped in.
My heart seemed to freeze, my chest so damn tight I wondered if I was having a heart attack.“Jasmine and I get along just fine.She’s a lovely woman.That’s why I want to make sure you don’t set her up with a…a…”
“Jackass?”Nash asked, amusement lacing his tone.
I gave a single, sharp nod.
“Well, we can run it by Cam,” Aya said, picking up her mug.“Maybe he’ll have some other folks to add to our list.”
“How long is this list?”I asked through gritted teeth.
“Right now, we have seven names,” Aya said.
She walked around the bar and rinsed out her mug while I tried not to pop a blood vessel.
Seven men.Not one.Seven.
“Where’s my son?”Aya asked, unaware of the explosion she’d set off in my head.“I want to snuggle him.”
The baby monitor Nash had clipped to his waist flashed and sounds of Levi stirring flared from the speaker.“Good timing,” he said.
“I’ve got him.We’ll read a few stories and play,” Aya said.She brushed another kiss to Nash’s lips before she hurried out of the kitchen, her steps light.
I bit back a growl because I didn’t want her encouraging Jasmine to dream of romance—with someoneelse.Sure, it was selfish, but I didn’t want any man to replace the towering passion we’d ignited in each other.
Crouching down, I fumbled through my pots as I searched for the large, cast iron one I wanted to sauté my potatoes.
“What’s got you in such a mood?”Nash asked.
I glanced up before dropping my gaze quickly.Nash wasn’t as good at reading me as I was at reading him, but that’s because I didn’t give him the opportunity.Nash was empathetic by nature—that made him an even better creative.
I didn’t need him picking up on my disquiet.“Who said I was in a mood?”
“Your snappy tone and all that pot-banging you’re doing,” he said.
Rising, I settled the shallow skillet onto the Wolf cooktop with silent precision.Once I turned on the burner and waited until the gas caught, I turned the knob to medium heat.I added olive oil to the pan with a deft flick of my wrist.No way he could accuse me of anything untoward now.
“Why don’t you go work on that song you were telling me about?”I asked.“I need to make dinner and you know you just get in the way.”
Nash raised a thick brown eyebrow.“All right.Dismiss me.For now.But I expect you to be honest with me, Pops.We made a pact.”
I thrilled at the term, even though Nash threw it out ironically.He rarely called me anything other than Steve, and I didn’t want to push him for more than he wanted to give.I hadn’t been much of a father to him, hadn’t even known he could be mine until I started working as his bodyguard when he was a teenager.Even then, I’d let his stepfather, Brad Porter, treat Nash with disdain and disrespect because I hadn’t wanted to make the kid’s life worse by overstepping my role.I should have, though, because Brad knew I was Nash’s father, and did his best to destroy that bond before it had a chance to blossom.
That was over now.Yet each time I remembered my inability to save my son from the other man’s abuse, I was gutted.
Over time, I’d realized that monsters have no race, financial, or gender barriers—bad people exist everywhere sometimes despite their seemingly-perfect lives.But by the time I understood that reality, Nash’s mother was too cowed and too far gone with drugs and alcohol to help our son, and Nash followed soon after.He spiraled so far down he barely managed to save himself.
