In the sense that he is what Archie is apparently going to look like someday… “Sure.”
Stone’s eyes narrow on me as his mouth turns down.
“You’re old enough to be my father, you know.”
His nose wrinkles. “I am not.”
“How old are you?” I eye him.
“Fifty-five,” he grumps.
Mm… yeah. “So, a teen father, but still. You are not within the attractive male age range for me, even if my attractive male age range were not restricted to specifically Archie’s date and time of birth.”
Stone’s lip twitches, then lifts, dragging his cheeks with it until he’s letting out a bark of a laugh. “You two really were made for each other,” he snorts. “Obsessive is not a strong enough word.”
I perk up. “Archie’s obsessive? Over what?” Please tell me, that I may obsess with him.
Stone sobers, sighing a beleaguered huff of air. “Don’t you get it?” he asks. “Archie’s obsessive overyou, Sarelia.”
When I don’t respond because I am very busy hyperventilating, Stone continues, “He sent me to watch over you, my dear, and to report back, and he’s paid me handsomely to do it. But now I wish to retire, which means it’s time, sweet Sarelia, for you two to formally meet.” He smiles, a spark not unlike one his nephew often boasts shining from his eye. “My last job before I retire. Kidnap the princess and take her straight to her prince.”
He wraps an arm around my vibrating shoulders, spins us to face a supremely cute little pale yellow convertible, and marches us toward it.
“Welcome to your trusty steed, Princess Sarelia, and to your new life.”
Chapter Two
?
Archie
“I quit.”
Panic electrifies my nerves, making me smile as I hold my phone to my ear.
What afeeling. So…emotion.
“You can’t quit,” I tut at my uncle, Stone, as I spin in my fancy, state-of-the-art desk chair in my fancy, state-of-the-art office-slash-gaming-room-slash-laboratory in my basement. My heart beats through the refreshingly uncomfortable sensation of a thousand tiny needles stabbing it over and over. “I pay you too well to quit.”
I pay him too well to do anything other than my exact bidding for the rest of his life, truly. As a specialist in an increasingly narrow field, I make bucket loads of cash—tax free thanks to the not-quite-legal nature of my job—and I funnelat leasta bucket of said cash to my uncle every year as payment for the ongoing handling of a… passion project of mine.
It’s a good project. An easy project. A wow-why-would-you-ever-want-to-quit-this project.
“You’ve paid me well enough that I could quit four times over and it wouldn’t matter. I have sufficient amounts of money to retire to the Bahamas at fifty-two and still pass down the sort of wealth that would span generations.”
“You don’t have any children,” I remind him. “And I thought you had a gambling addiction? Haven’t you been whiling away my money in an effort to keep yourself financially dependent on me?”
Most of my employees have gambling addictions. It’s great for business, as far as I’m concerned.
“No,” he says wryly. “That’s your other lackeys.”
Oh. Right.
Most of my employees are not Stone Pine, man with a brain.
“Can I interest you in some scratchers?” I try.
Notably, he does not take me up on my offer. “Arch, I love you, but I’m tired. It’s been five years of this. You told me it would only be one, then two, then two and half, then you started breaking it down by quarters. You can’t keep putting it off, and I can’t keep letting you. I want to retire. Iamretiring.”
