Pushing up onto one arm and wrapping a hand around the sheet to avoid showing them my breasts, I look to my sisters-in-law. “You did?” I ask Sariah. To Ayla, I add, “I wish.”
Sariah nods, but it’s Ayla who takes over. “You get that I’d do anything for my brothers?”
I stare at her, but she doesn’t require my participation to continue. “I’ve done well for myself. Christian has done really well for us. If money can make this better for your brother, we’re in.”
It’s too good to be true. All of it. This whole setting is beyond my imaginings. But the idea that a woman who loves her brother would help me save mine is pure fantasy, and one I can’t afford to have.
Sariah wiggles her toes from the pedicure chair. “I can probably penetrate their systems, find a vulnerability or something. The right vulnerability would offer an opportunity for a stock price drop. If it doesn’t, they’ll never know I was there.”
“That’s illegal,” I whisper.
“Only if I’m caught,” Sariah says. “And I won’t get caught.”
“But why? Why would either of you do this?”
“Can you save your brother?” Ayla queries at the exact moment Sariah asks, “Do you love Liam?”
The answer is the same for both. Even if they both break my heart. My one-word response is quiet and firm. “Yes.”
“That’s why.” They say in almost perfect unison. Their faces show humor until Sariah’s mouth flattens and her chin lifts.
It’s the last thing I see before I’m lifted in my sheet and thrown over a huge shoulder I quickly realize is Liam’s. I’d scream but there’s no sense in startling the babies who are sacked out in the playpen. Besides, I’m stunned silent.
I really thought that was something that happened to other people. I’m not the silent type. But since all my energy is going into keeping my body covered in the thin white sheet, and not hurting his shoulder or hip, I lay limp like a fish, as he ascends the stairs.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” I whisper.
“Not by carrying you.”
“What does that mean?” Apparently, I wasn’t stunned silent for long.
We’re through the door when he spins, pressing my butt intothe wall, and slides me down his body until I’m stopped, eye to eye with him, and darn near crotch to crotch.
“Lorien.”
I swallow and nod at the seriousness in his tone.
“I’ve had a rough day. I can’t decide if my morning was great or my morning was shit. So I want you to tell me.” His ochre eyes hold mine as that unruly coppery beard brushes my chin and dips to tickle my collar bone.
“I don’t—” I clear my throat but even then, my voice is small. “I don’t know how your morning was to tell you if it was good or bad. Mine was…” How would I define it? “Mine was low. Very low, but Ayla just said some things that make me think things are getting better.”
“We’ll talk about my sister later.”
My brow furrows.
“Now I want to know why your morning was very low.”
I look to the bathroom door, as if replaying the scene from this morning, before slamming my eyes shut on a wince.
“Eyes on me, Wifey.”
I look at him, really study him, until he squeezes me tighter to the wall.
“Tell me.”
It takes all my courage to whisper the words that slice through me like cold blades. “I told you I love you and you ran.”
His mouth hovers above mine. I hear his words and feel them as he speaks. “No, baby. You said falling in love with me was the worst part of your life.”
