Lucy. Lucy might be a good sounding board. Despite what her twin thought, Lucy was forthright and tended to be brutally honest about what she saw, though she never meant it unkindly. “Ignore her. Kala’s always had a problem with Luce.”
Kala hissed—actually hissed—as Lucy walked in and immediately rolled her deep brown eyes. She was in jeans and a sweater, her long dark hair in braids.
Kenzie stood and walked right up to her. “Hey. Missed you.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Kala muttered.
“No, you’re not,” her husband assured her. “Nor do you need to make the sign of the cross, love.”
Oliver laughed as he settled into the seat on the other side of Kenzie. “I forgot. Those two are like oil and water. This is going to be fun. LB is so reasonable most of the time. It’ll be fun to see the unflappableget flapped.”
Sami sat down on the other side of Tim. “I hope you’re the one assigned to escort them around. I’ll take the Canadians.”
She winked Ben’s way.
Maybe Sami was the one who needed a damn exorcism.
Lucy hugged her tight. “Hey, Kenz. Missed you, too. I have so many stories to tell you, but don’t lose your shit on Sami. She doesn’t mean anything by it, and she’s going through some things.”
Kenzie took a deep breath and nodded. She kept her voice low. “Okay.”
“Ladies, can the reunion wait? I’ve heard the younger crowd is planning on playing tonight. I’d like to get the assignments done so we all can get some rest,” Damon said, taking his place at one end of the table.
“We’ll talk tonight. We can order some curry and I’ll tell you about my new Highland cows and about all the whacky shit Poppy’s doing.” Lucy gave her a big smile, the kind Kenzie rarely saw on her face.
Kala didn’t realize Lucy was her mirror. Or maybe she did and it rankled.
Kenzie nodded and moved back to her seat.
Oliver winked her way. “You can share with me, love. It looks like we’re short a chair.”
If he wasn’t such a heinous flirt, she would ask Oliver for a session. He was a good top, but he did like to get into his subs’ panties, and she wasn’t going there. Ever. She sank down into the seat beside Ben.
“Somehow I think the long-term D/s couples will work it out,” she murmured. She noticed Ben looking Oliver’s way, but he didn’t say anything.
Lou was already on TJ’s lap, her fiancé having snatched her up at the first mention of the missing seat. Lou simply reached over and grabbed her laptop. He grinned Cooper’s way because Coop had been reaching for Kala. “You snooze you lose.”
Lucy kept a careful distance between her and Kala, although she managed to shoot her the finger before she sat next to Ariel.
“Excellent,” Damon began. “Charlotte, why don’t you start?”
The lights dimmed, and she felt Ben move beside her, settling back.
Her gut twisted because he seemed so far away. Maybe this whole epic love story thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She didn’t like this desperate feeling going through her body.
It pretty much sucked. Did she want to be the sad girl chasing after a man who couldn’t forgive her?
No. No, she really didn’t.
She was in love with this man but if he could shut her down so easily and so quickly, maybe her father was right and they needed time to think. They weren’t on the same page. They weren’t even in the same book. She was in some spy romance where everything ended in happily ever after and he was in a thriller where the hero probably died sacrificing himself for the good of the world and to assuage his guilt.
He would never choose her over what he considered to be his destiny.
“All right,” her mom began. “I sent you some information, but this is what we found in broad strokes. One of the treasure troves we got out of the mission to Nepal was a lot of information on Disrupt’s financials. Thank you, Lou and Tim. I genuinely don’t believe he thought you could get to that information.”
Kenzie took a deep breath as her mom started to go over all the myriad ways Disrupt made its money. Including a corporation located in France that Sosa had recently told her ran the organization she belonged to. Had been kidnapped by.
All in all it was a daunting report and showed what they were up against.
