Because who can resist a rags-to-riches tale like us?
We built our empires from scratch: late nights, cheap beer, stubborn dreams. I ran the escort agency. Axel ran protection. Theo ran the money.
And we made it.
Millionaires by thirty. Billionaires before forty.
Now? I own Royal HQ, a chain of elite clubs. Theo plays monopoly with the world’s markets. And Axel heads a global security force with more influence than Interpol.
On paper, we shouldn’t mix.
In practice, we’re perfect.
And in every version of my life that’s mattered, these guys have stood beside me.
Now Theo has Sadie.
And Axel… he’s still here. Guarded. Loyal. Allergic to love, like me. Yet always here.
Through it all, none of us have ever crossedthatline. Not once. But with Axel… the thought of it?
It’s lived beneath my skin for years. A current you’re not supposed to touch. Buzzing. Low. Dangerous as fuck.
He glances over and I fight the crazy urge to look away. Since when have I ever avoided his eye?
Since you saw him through your baby-making spectacles, perhaps?
Because suddenly, the question isn’t,how do I do this alone?
It’s,do I even have to?
The bartender draws his gaze away and I release a trapped breath, the thought stretching with it…
Of all the men in the world, couldhebe the answer?
Not as a partner, or a father in the traditional sense. But a donor.
He knows me: every mess, every layer of armour, every story I’ll never say out loud.
He wouldn’t overstep.
Wouldn’t complicate it.
Wouldn’t try to claim what I never offered.
He could give me what I need, and a clinic could do the rest.
Clean. Controlled. Contained.
Exactly how I like it.
The bartender passes him two drinks: one a cocktail the colour of Sicilian blood oranges, the other dark and still. A neat rum, if I had to guess.
Then his eyes lock on mine, the smallest hint of a smile curving his mouth as he heads my way, and my pulse starts to race. Like he can read what I’m thinking, what I’m plotting, what I’m daring to dream… and how he could play a part.
His scent hits me first. Clean, masculine, freshly showered. It drifts on the breeze and makes my heart flutter harder. A crazy, irrational reaction, courtesy of my crazy, irrational thoughts.
Though… is it really that crazy, that irrational, when I trust him so completely?
