“Then let’s go. Get dressed. I’ll pack a bag, and we can take breakfast with us.”
“Just like that? No arguments?”
He sets the box on the table and kneels in front of me. “Ava, I guarantee there are plenty of arguments in our future. Probably even today, since you have a tendency to make me want to strangle you on a regular basis. But when it comes to stuff like this, my job is to be whatever you need me to be.”
A few hours later, the intercom buzzes beside me. “Ms. Kendrick, you have several guests wanting to come upstairs, including your brother and Ms. McGregory,” Alfred says.
Several? I push the button to respond, “Uh, sure, let them up.”
Valentino jumps off me since I dared to shift my lap, turning to glare at me with airplane ears and a swishing tail. I sigh. I had just gotten her to stop scream-meowing at me for being gone, even though it was clear that Jack and Mateo had taken care of her.
“You want me to get the door?” Mark asks from where he’d been working on his laptop at the end of the couch with my feet in his lap.
I shake my head. “No, I’ve got it. I’m sure I’ll have a million questions to answer.”
When the door opens, I find that Alfred was correct. It is several people: Shelby, Ron, Jack, Mateo, and… my parents. “Jeez, Shelby, you couldn’t have warned me you were bringing a welcoming party?”
“Sorry, boss. Soon as I let Jack know that I’d heard from you, it sort of spiraled from there,” she quips.
My mother pushes to the front and clasps her hands on my cheeks, looking over me as if she needs to verify that I’m alive. She hugs me tightly and then pulls back to look at me some more. “I could murder you for scaring us like that. Flying across the ocean thinking my daughter is on the verge of death, and we get to New York and nobody is sure where you are?”
I grimace. “I’m sorry, Mom. I wasn’t exactly all that lucid, and Mark said that Alfred filled Jack and Mateo in that I was safe, at least.”
At the mention of his name, she releases me and steps around me to stare at Mark, hands on her hips. “Yes, I have things to say to Mr. Taylor, too,” she says coolly.
Swell. This should be fun.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mark
The woman staring me down looks so much like my mate that I nearly have to blink to make sure I’m not seeing double. Her hair is the same shade of red as Ava’s, only with streaks of an ash-toned blonde along her temples and through her part. I also recognize the same coiled serpent energy. She means to dress me down—for what, I’m not exactly sure.
“Hello, Dr. Kendrick. I’m pleased to finally meet you,” I say smoothly, rising from the couch and extending my hand to shake hers.
She eyes it warily. “Do you care to explain to me why you left one of my children with a bleeding head wound and then disappeared with my other for days, leaving us with no idea where she was?”
Fucking hell, she evensoundslike Ava.
Luckily, I have plenty of experience with this particular subspecies of viper.
“I left Jack with his husband, who is far more skilled in healthcare than I—”
“You don’t have to answer that, Mark. Mother, dial it down a notch. If you want to be mad at anyone, sounds like it needs to be me or Jack,” Ava cuts in, hands on her hips in a mirror image of her mother. “By the way, Jackson, don’t think you and I won’t be having a conversation about your stunt,” she adds.
“Oh my God, I was only trying to help. One of my clients is a dealer, so I reached out—”
“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Ava, her father, and I say simultaneously.
The tension eases a little as everyone except Dr. Kendrick bursts into laughter.
“Lawyers,” Jack says, with a dramatic roll of his eyes.
“I cannot defend you if you want to blab to the cops,” Ava says. “But I know you only meant to help. I’m glad you’re okay.” She goes over to him, throwing her arms around him for a tight hug.
“Mark isn’t the cops,” he grumbles, but squeezes her in return.
“Close enough, Jack.”
