I open my mouth to say something—anything—but there are no words. I thought my crush was one-sided. I thought I imagined every moment we ever had because he never acted in a way that wouldn’t be normal for a stepfather.
Asher squeezes my ankle, pulling my attention to him. “The snag came when I met you and felt the same way. I thought Dad was going to kill me when I asked why he didn’t tell me my stepsister was a total smoke show.” He chuckles at the memory fondly. “It only took that one night of watching you from the other side of the room to fall for you just as hard as Dad had.”
“But neither of you said anything…”
“We couldn’t,” Rowan replies. “We had to make it safe for you in our lives.”
“That’s what we’ve spent the last five years doing. I started fighting professionally to make enough legitimate money to make sure you’d always be taken care of, and Rowan watched from the shadows.”
My brows pull together in confusion.
“From the shadows,” I murmur the words.
“Yeah, Little Doe. You may not have seen us for four years, but we sure as hell saw you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ASHER
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but the way her cheeks heat at the words does shit to me.
And the fact that she doesn’t immediately try to run?
Fuck. It just proves how perfect she is for us.
I choose not to point it out to her because I’m certain the fleeing will come soon enough, but when I meet Rowan’s eye over her head, his lips are tipped up in a slight smile.
“I’ve divested from a lot of the illegal shit I was once involved in, but the fighting will always be on the wrong side of the law. If it would make you more comfortable, however, I’d be happy to consider retiring.”
Hannah’s eyes flash with surprise. “You would give up what you’ve clearly been building since Asher was a baby for me?” Her words are soft and uncertain, and I can’t help but chuckle, earning me a glare from my father.
“Don’t you get it, Little Doe? We’d give upeverythingto make you ours.”
Rowan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with exasperation. He was supposed to do the talking because I’m notexactly the most tactful person in the world. But she’s so fucking cute staring up at him like he hung the damn moon just for her.
She’s going to deny it, because it’s in her nature to do just that, but I can see how badly she wants this. The way her body relaxes into ours, how the wall she usually keeps between her and anything that could hurt her crumbles before our eyes.
Hell, I admitted that we’ve been stalking her for years, and she barely blinked an eye. If that’s not proof of how comfortable she is with us, I don’t know what is.
“None of this makes any sense,” Hannah murmurs to herself, her brow dipped the way it does when she’s trying to solve a problem.
“We had hoped to ease you into this, starting with that night at the club, but your grandfather has sped up the timeline,” Rowan explains.
Her eyes flash to me, guilt etched into the green pools. “I’m sorry, Ash. He insisted I go out with Trent, and I said I would do it this once. I was going to tell you. I swear I wouldn’t have kept it a secret.”
I squeeze her foot. “Hannah, it’s fine. I know exactly what kind of man Jeffrey Malone is, and we knew he would pull something like this sooner or later. We just hoped we would have more time.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “He’s going to be so mad I didn’t finish dinner.”
“You don’t need to worry about him. We’ll take care of it.”
“I can?—”
“No, Hannah,” Rowan cuts her off. “We will take care of this and anything else that will bring you any kind of stress or anxiety.”
She opens her mouth but snaps it shut again. She doesn’t understand yet, but she will. Soon, she’ll understand that we’ll do anything to ensure she lives her life happy and stress-free.
“I brought over some of your stuff, but the rest will be here in the morning. Why don’t you head up to bed, and we can finish our chat tomorrow,” I suggest. We’ve already thrown so much at her. It wouldn’t be fair to keep piling on top of her.
