I could have showered downstairs and then headed to Connors for dinner.
But recently I’ve gotten into the habit of returning to the penthouse, to shower in my bathroom with my things laid out on the vanity, the thick towels Bronx had stocked for me, and the expensive bottles of shampoo I never would have bought for myself.
It’s become a routine.
One I didn’t question or realise I’d relied on.
The second I cross the threshold, I hear male voices in Bronx’s office.
My husband is home and, by the sounds of it, so are his two brothers, Kingston and Reign.
Bronx’s voice drifts into the hall, and the sharp edge to his tone makes the hairs on my neck prickle.
“…they’ve had eyes on Tierney since she landed,” he says. “Those guys from the charity event, they were Murphy’s men.”
I move closer, keeping my steps light, and peer into the sitting room where the Viacava men are standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows, their bodies angled inward, each of them holding a tumbler of whiskey.
“Declan still owes them,” Reign says. “The Murphys are creeping around New York trying to close in on us.”
Kingston exhales, the loud sigh edged with irritation.
“Murphy came to me himself,” he says. “He had the balls to ask for payment from us.”
My muscles brace as he pauses then adds, “I told them to fuck off. I don’t care if they wipe out Declan’s bloodline, I want to make sure ours is solid.”
I hold my breath and press a hand to the wall.
“Kingston,” Bronx says, and there’s something different in his voice. The man who laughed with me is gone. “You’re forgetting she’s my wife.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Kingston grits. “She’s temporary. Don’t start pretending she’s anything else.”
A slow, creeping chill spreads through my chest, chasing away the last traces of heat, and I become acutely aware of everything all at once. The sweaty Lycra against my skin. My pulse ticking faster.
I should step forward and say something, but I’m frozen in place.
“You should’ve had her eating out of your hand by now and feeding us everything sheknows about her father and what intel that fucker has on us,” Kingston says, his voice ice-cold. “That was the whole point of marrying her, Bronx.”
My breath catches.
I don’t move. I don’t even blink. And in those racing seconds, something inside me breaks.
While Reign says something about tactics, my nails bite into my palm, and my mind replays Bronx’s hands on my face.
The way he looked at me in the gym when I laughed. The rough drag of his voice when he called me princess made it so very hard to resist him.
And in those moments when I thought we were connecting, he was just playing me.
My stomach twists with such force that I have to take a deep breath.
I swallow hard, but it does nothing to ease the tightness in my throat.
Bronx had an order to make me trust him. And the worst part, the part that slices deepest, is that he succeeded.
He didn’t just get close to me. The bastard learned exactly how to touch me to make me open up to him, to the possibility of us.
Heat stings behind my eyes and I blink, furious with myself for letting tears build.
My brain switches into defence mode and recalculates.
