Page 10 of Bound

“Yes. Probably,” the guy finally answered. “Which thoroughly explains that, yes?”

Brick followed the guy’s directional nod upward, toward a far corner of the room. The spacious nook housed three black-and-white security monitors. One screen displayed the wide, empty balcony outside the bedroom. The second was a random hallway, which Brick assumed to be the chamber’s outer corridor. It was also empty.

But the third monitor wasn’t.

It showed another angle of the same hallway. Walking along it, looking five thousand kinds of gorgeous in a long silky dress, was his beautiful little Pixie. She was smiling, even radiant. She was also in a hurry.

“That makes her third visit today,” Samsyn offered. “On top of the five she paid you yesterday.”

Brick swallowed. Couldn’t be helped. But his answering tone could be. “Huh. Well, she’s got a good soul,” he rushed out. “Probably just worried. Once she sees I’m fine, she’ll move on.”

Samsyn grunted softly. “From her…crushie-crush.”

Thank God he had fake chortles down to an art form. “Right? You do get it, then.”

“Of course.” The guy flashed a just-between-us-bros kind of look. It was weirdly freakish. “I have certainly had my fair share of a few of those,” the prince remarked. “This one female, in particular…I would even say that her crushie-crush extended into a smashie-smash.”

“Yikes.” Brick frowned and meant it. “How did you handle it?”

Samsyn angled his head down again—this time to bore his gaze directly into Brick’s. His pupils were darker than his sister’s—and as intense as his low, firm reply.

“I married her.”

Chapter Three

As Jayd approached the door to Brickham’s room in the infirmary wing, she ordered her lungs to take in full breaths. Maybe the measured air would help to slow the wild gallops of her heartbeat and lend to the sophisticated air of the dress she had carefully picked out for this moment. Granted, her selection process for the garment was about more than impressing Brickham, though that goal never left the top of her list.

But rounding out the list were many more intentions.

No. She had to be honest about this. Not intentions. They were more like reactions. Peeved ones.

Funny how the attitudes of three “caring” brothers could do that to a girl.

She was certain their hearts had been in the right places—at some point. But from the moment she had reentered the palais three days ago, to be greeted by Ev and ’Raz together, her nerve endings were turned into spooked porcupine quills. Their high noon standoff had not been the goal of her text from the tarmac, which had been to steal a quiet heart-to-heart with Ev.

After the ambush in the vestibule, they escorted her into one of the high council’s conference rooms. Sure enough, several members of the island’s chief governance body were already waiting inside—which had turned her quills to icicles. She was positive she would be shown right back out the door, but their surprise was larger than that. They wanted to grill her about everything that had happened in Paris. More specifically, about what had happened with Brickham back in Paris. By then, they had obtained more observation footage than what the media had. Much more than what the cameras at the pub had picked up.

Creator help her, so much more.

From a roof across the narrow passage in Montmartre, they saw her and Brick ducking into the doorway at the hidden sex club.

From a spot near the Moulin Rouge windmill, they saw him tugging at her close in the middle of Place Blanche, his face nuzzled into the back of her neck.

From a desktop camera in the undertaker’s office at the Montmartre Cemetery, they watched him break into the office and then help her do the same.

As they replayed each piece of footage, one conclusion had become increasingly clear. They had already tossed their eggs into the same basket as Samsyn’s. The basket engraved with Brickham’s name, filled with the eggs decorated in a single word.

Guilty.

She had not remained in that conference room for long. What good would it have done? She left her brothers there, with their assumptions that their sister had fallen for some charlatan spy and not a selfless warrior who had given her the world in one night, and aimlessly paced her chambers while waiting for word of Brickham’s progress.

Sometime, in those seemingly endless hours, she had gone to her closet and pulled out this dress from the back. She had done so in anticipation of this exact moment. The dark azure garment was more fitted on top than she normally wore, with a deep V neck that descended into layers of fluid skirts. Those were the dress’s ultimate deception. Only a few of the gauzy panels were actually sewn together. That meant, if she moved the right way, she had the opportunity to expose a great deal of her legs.

And perhaps, if Brickham liked it, a lot more.

Oh, how she prayed he would like it.

How she wanted to know, at last, if everything they had shared in Paris was not just a collection of random memories for him. Not all the running and hiding and shooting and fear, of course. But everything else. Absolutely everything else.