Page 86 of King of Temptation

“It means, clean out a damn drawer for her, tell her you love her, and stop dicking around.” Shoving away from the counter, she shot him another withering glare. “I’m going to try and get a couple hours of sleep if I can. Don’t be a dumbass, cousin.”

With those words echoing in his ears, he finished cleaning his kitchen and headed for the stairs. But he couldn’t resist stopping by the living room where they’d made something of a fort for themselves, which he tried to ignore. Messes could be cleaned, but he knew better than anyone that the time they spent strengthening their bonds as a family was irreplaceable.

And it was hard to be mad about anything when his Goldie was there in the middle, sprawled on her back with her hair sticking up at odd angles and her mouth hanging open as she quietly snored away. The heart he’d tried to pretend for so long he didn’t possess did a slow roll in his chest.

He wasn’t, despite Reagan’s parting shot, a dumbass. If Goldie needed to hear the words from him, then he’d give her the words. But she was a romance author. She deserved more than just pretty words. She deserved the kind of grand gestures she wrote about in her books.

So that was damn well what he was going to give her.

Chapter 30

Goldie

Something was up with the O’Rourkes.

It wasn’t just that Brody was acting weird, though he definitely was. Well, maybe not weird, just… more. Like he’d taken some kind of Daddy steroids, making him simultaneously bossier and sweeter at the same time.

If she didn’t know any better, she might think he’d had the house bugged during her girls’ night. But even Brody wouldn’t go that far.

Would he?

Maybe.

Ugh.

Even without Brody’s weirdness, there was definitely something going on with the family as a whole, though they hadn’t actually told her what that ‘something’ was. All she knew was that the last couple dinners she’d attended had seemed extra tense, despite them all doing their best to pretend everything was fine.

Tonight was yet another family dinner, so maybe she could corner Aria somewhere and wheedle the truth out of her. While Goldie would never refer to her as the weak link, she was definitely more trusting than the others, at least where Goldie was concerned.

“Don’t forget to bring your laptop,” Brody called up the stairs while she busied herself with putting the final touches on her outfit for the evening. A week ago, Aria and Reagan had invaded Brody’s house again with piles of clothes for Goldie to ‘shop’ from. How they’d gotten her exact size was still a mystery, but judging from the smug smile on Brody’s face as he’d watched her try on outfit after outfit, she had some ideas. He’d even, much to her surprise, made room for those new clothes in his giant walk-in closet.

It was exactly the kind of thing the men in her books would do. And she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. But ever since that night with Aria and Reagan where they’d pointed out all the little things he was doing to show her he loved her, she found herself fantasizing less and less about those big, grand gestures of love she wrote about.

What she found herself looking forward to instead were the smoothies Brody made for her every morning—now with extra banana after she’d made a fuss over how much she’d enjoyed that particular addition. The way he forced her to take breaks when she got too focused on hitting a deadline. The way he listened to her rant about how a particularly knotty plot point was driving her up the wall, and even occasionally threw out halfway decent ideas for getting around it.

Those little everyday things had come to mean more to her than any of the big, splashy displays of romance she usually wrote about it. So much so that she’d found herself incorporating some of them into her newest book, and she had a feeling it was going to be her best yet.

Now, if she could just get the man she’d been sharing a bed with to actually say the damn words, life would be pretty freaking close to perfect.

Still brooding over the “he loves me, he loves me not” loop playing over and over in her mind, she headed down the stairs with a detour into her office to grab her laptop before making her way to the foyer where he waited for her. “I still don’t know why I can’t just sit in on the meeting.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped, letting her know she was pushing the limits of his patience. “We’ve been over this, Marigold.”

“I know, I know.” Even with that tic in his jaw, she couldn’t resist the urge to roll her eyes. “You don’t trust me with family business.”

It shouldn’t sting. She wasn’t an O’Rourke, despite all the time she’d been spending with them lately. Despite the fact that the twins had started calling her cousin the way they did the rest of the family. Despite Reagan’s assurances that Brody loved her and wanted a future with her. Despite the man himself saying he’d been shopping for fucking engagement rings.

None of that mattered one little bit when it came down to them trusting her. And yeah, that hurt more than she wanted to admit.

“It’s not that, menace.” To her surprise, his voice had gentled considerably, and when he reached up to cup her face his touch was more tender than she’d expected. “The more you know, the more danger you’ll be in. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

Dammit. How could she not melt at that? She couldn’t, but she still wasn’t quite ready to give in. “So nobody cares if Aria is safe?”

“Marigold.”

Her name was a warning. One she knew, logically, she should heed.

But since when did she ever listen to logic when it came to him? “What? I’m just asking.”