Joey’s eyebrows rise and he holds his hands up in good-natured surrender. “Hey, I said when you’re done. That’s more consideration than you’ve shown some people in this room.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Vince mutters at Joey.
“Can we not?” Alec agrees, eyeballing Joey.
“What they said,” Adrian adds.
Vince is still aggravated that Joey had to go and remind him I fucked Mia, but he’s not as angry about it as he has been. I know he isn’t fully over it, so I attribute his tamed annoyance to the maid. It’s the only difference. Ordinarily if Joey stirs up shit—and it’s always Joey busting his balls, since they’re such good friends—it legitimately pisses Vince off. Tonight he treats it more as a minor aggravation. Granted, it hasn’t come up here in a couple of months, but the last fight I caught between them, the little prick threw it in Mia’s face straight away. Naturally, she doesn’t adequately defend herself when he does either. Really pisses me off.
I’ll have to pop into my security room for a bit after they leave tonight so I can see if he says anything to her about it.
Once we’ve finished our drinks, we all head to the dining room for dinner. I love Sunday dinners the most anyway, but now I have the side mission of keeping an eye on Vince throughout dinner. Since Meg will be serving, I expect he’ll be paying attention.
Here I am thinking tonight is shaping up to be fun when I enter the dining room and meet an exceedingly unpleasant sight. Mia is glowering directly at me. Not accidentally, either. She stands there for a moment, long enough to let me know I’ve pissed her off, then she turns and storms into the kitchen.
What did I do this time?
I’m fucking flummoxed. I frown at her back as she disappears, then turn my attention on the only other person in the room—Meg. She shrugs as if to say she doesn’t know what Mia’s problem is, but that smells strongly of bullshit.
Without pausing to consider the potential blowback, I go to a place I never go myself at dinnertime—the kitchen.
Francesca glances up as I storm in. She does a double take, her brown eyes widening. “What are you doing in here?”
Elise is similarly confused. “Is there a fire?”
I ignore them both and head for Mia. Her back is to me and the kitchen seems too fucking long—why is it so goddamn long?—but I finally get to her. I don’t know if she’s angry or upset and the damn girl won’t turn, so I grab her arm and spin her around to look at me.
Surprise flashes across her features. She doesn’t even pull her arm away immediately, she’s so surprised to see me in the kitchen. Or chasing after her, I’m not sure which.
Damn, I just chased after her right in front of Vince, didn’t I?
Fuck.
Oh well.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
“Nothing.” She says it so angrily it’s clearly not nothing. Mia and I have obviously had some low points in our relationship, but she’s never openly hostile to me at this stage.
“Did Meg say something to upset you?”
This makes her angrier, verifying it was, in fact, Meg. I stifle a sigh. She was helping me out with Vince, but she doesn’t seem to be having the same effect with Mia. It doesn’t do me much good to calm Vince down if the result is that Mia wants to shove me facedown onto the hot stovetop. Right now as she desperately claws at my hand and throws it off her arm, I’m pretty sure she would like to give me a good facial sear.
I hear the door open and the sound of Meg’s footsteps as she slows to a stop in the kitchen. Her presence vaguely irritates me now—if she intentionally upset Mia, I’m going to be pissed, but I don’t even know how she would know to. I suppose it’s not impossible Elise has been gossiping.
Clutching Mia’s forearm again, I drag her little ass out the kitchen’s rear exit for some much-needed privacy.
“Let me go,” she complains, tugging at her arm.
I ignore her until we’re halfway down the hall, then I rotate her until her back is to the wall and I crowd her. Instantly, the majority of the fight drains out of her and she gazes up at me with big, wary blue eyes. I’m too close; she doesn’t know what I’m going to do. She never knows what I’m going to do.
God, I want to gather her loose curls into a fist, shove her to her knees, and feel the warm wetness of her sweet mouth around my cock.
Since I can’t do that, I ask, “Why are you mad at me?”
She’s still gazing up at me with fuck-me eyes, but her tone is lightly irritable as she states, “I’m not mad at you.” I quirk an eyebrow. She finally looks away from me to roll her eyes. “I didn’t know you were banging your maid. I definitely didn’t expect her to ask me for tips.”