“Ginevra, we’re going straight,” he said.
I blinked, then flicked my eyes between him and Liam, not understanding. Liam rolled his eyes. “No fucking tact, Rian. We’re fine, Ginevra. We miss you dearly. The house is empty without you. How is business? How is life?”
I laughed. “No, it’s okay, Liam. Our relationship has never been normal. What’s one more bizarre conversation?” For a second, I mourned the sense of normalcy I’d lost three weeks ago when I picked up Sofia’s call. No matter how far I ran, my life was going to be tangled up with these men until the day I died.
“We’re going legitimate,” Rian repeated.
“Well, as legitimate as we can,” Liam corrected. “It’s going to take us years to fully divest, but for now, we’ve sold off the arms and drugs to Adam Zhang. And we’re spinning off the import/exports to a separate corporation that we’ll eventually hand back to your father.”
I blinked. This was not the conversation I expected to have.
“Ginevra, we want you in our lives,” Liam said. “We want you to live with us, to run our businesses with us, to grow old with us. But we can’t do that if we can’t keep you safe. And we can’t keep you safe if we’re still fucking trafficking in arms or dealing drugs.”
For the umpteenth time that day, I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say to these beautiful men who were gazing at me with such earnestness. They’d rearranged their entire lives for me.
As if sensing my discomfort, Liam rubbed warm circles on my back. “You don’t have to make any decisions now. Or ever. We just wanted you to know we’re going to take care of you, even if you never come home.”
The floodgates opened and tears poured out of me until I was leaning forward against Rian and hiccuping as I sobbed into his chest. “I missed you all so fucking much,” I whispered, clutching his shirt and holding him tight.
“We’re here now, sweet Ginevra,” he answered, running his hands up and down my back, comforting me.
Both men wrapped their arms around me and let me quietly cry out my loneliness, my fears, and my uncertainty about the future.
Eventually, my tears dried up, as if I’d pulled from the bottom of the well, and there were no tears left to cry.
Rian looked at my face critically. “You’re a mess, princess.”
I laughed, aware that my face was blotchy and red, my mascara dripping down my cheeks. “Crying’ll do that.”
Rian extracted himself from my white knuckled grip and went to get a wet towel from the bar. I cleaned up my face the best I could, then smiled weakly. “Time to introduce you all to the rest of my life.”
Liam drew me backward for a quick kiss. “We’d love that.”
I shouldn’t have been surprisedthat my husbands slid as smoothly into my life here in Los Angeles as I had into theirs in Yorkfield. They were smart, charming, and handsome, catnip for this star-weary crew. I didn’t know how I was going to let them go when they had to fly back at the end of the weekend.
That was a problem for future Ginevra. Right then and there, I was determined to enjoy every moment of their company while they were with me. Sunset found Cheryl, Chana, and I over the fire pit, drinking the dregs of Prosecco straight from the bottle as the guys stacked chairs and took out the trash.
“It’s good to see you smiling again,” Cheryl said, leaning her head on Chana’s shoulder.
“It’s good tobesmiling again.” It was. Somehow, over the last few days, I’d found my feet again. The trauma wasn’t gone. Just as with the first time I’d been kidnapped, I’d probably be dealing with residual terror and stress for the rest of my life. For today, though, it was tucked into a corner of my mind, sitting in the background rather than coloring every interaction.
When night fell, I found myself alone with my men, dangling my feet in the pool and talking about nothing of import. It wasn’t small talk, just the sort of conversation about books and music and how to keep the lawn green that normal families used to fill in the empty spaces between overwhelming feelings of love and fear and heartbreak.
Liam sat beside me, leaning his back on my side as he sipped beer out of the bottle. “This isn’t comfortable,” I said, my tone dry in the darkness.
“Can’t dangle my legs in the pool in jeans, lass.”
I scooted to the left, dislodging him. “Take them off.” My voice was huskier than I’d intended.
He eyed me up and down. “All right, baby.” He stood and slid off his jeans, giving me an eyeful of his powerful thighs. He grasped the neck of his T-shirt and pulled it off, dropping it onto the brick before sliding off his boxer briefs. My breath whooshed out of me as I watched him. He dove into the pool, then popped up a few seconds later, shaking water out of his red hair.
“Coming in?”
In for a penny, in for a pound.
I stood, then pulled my dress over my head, just in time for Rian and Cormac to walk out of the house. They froze, eating me up with their eyes, then looked at each other and set their beers down on the patio before stripping off their clothes.
Rian ran to the pool with a whoop, cannon balling in. Cormac ambled over to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “You ready for this, darling?”