As the elevator ascended to my door, I swear I could smell her scent already. She wore something spicy enough that it had lingered in my jet for days. I’d thought I’d be happy when it started to fade but instead I remember contemplating asking someone what the smell was.
Now, I’d get to smell it for six months.
That had to be some sort of rude karma that she probably believed in.
I shut my eyes, frustrated with myself for being irritated with her. Her grandmother’s will wasn’t her fault. The fact we’d slept together and I couldn’t stop thinking about her bent over naked as fuck wasn’t her fault either.
I didn’t dislike the girl’s company. I just thought I’d never have to see her again. She was young and shot off at the mouth and wasn’t at all what I needed for this venture. It was my last one. The last loose tie my father had left for me. And he’d left a lot over the years.
This was the one thing I needed to right to give the family a new, fresh slate. It meant I was doing this clean as hell. No hiccups.
No loopholes.
If Maribel had willed that she wanted a marriage for me to prove I was going to make this company thrive, that’s what she would get. Morina would see I meant business.
And no pleasure, even if I’d watched her hand drag across that mosaic tile and wanted it to be my dick instead. The way her bracelets jangled as she did it and her clean nails grazed each piece with a delicate touch, she was enticing.
And infuriating. I didn’t need the complication of wanting her. So I stayed away.
Now, my brother was forcing a damn intervention even if he didn’t know it.
When I exited the elevators, Ivy was running around my waterfall island with all the near dead plants directly in the middle. They were a complete eyesore. And the salt lamp was on as if it provided some sort of natural element to the space.
It didn’t.
Morina believed in hocus pocus. None of it made sense to me, but instead of being completely fine with her bringing it into the penthouse, I’d lashed out immediately.
That wasn’t my nature, but with her, it was. Normally I would have agreed, set on us getting along.
She stirred some emotion in me that I couldn’t control and that only infuriated me more.
Cade winked at me when Ivy came running, her long curls everywhere. I was ready to catch her when she jumped right at me.
I might not have been a great person for Morina to live with but I was a good ass uncle. I caught Ivy before she was even halfway in the air. “My little poison Ivy. How did you get here?”
She squished my cheeks together and giggled. “On a plane, Uncle Bastian. You’re so silly.”
“Silly?” I lifted a brow in mock terror. “I’m not silly. I’m your very serious uncle.”
She thought about it for a second, looked back at Cade who wiggled his tattooed fingers at her, and then pulled me close. “You’re right. Cade’s sillier than you.”
I nodded solemnly. “Someone’s got to be the oldest.”
“That means you’re the boss too, right? Mommy always says she’s the boss but I think maybe daddy and you are bosses too.” Then she leaned in and pulled my ear out way too hard for it to be comfortable. I didn’t even wince because the little girl with her gray eyes and big dark curls had my whole soul, and I wasn’t wiping that smile off her face for even a second. “Cade’s not the boss though.”
“Careful, you little monster,” Cade said, even though he was looking into his phone now. “I hear everything. It’s my super power and it might just make me the biggest boss of all.”
She giggled and shook her head which turned to a full body shake in my arms.
The girl had infinite amounts of energy and I wasn’t sure we were all ready for it, but we had her for the day and would just have to deal. I threw her up in the air and she squealed in delight.
Then I plopped her on one of my hips. “What are you hungry for?”
“Your friend Morina fed me.” She pointed over to the woman I still hadn’t acknowledged.
I should have said hi or told her thank you, but we needed to have such a big conversation about what lay ahead that I decided we didn’t need one at all.
We could just follow my lead. She could step in line like most people.