A man with bigger muscles than even the security guards stood behind Katie, watching like a wolf protecting his pack. He turned a cold stare to Cade. “You fucking want a bullet in your head?”
“Oh, fuck off. She wanted to go to the damn park.”
“You fly my daughter without my knowledge again, I’ll drag you to hell,” he growled at Cade.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Cade waved off the vicious warning and walked up to the man like nothing was wrong. My eyes widened, my whole body tensed. The man was going to punch him or something.
Instead, Cade pulled him in for a hug. “You’re getting soft. I thought I had a gun to my head coming with that warning.”
A deep laugh rolled out from Ivy’s father as he hugged back, and I let out a breath.
Bastian smirked at my side. I’d forgotten for the first time in a while that he was near me. “He’s a lot of bark but not much bite when it comes to family.”
I dragged out anokay, not sure at all how to take all this in. Katie glanced at me. “Meet my husband, Rome.”
Rome walked up and shook the hand I extended immediately. “Welcome to the family.”
“Oh, I’m just…I mean…thanks?” Was I meant to be pretending with them or not?
“We’re heading up. We have to plan some things,” Bastian said after he hugged Rome too. There was no exchange of how are yous or other niceties.
I didn’t know whether to apologize for Bastian leaving or not but I opted not to say a word. This was his crew and I probably would never see them again.
“Morina, right?” Katie stopped me as we started toward the elevator.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for taking care of my daughter. These two dumbasses are untrustworthy.”
“Morina took me to the bathroom, and we washed our hands together,” Ivy announced and Katie’s eyes softened as she looked at me. Then they snapped to Bastian’s, a look of determination there. “Take care of her, huh?”
I didn’t know if the sense of foreboding I got as they left was only from her words.
That night, Bastian and I made a little small talk, but we both retired to our own bedrooms.
It didn’t stop me from thinking about him under the same roof as me. Or halt the way my mind drifted back to our kiss on the ride.
He hadn’t kissed me again that day, but he’d held my hand here and there, enough that it almost felt real.
Except it wasn’t.
This was all a charade.
A touch shouldn’t be that complicated and yet my mind liked to run away with an idea.
I rolled over and tried to picture anything else.
22
Bastian
“Good evening, Morina. How was your day?” It was a week since the theme park, and I’d made it home every night. I split my time between businesses in Chicago, LA, and New York. Making it back here, though, proved to the world we had something going on.
Was I doing it to prove something to them or because of her outburst about feeling alone in the penthouse? I wasn’t sure.
I scrolled through my phone while lounging on the couch as the woman ambled down the hallway to greet me. Entertainment news had caught Morina and I together numerous times leaving this building, and the theme park trip was everywhere.
She grumbled something about a day of napping as she walked by, her sleep shirt rumpled and hitting just at mid thigh. She pulled off messy well, like she belonged that way.