Over the next few minutes, I filled her in. I told her how my family was reacting to some vague threat from Jurgen, that Father had decided the only course of action was to ship me off to Blanc Mont with a bunch of mercenaries and wait it out. As I told the story, I realized that I didn’t know quite what tone to take with it.
Was I worried? Was I fearful for my life? I had no idea, really. I was so used to my father and brother treating me like a little bird that belonged in a cage to even consider whether or not there was anything legit behind the threats.
When I was done, Evie closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I don’t even know where to start with a reply for all of that.” A sly smile formed on her lips. “Actually, Idoknow where to start—are these bodyguards of yours hot?” She grinned and sat back, waiting for my response.
“After everything I’ve just told you,that’swhat’s on your mind?” I asked with a grin. “You want to know if they’re hot?”
She shrugged. “Well, my big concern is that you’re safe and sound, of course. But it looks like you are. So, with that all sorted out, now I can move on to the other big question.” She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward. “Come on! My love life is a total mess.”
“I’ll never understand how you’re always complaining about your love life. Aren’t you surrounded by male models constantly?”
“We’ve been over this, Vic. It doesn’t matter how hot a guy is if he’s more interested in taking selfies than you are. Trust me, there’s no bigger turn-off than looking over and seeing a guy making kissy faces into his front-facing camera.”
I laughed. Evie had regaled me with more than a few stories of her dating life in New York, which was very kind of her considering mine was non-existent. If Father wasn’t letting me out of the house, there was no way in hell he’d be letting me date.
“OK, you want to know about the guys,” I said, tapping my fingertip on my chin and trying to decide where to start. “Well, there’s four of them and they’re all really close friends. They’ve been working together in the same group for years.”
“That’s nice and all, but are theyhot?”
“I mean, yeah. They’re more than hot, really—they’re gorgeous. There’s Hud, who’s this insanely handsome Scotsman with red hair and a beard and these stunning blue eyes. And Pyke, who’s got these amazing tattoos and blonde hair. Oh, and speaking of hair, Ajax is just as old as the rest of these guys, and his hair’s silver. It’s kind of weird but really sexy in its own way. And it goes without saying they’re all tall and muscular and in incredible shape.”
“Mmm, so far, so good. But you said there were four, right?”
I’d purposely left out Kid. Not because he wasn’t important—far from it. It was more that I knew in bringing him up there’d be no way to keep what had happened between us a secret. I’d always been terrible at lying, and Evie had always had a sixth sense for sniffing out BS, especially with me.
“There’s…another, yeah. His name’s Ivan, but they call him Kid.”
“Kid? Why? He’s not some child soldier or something is he?”
“No, just because he’s the youngest and newest member of the group. They all use their nicknames instead of their normal ones.”
“Cute.” She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes in the way she always did when she knew that something was up.
Busted.
“Now,” she went on, “I can’t help but notice that you got really weird all of a sudden when this Kid guy got brought up. Any reason for that?”
No sense in trying to deny it.
I went into it, giving her the lowdown on what had happened yesterday in the gym, the kiss we’d shared, and the consequences after. This had clearly been the gossip that Evie’d been hoping for, and she took it all in with wide eyes and total interest.
“You’re kidding me—youkissedhim?”
“Well, to be fair, he kissed me. Actually, to bereallyfair, I kinda-sorta invited it.”
“This is amazing.”
“Are you kidding? Ev, I know you love to hear about this kind of stuff, but you have to know this wasn’t the brightest move on my part considering the circumstances.”
“Well, let me ask you this—how did the other guys react about it? Did they get pissed, and beat each other up? Any of that kind of macho alpha male crap?”
“No, actually. Kid got chewed out, but as far as I know, that was it.”
“Aw, they kissed and made up? Very cute.”
I laughed. “Come on!”