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Chapter Sixteen

Evander

As soon as Lucas whisks our Little ones away, I pin Jasper with a hard stare. “I promised my kitten I would cut out your tongue for one mean word against her. You should know I always keep my promises.”

His answering snarl might have been impressive if I thought he had anything to back it up. “You can’t just go around threatening to cut out tongues, Evander.”

“Why not? It’s worked rather splendidly for me in the past.”

“All right, you two.” Stepping between us again with a sigh, Maxwell holds his hands out, as if to symbolically keep us in our respective corners. “That’s more than enough of this. We’re supposed to be a family, and that means finding a way to work through our issues without literal bloodshed.”

I let my lips curve, baring my teeth at the men I’ve come to consider brothers. “That may be how you deal with things in your family but I can promise it isn’t how we deal with them in mine.”

“Fair enough. But I can’t let you cut out Jasper’s tongue, as much as he may deserve it.”

“What the fuck, Maxwell?”

Maxwell pins him with a glare. “You know you wouldn’t let anyone speak to your Little girl the way Juliet spoke to Natalie. She was unnecessarily mean and she owes Natalie an apology. As do you, for agreeing with her.”

“Nothing she said was untrue.”

“That isn’t the point and you know it. You’ve allowed your anger over being discovered to cloud your judgement when it comes to our newest little niece.”

“Maybe.” Jasper’s tone is begrudging, bordering on sulky. “But Evander needs to get her in line and keep her there. If she keeps getting away with disrespecting us, the other Littles will pick up on it and we’ll have a serious problem on our hands.”

Our fearless leader turns to me, one dark brow raised. “Evander?”

I’m not a man who makes apologies easily. But I can admit when I’m wrong. And as much as it grates, Jasper does have a point.

He’s still an asshole, though.

“I may have been a bit too lenient with her the other night. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Because Jasper is right.

We need to provide a united front when it comes to certain things and respect is at the top of that list. You want to let her have an extra slice of cake for dessert, I don’t give a flying fuck.

But you know good and well if any of our Little ones called someone an asshole, especially to their face, they wouldn’t sit comfortably for at least the rest of the day.

You cannot allow Natalie to think she’s above those kinds of consequences, or else it’s going to breed resentment.

And I will not have this family ripped apart just because Jasper is an asshole. ”

“Fuck you, Maxwell.”

“Nothing I said was untrue,” Maxwell says with a shrug, earning himself another snarl from the Blackwood heir.

“I’m not really sure how you expect them to get their Little ones in line when they’re acting like children themselves.” Cat’s voice is unusually cheerful, as if she’s enjoying herself immensely. Which, knowing her, she is.

Because she’s also not wrong, I set aside my own annoyance and extend a hand to Jasper. “I will do my best to keep Natalie’s tongue in check if you forgive her for following the breadcrumbs you left.”

Jasper glances over at Maxwell, who simply stares at him as if waiting for him to get on with it. With a sigh dramatic enough to put any Little girl to shame, Jasper takes my hand. “Deal.”

“It’s settled, then. Let’s go find our Little girls and give them the good news.”

Natalie

Lucas escorts us to the more comfortable living room, with its gigantic television and wide, comfy couches.

Head held so high it’s a wonder she can actually see where she’s going, Juliet flounces over to a couch and drops down onto a cushion, her arms folded across her chest. I hang back, hovering beside my Papa, feeling very uncomfortably out of place in what is for now my own home.

“Go on, little one,” Lucas murmurs encouragingly, giving me a push forward. “Make nice with Juliet.”

“I don’t think she’s very interested in being my friend, Papa.”

“She will be, once she gets to know you.”

Stepping into the middle of the room, Victoria glances from Juliet to me and back again, her face twisted into a mask of worry. “So, um. Is anyone going to tell me what we’re all fighting about?”

Juliet whips her head around to glare at me, and if looks could kill I have no doubt I’d be bleeding out on the floor. “ She is only here because she wants to write a story about us!”

Two more heads snap around to look at me, with both Isabella and Victoria’s mouths falling open.

“Is that true?” Isabella asks softly, looking so wounded I almost want to lie and tell her no, of course not.

But there’s something about them, an innocence that makes them almost seem actually childlike instead of grown women just pretending, that has the lie dying on my tongue.

So I gather my courage, grasping my hands in front of me and squeezing tightly as I meet their wide-eyed gazes.

“Yes. The reason I came to the island was because I recognized Juliet and… well, my job is to report on famous people,” I explain with a shrug.

“And Juliet’s disappearance made some waves in certain circles, so I wanted to know what was going on with her.

And then I heard her and Jasper talking, and I heard her call him Daddy, and Jasper mentioned the island and Maxwell, so I went poking around.

I found the airport where you guys were flying in and out of and all it took was a few drinks to loosen up one of the security guards and he got super chatty after that. And now, here I am.”

Victoria frowns, and it takes me a moment to recognize the feeling sitting so heavily in my gut.

It’s guilt. For the first time in years, I actually feel guilty about doing my job.

What the hell has this place done to me?

“But you’re not still going to write the article, right?” Victoria asks slowly.

I hesitate, not wanting to lie but unable to be completely honest, especially with my Papa hovering.

“Well, I’m not really sure how I’d be able to.

It’s not like I have access to a computer or anything.

” Or my phone, a fact I’m still bitter about, though I can understand why Daddy has hidden all my electronics.

“That’s true.” A wide smile spreads across Victoria’s face as she moves to stand beside me, one arm wrapped around my waist as she turns to face the still-glowering Juliet. “See, Juju? Nothing to worry about.”

Juju? It’s all I can do not to laugh at the childish nickname. Nothing about it fits the woman I know as Juliet Blackwood.

“Oh my god!” Jumping up from the couch, Juliet throws her hands in the air. “Even if she never actually writes it, she still wanted to. She would have thrown all of us to the wolves just for a shot at fame and fortune.”

“That’s not why I wanted to write it.” I don’t know why I feel this need to defend myself.

Someone like Juliet would have been raised to hate people like me on sight even as she used us for her own gain.

The whole “Island of Kinky Billionaires” thing just adds another layer to that existing hatred.

But it feels important for me to explain why I wanted to write the article, to defend my honor as it were.

“It was never about being rich or famous. I never cared about that.”

“Please. Everyone wants to be rich. And famous.”

“I didn’t,” Victoria says softly. “I just wanted to not be in debt up to my eyeballs. I just wanted to be able to go to the grocery store and not think twice about every single thing I put in my cart. I just wanted to have a home of my own instead of some crappy one-bedroom in the city.”

“Same.” Chin tilting up, Isabella shifts to stand beside me. “I mean, a little fame would have been nice. I would have given anything to get out of the corps at the ballet, but really I just wanted to not have to work three jobs just to afford to live. Not everyone wants the life you had, Juliet.”

Red colors Juliet’s cheeks. “Well, maybe not. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it.”

“I really don’t. Like Izzy said, maybe a little bit of fame.

But mostly I just wanted a chance to prove I was more than just a gossip columnist. That I had what it took to really make a difference with my writing.

I wanted so much more than just peeking in people’s metaphorical windows to feed the masses. This story could have made my career.”

“At our expense.” Now Juliet doesn’t look so much angry as she does…

hurt. “You would have gotten the recognition, we would have gotten the scorn. Do you have any idea what the world would say about our Daddies? You would have ripped our lives apart for a shot at a shiny trophy and a bigger office.”

The truth of her words lands hard in my gut. “That wasn’t my intention, at least not at first. But you’re right. I would have done that, without a second thought.”

“See?” Juliet’s smirk is full of smug triumph. “She even admits it!”

“It’s my job to do that, though. To dig up the truth.

And when I first started looking into things, I had no clue what I was going to find here.

It was just some weird mystery about you disappearing and the more I started digging the more interesting it got.

I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. ”

“Of course not. Because all you care about is the fame, like I said.”

I can’t help but laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you, one of the biggest fame chasers I’ve ever known.”

More red floods her cheeks as her eyes narrow dangerously. “So because you didn’t like me, it was okay for you to try and ruin my life?”

“I’m not going to apologize for doing my job.” I hesitate, weighing my next words carefully. “I will apologize for making you feel unsafe in what has clearly become your home. As much as I want to write a good story, I would never want to actually ruin someone’s life.”

“That was a very nice apology, kitten.”