Page 17 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, seeing Elliott making Orla laugh surged my blood to a boiling point.

What the fuck could be so funny?

It didn’t matter that it had been nearly a year since I had seen my brother last. It didn’t matter that my brother never left the hospital . He was a man with an addictive personality trait that turned him into a workaholic, so seeing him in my home was not a good omen.

None of that mattered when all I could focus on was the green mist clouding my vision.

Her laughter filled the kitchen, her head tipping back and revealing the slender column of her throat.

Her skin was so smooth, so perfect, that I wanted to race across the kitchen and run my tongue along it.

I wanted to mark her, sink my teeth into her peachy skin like a primal caveman, and hear her moan as I did it.

I wondered if she was a moaner or a screamer?

Merde, how I wanted nothing more than to hear her moan my name.

Swallowing the bitter taste of jealousy as she laughed again, I walked fully into the kitchen and dropped my briefcase on the counter. “ Bonsoir , Elliott.”

“Frederic,” he replied tightly.

“What a pleasant surprise,” I lied. “How nice of you to drop by without informing me.”

“I didn’t want to drop in unannounced, but seeing as you have ignored every single one of my phone calls and voicemails, I saw no other option.”

I’d be a bare-faced liar if I said I was planning on returning his calls.

My mind had been a little preoccupied with more important things.

“Pen’s just finishing her dinner in the living room, once she’s done, I’ll get her bathed,” Orla said, her eyes jumping from me to my brother. “I’ll leave you both alone to catch up.”

“Don’t go.”

Did I just say that out loud?

Both Orla and Elliott stared at me in surprise, my brother more so. A quizzical line knotted between his brows before a faint hint of a shit-eating smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Stay…if you want.” I cleared my throat, avoiding Elliott’s all-too-knowing gaze.

Pushing his thin-rimmed glasses up his nose, my brother slowly looked at Orla. “Don’t feel like you need to leave because of me. My visit won’t be very long now, Freddie is here.”

That nickname. It was rusty nails dragging on a chalkboard.

All three of my brothers got a sick kick out of calling me it, and they only used it when they were purposely trying to goad me.

A little family inside joke at my fucking expense.

If Elliot thought he was being funny now, wait until my fist was rammed all the way down his throat. Then we’d see who was laughing.

Orla’s phone started to ring, pulling her attention away from us. “I have to take this.” Her face paled, grey eyes widening as she basically ran out of the kitchen.

Something was wrong, I could feel it in my bones.

But one problem at a time.

“What do you want?” I dared to ask, shrugging off my suit jacket and aiming straight for the decanter of scotch.

“A couple things,” he said. “Firstly, you need to kiss and make up with Jaxon.”

I scoffed. “Since when did you start giving a shit? Last time I checked, you and Jaxon barely speak.”

His fingers clasped tighter around his coffee mug. “ Grand-mère gives a shit. You didn’t come to Jaxon’s wedding, and now that you aren’t working together, she is worried.”

Of-fucking-course.

The only reason I didn’t go to the wedding was because how was I supposed to stand by and watch my brother re-marry the woman we tried to destroy? He may have fallen in love with her, but she was still the daughter of the man who I believed was once our enemy.

Lexington Reynolds was the monster of my childhood.

He was who I blamed for the death of maman after he destroyed our family business, sent my father down the path of alcoholism, and was the catalyst to my maman’s depression.

“Seeing as I am the one who goes back to Monaco the most out of the four of us, I’m the one who has to listen to her nag.” Elliott exhaled deeply. “You know how she is when she gets an idea in her head. She wants us all to get along, to act like a ‘ real family’ .”

“So, what? She thinks I will listen to you?” I smirked, pouring a glass of scotch.

“You won’t listen to Jaxon, and when was the last time you spoke to Olivier?”

The day our Grand-mère got discharged from the hospital over a year ago was the last time I uttered a word to Olivier.

My baby brother was loyal to Jaxon. He looked at Jaxon as if he created the fucking moon and stars.

It irked me that Olivier looked up to him in such a way. After all, I was the one who rebuilt the family business, the one who clawed us out of poverty, the one who worked every meaningless job possible as a teenager to get where we were today.

I was the one who paid for all three of my brothers’ education and set Elliott and Olivier up with sizable trust funds.

And yet it clearly meant sweet-fucking-nothing to them all.

“Does that mean I got you, and Jaxon got Olivier in the brotherly divorce?” I sucked scotch through my teeth. “Lucky me.”

“Does being a dick just come naturally to you, or do you take online classes?”

“Hilarious,” I said, emotionless. “I think it’s time for you to run along back to work, don’t you?”

He didn’t bother answering. Instead, he drained his coffee and stood. “The other reason I am here is that Maura stopped by the hospital last week. She was pretty keen on speaking to me, wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Rushing blood drummed loudly between my ears.

Just hearing her name was a waving red flag to a bull.

My jaw clicked into place. “What did she want?”

“She told me about your custody battle and her upcoming move to New Zealand,” he said. “From her recollection, she remembers that we don’t share the brotherly love like normal siblings. She was hoping to persuade me into testifying against you.”

It was all too tempting to throw my glass at the wall, but I didn’t want Penelope walking in and seeing me.

She needed to be kept far away from all this shit.

“It’s not just me she visited,” he continued. “She heard about Jaxon leaving the company and marrying Evelyn. She remembers all too well your hatred for Evelyn’s father, and she asked him to back her in court. She wants us to tell the judge that Penny is better off without you.”

Pressure built behind my eyes, the corners of my vision blackening as I was pretty sure my heart had moved from my chest to between my ears.

This couldn’t be happening.

First lying in court, and now turning to my fucking brothers? There wasn’t a line she wasn’t willing to cross to get what she wanted.

My hands shook. “Are you going to do as she asks?”

“What do you think?”

The walls of the kitchen were closing in around me.

She’s going to win and take Penelope away.

Elliott sighed as he moved close, his hand reaching for my shoulder only to fall to his waist and curl into a fist. “I get we aren’t the closest of families, and that a brotherly relationship is a foreign concept for some of us…”

I scoffed.

“But I know that as much as you’re a shit big brother, you’re an amazing father to Penny. She makes you human, Frederic. Her coming into your world three years ago brought some life back into your blackened soul. You need her in your life as much as she needs you.”

I didn’t care to admit it, but my brother was right.

My life before Penelope wasn’t something to be proud of, and back then, I didn’t care how much damage I inflicted on others. I was happy to ride the one-way express to Hell.

Penelope didn’t just need her father in her life, I needed my daughter in mine.

“If there’s anything you need to sort this whole mess out, call me.” Elliott turned to leave. “If you need me to help out with any of the court stuff, I’ll do it. Whatever you and Penny need, I’m here.”

Not waiting for a response, he left me standing in the kitchen fighting the creeping darkness wrapping itself tighter around me until the very breath in my lungs turned to razors.

All this bullshit with Maura needed to stop.

One way or another, I was going to be the one to put an end to her games no matter what.

Lines blurred my vision from staring at my laptop screen.

It was well past midnight, meaning I had been scouring every email and every message sent between my ex-wife and her lawyer for over four hours.

We were drawing closer to our next court date, and I was no closer to finding the so-called ‘evidence’ the two of them claimed to possess.

Leaving my office, I tiptoed to Penelope’s bedroom. She was sound asleep, surrounded by at least seven of her teddy bears. When I tucked her in for the night, she couldn’t decide which one to sleep with. Not wanting to annoy her other stuffed animals, we settled on the seven.

My eyes were drawn to her window, the gap in her curtains revealing a light coming from the back garden.

Following the source of the light, I discovered Orla sitting on a sun lounger next to the now-clean swimming pool with her sketchpad perched on her lap.

Strands of her loose hair caught in the night breeze, revealing her pursed full lips and scrunched brow.

Her shoulders drew tight as her pencil etched harder into the paper.

Whatever she was working on, it held her whole attention, allowing me to be utterly captured by her and the thin straps of her dress that had fallen from her shoulders.

I told myself to leave her alone, to go back inside and get some needed sleep.

The less time I spent around her without Penelope as a buffer between us, the better, because I was finding it increasingly difficult to shrug away the bizarre and all-demanding rush I felt being with her.

But she was a beacon I couldn’t help but be drawn to.

So like a moth to an open flame, I didn’t fight against the known danger. “You’re up late.”

She jumped, pencil and sketchbook flying in the process. My hand darted out and grabbed her sketches before they hit the ground.

“Fucking hell.” She grabbed her chest. “What’s wrong with you? Sneaking up on people is not cool.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you. It’s hardly my fault you were too focused not to notice your surroundings. What if I’d been an intruder?”

“Well, it’s a good thing I live in one of the most secure houses in Ontario.”

Rolling my eyes, I looked down at her sketchpad. No matter how many times I caught glimpses of her art, I was still in awe of her raw talent. But the piece in my hands was something else entirely. “Is this a drawing of Penelope?”

She nodded, pink tinging her cheeks.

Flipping through the pad, my fingers ran along the grooves of the paper, feeling the lines of her sketches. Colorful paintings of Penelope, of the garden we were in, and what I guessed was her home island of Ireland took up most of the pages.

I didn’t know much about art, but I meant what I said to her back in New York. If she was able to stir something within an art novice like me, her art deserved to be shown to the damn world.

My heart skipped a beat like some schoolboy when I came across a certain sketch near the back of the sketchpad. “What do we have here? Do my eyes deceive me, or does this handsome piece of work look awfully familiar?”

“Oh, sweet lord.” Orla stood suddenly. “I’ll take that back now.”

“Not a chance.” I smirked, holding it away from her and studying the page. “This is impressive. I mean, it’s uncanny, but I do have one question though.”

“Um, no questions, just give it back.”

“In a minute, just answer me this one thing.”

“Fred, give me it back or I swear to all the stars in the galaxy I will make you pay.”

“I’d like to see you try, Pixie.” I cocked a brow, my smirk growing tenfold. “Just tell me why I am wearing a cowboy hat?”

The heat of a thousand suns beamed from her cheeks and scorched her neck. Her eyes narrowed as she attempted yet again to swipe the pages from me. “How do you know it’s you? It could be anyone, like maybe one of your brothers.”

“Nice try. But I think we both know that none of my brothers have blue eyes.”

She opened her mouth only to close it again.

“ Merde, you really focused on my eyes, didn’t you? That and my chest. Did you work off memory, or have you been spying on me in the shower?”

She covered her face with her hands. “This can’t be happening… Kill me right now.”

“So, back to the cowboy hat?” I teased. “Please tell me it’s a fetish thing. Does imagining me naked with a cowboy hat turn you on?”

“Stop talking. Right now.”

“Do you want to take me for a ride, Pixie?”

Before I knew what was happening, she launched herself straight for me.

Hands grabbed at my extended arm, trying to snatch the sketchpad, her nails scratching my wrists. I was too focused on her hands that I didn’t notice a leg twisting in between mine, throwing the two of us off balance and sending us both tumbling straight into the pool.