Page 11 of My Orc Contract Husband (Eastshore Isle #9)
Chapter Six
Sami
I think I had about seventeen thousand steps for the day, just based on how much I’d been pacing.
After that wild conversation—decision? Suggestion?—in the barn during one of Eastshore’s ubiquitous afternoon summer storms, I drove to the beach, where I just…walked. For like two miles. Also got a mild sunburn, but that’s what I get for being unprepared.
I didn’t notice much of anything, because my mind was too full of thoughts and anxiety and a million other things.
You’d likely imagine I was thinking of Pierce T. Montgomery III and his threats, right? But instead, what I kept coming back to was how safe I felt in Tarkhan’s arms. He’d promised me everything would be okay, and you know what? I believed him .
I believed that he could keep me safe no matter what, even if we decided against this harebrained scheme.
Which, to be fair, was technically my harebrained scheme. I’d been the one to more or less suggest it, but he’d agreed. Hadn’t he? Gah, everything was so jumbled up in my mind!
I needed someone to talk to.
Which is why I found myself sitting on my aunt’s front porch at eleven fourteen p.m., listening to my cousin mutter quietly to herself as she climbed out of her car in the darkness.
“Riven?” I called as she stomped up the front walkway.
Her movements—and the cursing—halted suddenly. “Who’s there? I have bear spray. Swear to God, I’m not afraid to spray your ass from here to Kingdom Come.”
“Bear spray?” I repeated with a snort as I unfolded from the patio chair Aunt Sharon kept out here. “Why not carry pepper spray like everyone else?”
“Sami? Is that you? What the hell are you doing out here?”
I heard when she relaxed, and her steps resumed, so I joined her by the front door. “Waiting on you, obviously. I don’t have a key. Why bear spray?—”
“Wider dispersal area. Are you okay? Why are you being all creepy?”
When Riven opened the front door, I followed.
“I needed to talk to you—to someone, and as my cousin, I nominated you. You’re not going straight to bed, are you?”
She eyed me up and down, then shrugged and shook her head. “Bedtime’s not till at least two, maybe three. You okay?” she asked as she began to pull stuff out of her pockets—keys, phone, wallet. Boy, those chef pants really had robust pockets, huh?
My instinct was to assure her I was fine, but I blew out a breath and crossed my arms over my chest. “Did your mom tell you about my Dad?”
Riven winced as she plopped a to-go bag on the counter. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Sami, that sucks. She said you were more upset by the inheritance though.”
“Does that make me a horrible person?”
“Not even a little bit. You and Mom have both told me enough about your father that I know you’re not going to mourn him, and neither am I.” She jerked her head toward the hall. “I have got to shower—the smell of the frying oil gets into my hair, and I can’t stand it when I’m not in the kitchen.”
Wrinkling my nose, I followed her and said in a teasing tone, “Yeah, I wasn’t going to mention it…”
“I’m a very subtle person, you know that,” she shot right back as she squatted to untie her boots. “Is Mom asleep?”
As if on cue, a snort-and-gurgle sound came from the main bedroom, and the two of us shared a conspiratorial grin .
“Guess we’d better whisper,” I whispered, and my cousin huffed.
“Mom has her white noise machine on and can sleep through an earthquake—Brooke told me Mom once did, when she was visiting her out in California. But come on, once the water’s on, she won’t hear anything.”
Most houses on Eastshore were built around the same time to the same design, which is how I knew that the hall bathroom was particularly small.
Or at least, it felt that way with both of us in there.
But Riven climbed into the shower and shut the curtain while I climbed up to sit cross-legged on the counter, my back to the mirror.
“So,” she began as she tossed first her socks, then her shirt from behind the curtain into the hamper. “Dad’s dead, surprise—my condolences, et cetera . But more concerning is the fact that you’re his heir.” Her pants followed, then her underwear.
She never wore a bra anymore.
When the shower turned on, I raised my voice just a bit. “Being his heir means not only do I get all the money in his account, but I’m in charge of his half of the real estate corporation he’s built.”
“And you don’t want that,” Riven called as the room began to steam up.
“Not even a little bit. I can sell it outright, I figured that was my best bet…”
I trailed off, and for a bit, the only sound was my cousin soaping her hair. Then, she made a little spitting noise as if clearing water from her face, and spoke .
“So what’s changed? What doesn’t Mom know?”
Sighing, I tipped my head back against the mirror. “I got a letter from my father’s business partner.”
Riven grabbed the curtain, yanking it out of the way to shove her head—hair thick with shampoo bubbles—around it. “The guy you were supposed to marry?”
I winced. “The guy Dad wanted me to marry. Turns out he still wants to marry me.”
“Shit,” she whispered, eyes wide. Then she shook her head and ducked back into the shower. I could hear the sounds of her rinsing out the shampoo as she continued. “If he marries you now…”
“The two of us would control most of the real estate deals in the city,” I finished for her.
“ Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy.”
I snorted at her quotation. “Exactly. And because of that motivation, he’s made it clear he’s not going to accept No thank you, I don’t want to marry you . He can’t afford to have half his business flopping around unsecured down here on Eastshore.”
“Well, shit,” Riven repeated.
The water turned off, and when her hand emerged from the curtain to fumble toward the towel rack, I slid off my perch to hand her a towel directly.
She eventually pulled the curtain aside and stepped out, the towel snug under her arms and her hair going every which way, and I had to smile at how disgruntled she looked.
My cousin had always drifted more toward tomboyish looks than her older sister Brooke, but she’d once had beautiful long brown hair. Since the chemo, though, it had grown in curly, and she kept it cut in the cutest pixie cut.
That, combined with her slender build and her short stature, made her look positively adorable. Yep, an absolutely adorable, pissed off honey badger, full of passion and anger and joy and every emotion you can imagine.
Standing there naked and dripping water across the bathroom rug, Riven asked me, “So what are you going to do?”
Ah .
I took a breath. Held it. Met her green eyes.
“Pierce can’t force me to marry him if I’m married already.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I couldn’t read her thoughts. We shared the same green eyes, her and I, from our mothers. And right now, she was hiding her response to my admittedly pretty wild announcement.
Then she jerked her head toward her room, and I dutifully padded after her toward her bedroom.
It wasn’t until she was bent over the dresser, rummaging through her pajama drawer, that she spoke.
“Can I assume that you’ve picked out someone? Or is this still in the brainstorming phase?”
“I’ve picked out someone.” Crossing my arms, I leaned against the doorjamb, keeping my voice low. No matter what Riven said about her mom’s sleeping habits, I didn’t want Aunt Sharon hearing any of this. “He’s an orc. ”
To her credit, Riven just hummed as she straightened with a pair of plaid P.J. pants. “I guess that means Montgomery can’t physically intimidate him,” she said as she shimmied into them.
And I nodded eagerly. “That’s what I said.”
“Doesn’t mean he won’t be able to bribe his way out of it, though.” Riven tossed the towel on the bed and, her back to me, pulled the T-shirt over her head. “From what you’ve told me about him, he’s not above that,” she said as she turned.
“You’re right. But Tarkhan’s too honorable to take a bribe.” Riven didn’t see— feel —Tarkhan’s rage today when he’d learned about Pierce’s threats. “He’ll protect me.”
“Tarkhan, hmm?” My cousin was smirking as she squeezed by me, heading for the kitchen. “That’s your client—the guy you’ve been trying to find a property for?”
“Right. Nice shirt, by the way.”
Grinning, Riven twirled—tiny bundle of energy that she was—while holding out the hem of the shirt. The shirt had the acronym BAGGACOTD in pink curly letters across the boob area, and Riven was clearly delighted by it.
“Thanks! I stole it from my cousin. She’s a book slut and reads really filthy smut.”
Rolling my eyes, I padded toward the fridge. “And you love it just as much. ”
“I do indeed.” Riven pulled out a large mug for me and a glass for herself. “I dunno if I owe you thanks or curses for introducing me to mafia romance. Grab me the water while you’re in there, please.”
I met her at the counter with the water and a carton of Sharon’s chocolate fudge swirl ice cream, which I scooped into the mug as Riven prepared the salad she’d brought home from work.
Once we were settled at the table, she took a deep breath. “Okay, so Tarkhan knows about your father and Montgomery and has offered to marry you?”
“No, it was my idea.” Was it? Everything was a little hazy. “But he seems on board. The reason it’s taken him so long to find a house is that he can’t get approved for a mortgage company, but if he was married…”
My cousin nodded. “Your income would apply. So this would be like a mutually beneficial thing?” She shoved a big bite of grilled chicken and lettuce into her mouth.
I dragged my spoon through the ice cream as I nodded. “And it might seem weird, but I trust him. A lot more than I trust Pierce.”
As we ate, Riven quizzed me.
What do you know about Tarkhan?
How long have you known him?
When you say you trust him, that’s not just panic talking?
How confident are you that Tarkhan can stand up to Montgomery?