Page 28 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)

“Thank you,” Brielle says, having a seat next to me. “I wish I could say I was happy to be home, but”—she side-eyes me—“I was dragged back here against my will.”

“Hardly,” I mutter, taking a sip of my coffee.

While the women catch up, I go through the emails that came in while I was asleep. It’s not until Brielle mentions leaving for Pilates that I enter the conversation, already knowing there’s going to be a fight.

“You can’t leave,” I tell her.

She whips her head around until she’s looking at me. “What the hell do you mean?”

“There are things you don’t know,” I begin.

Before I can fill her in, a little boy comes stumbling into the kitchen, dressed in dinosaur pajamas. His red hair is messy from sleep, and he’s rubbing his eyes.

“Mommy?” he mutters, looking around in confusion. “Do you know where my mommy is?”

“What the hell?” Brielle breathes. “How did a little boy get in here?”

Ignoring her question, I walk over and kneel in front of him. “Hello there, Damien. My name is Dominick. Your mom is here somewhere. Why don’t we go find her?”

“Who is his mother?” Brielle asks, earning a glare from me. “Don’t look at me like that,” she says smartly. “A child is wandering around the house.”

“He’s not wandering,” I say, standing and holding out my hand for him to take. “He’s … related to us.”

I want to say he’s my son, but I can’t imagine that would go over well with Peyton. I have no intention of keeping my paternity from him a secret, but I bet it will go over better if I ask her how she’d like to go about it.

Speaking of which …

Loud padding down the stairs fills the air, and a few seconds later, the mother of my child comes flying around the corner.

“Oh my God, my baby!” Peyton cries, scooping Damien up into her arms. “I went to go pee, and you were gone. You scared me! You went down the stairs by yourself? Are you okay?”

He looks at her like she’s grown two heads and then says, “Mommy, I’m not a baby. I’m three.” He lifts his fingers to emphasize his point.

Although I don’t have any kids to compare him to, I must admit, mine is damn cute.

“I know,” Peyton says, her tone patient. “But stairs can be dangerous. You could’ve fallen and gotten hurt. You could’ve bumped your head.”

“I didn’t fall,” Damien says. “I slid.”

Peyton sighs, and I stifle my laugh because she’s such a mom—worried about him when he’s not the least bit worried himself. She would have a heart attack if she knew the shit my brother and I had gotten into when we were little.

“Wait, you slid?” she asks. “You slid where?”

“Down the stairs.” He giggles and then wiggles his body, silently demanding to be let down.

When she lets him go, he takes off out of the kitchen, and we all follow and watch him fly up the stairs without a care in the world.

Peyton gasps while I laugh under my breath, and she scowls at me.

“Watch, Mommy!” Damien yells when he gets to the top.

He drops to his butt and then proceeds to slide down, hitting each step as he goes, laughing the entire way. When he’s about halfway down, Peyton cracks a smile and shakes her head.

“See?” he says when he gets to the bottom. “I slid. I didn’t fall.”

“I see,” she tells him. “But I need you to go slower while going up and down the stairs, please. You could trip and get hurt.”

“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “Can I go to school now?” he asks, switching the subject quick enough to give someone whiplash.

Peyton shoots daggers my way as she contemplates what to say, so I jump in, hoping making it right will earn me some points with the mother of my child.

Last night, when I spoke to my assistant about picking up clothes for them, she mentioned he’d also need some toys since they came with nothing. I’m planning to order shit, but she grabbed a bunch of stuff to hold him over until I can do that.

“Hey, Damien,” I say, stepping toward him. “You don’t know this, but while you were asleep, we took you on a plane.”

“Really?” he asks, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“Yep. We brought you here … on a vacation. Do you know what a vacation is?” I ask, and he shakes his head. “It’s where you go somewhere far away from home to have fun.”

“But school is fun.” He pouts. “I wanna go to school.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, and Peyton smirks at me with a silent fucking told you written across her features.

“I know,” I tell him. “But this place has fun stuff too. Like a pool.”

“A pool?” he asks, his gray eyes lighting up.

“Yep. We have a pool, and I have it on good authority that right through that hall, in the living room, is a bunch of cool pool toys and a bathing suit for you.”

“Yay!” he cheers as he runs in the direction I pointed.

“What did you say about him throwing a fit?” I murmur to Peyton with a smirk.

“Whatever,” she mutters. “Just fix this shit so we can leave.”

She goes to stomp away, but before she can, I extend my hand, halting her in place.

“I’m going to fix this shit,” I say, using her words. “But my son isn’t going anywhere. So, you should get used to living in this house because unless you’re okay with leaving him here with me, you’re not going anywhere either.”

“Really?” she snaps. “Threatening the mother of your child? Such a gentleman.”

“I never claimed to be a gentleman.” I shrug.

I lean in so only she can hear me, my breath tickling her ear.

“And I’m pretty sure when I was fucking you from behind and you were begging me to do it harder, you were perfectly okay with that.

If you were to be honest with yourself, I think you prefer it that way. ”

“You’re such an asshole,” she hisses, looking me in the eye. “It seems like you’re a bit obsessed with our time together. This is the second time you’ve brought it up. Hope you have a good memory because the only way you’ll ever fuck me again is in your mind.”

She stalks off, and I can’t help but laugh.

“We’ll see about that,” I call after her, earning her middle finger.

“What the hell was that?” Brielle asks, glancing from me to Peyton, who’s now helping our son blow up a floatation device that’s shaped like a pizza. “And why is the flight attendant in our house?”

“That’s what happens when you don’t wrap it up,” Matteo says with a laugh as he saunters into the room and slides his arm across the back of Brielle’s shoulders. “Our brother here hooked up with that woman and got her pregnant.”

Brielle’s body stiffens, and Matteo drops his grin.

“Hey,” I say to her. “I’m not a woman, so I can’t possibly know what you went through …”

“It’s fine,” Brielle snaps. “It’s been years. I’m over it.”

It’s clear she’s not, but in our family, showing any kind of emotion is a weakness.

“So, she … what, kept him from you?” Brielle asks, channeling her anger toward Peyton.

“Put the claws away,” I warn.

I might be pissed about what Peyton did, but that’s between me and her. I’m not going to have my family fighting my battles for me, and if I have any chance of coexisting with her, I can’t have my sister or mom out to get her in my honor.

“She did what she thought was right,” I tell her. “The important thing is that I know now, and it would make shit easier if you could get along with her, especially since she’s not going anywhere.”

“She’s living here?” Brielle accuses, her eyes wide in shock. “What … did she find out you were worth billions and came to collect?”

“Actually, she doesn’t want a single thing from him,” Peyton says, nodding toward me.

“I had no intention of telling him about Damien. But thanks to your brother stalking me when I told him to leave me alone, he found out about our son, then almost got him kidnapped. As soon as he finds the guy responsible, we’ll be out of your hair. ”

Without waiting for Brielle to respond, she walks back over to Damien, taking his hand in hers and scooping up the giant pizza with her other hand, and they disappear out the back door.

“Well, that went well,” Matteo mutters.

“Anthony is after Damien,” I tell Brielle.

“What?” she gasps. “Why?”

“I think he knew you were possibly pregnant with his kid and knows Dad forced you to have an abortion.”

Her face turns white.

“He potentially lost his heir and the connections to our family. I think he was trying to find a way to get back at our family and found out I had a son at the same time I did. He sent me a text— an eye for an eye —and then tried to have Damien kidnapped.”

“That motherfucker,” Brielle hisses. “Where is he? Why haven’t you killed him yet?”

“He’s hiding,” Matteo says. “But I promise, we won’t stop until we find him.”

“And when you do, I want him,” Brielle says. “I want to be the one to end his life.”

She’s never killed anyone, so she doesn’t know the way it stays with you, but I’m not about to argue with her. When the time comes, I’ll convince her to let us handle it. But for now, I nod in agreement.

“That doesn’t explain why that woman kept your son from you,” she says.

“That woman’s name is Peyton,” I tell her. “And she’s the mother of my son—your nephew—so show her some respect.”

Brielle scoffs.

“If Mom had been stronger, if she had tried to escape Andrey and left this life behind, would you have gone with her?” I ask her.

“Of course,” she says without hesitation. “But what does that have to do with?—”

“Peyton heard me kill someone,” I say, keeping my voice down. “It scared the hell out of her, and she ran. She kept Damien from me to protect him because she’s a good mom.”

Brielle swallows thickly. “But you’re not him,” she chokes out. “You’re a good man.”

“Because your standards are fucked,” I say with a humorless laugh. “But to Peyton, I might as well be the Devil himself. She’s not from this world. That’s why I let her go all those years ago.”

“And now?” Brielle asks, quirking her perfectly shaped brow.

“And now, I’m never letting either of them go again.”