Page 17

SIXTEEN

KIERAN ALFIERI

ROYCE

I t’s amazing how carefree Nicolette is in Riverside.

The arrogant part of me wants to believe it’s from our theater fucking. Could be. Once she got used to just sitting on top of me, keeping me warm and the both of us connected through the first act of the show, she lost most of the tension she was carrying with her earlier. We both headed off to the bathroom during intermission to freshen up, and when the show re-started, she laid her head on my shoulder again after returning to my lap, snuggling close throughout all of act two.

There was no reason to interrupt her during the second act, and I actually found myself following the plot as I looped my arm around her middle, holding her close. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, though I made it a point to tell Nic that the female lead—Christine—fucked up by not choosing the Phantom in the end.

“The Phantom?” Nicolette swats me in the jacket as we file out of the theater. “Were you watching the same show as me? He was the bad guy.”

Taking her elbow lightly, I help guide her past some of the passersby on the street. “He loved her.”

“He stalked her.”

“Because he loved her,” I point out.

She wrinkles her nose, and I get it. Some women might not swoon to know that their love interest is so obsessed that they’d watch over them… and if she’s one of them, it’s probably for the best that I keep the last couple of months to myself.

“He took her captive, Royce. Forced her in a wedding dress and then tried to make her choose between marrying him or watching as he killed her lover. And if you say he did all of that because he loved her… I think he was just obsessed.”

Is it bad that I’m still on the Phantom’s side here? “He let her go in the end,” I remind her. “That pussy?—”

Nicolette snorts. “The viscount.”

Whatever. The blond asshole was a pussy. “He didn’t deserve her. What did he do to show that he cared? Nothing compared to the Phantom.”

Nicolette’s brow furrows for a moment. “He rescued her when the Phantom hung that guy.”

I don’t remember that part. “When was that?”

She bumps her hip into my thigh as we cross over onto the next street. We’d both decided it was too early to call it a night and, after the show, we somehow worked up an appetite. With a handful of restaurants surrounding the venue, she suggested we take advantage of the nice night to walk over instead of getting the car from the valet.

“When was that?” she repeats. “Somewhere around the time you started fucking me.”

“Are you mad?” I ask.

“Mad that my gorgeous date couldn’t keep his hands off of me?”

“Yes.”

Pausing on the other side of the street, Nicolette turns into me, bracing her hands on my chest. She tilts her head up. “Mad that you want me so bad that you couldn’t wait until after, that you just had to fuck me then?”

“When you put it like that, you better not be.”

She pats my chest. “I’m not. Surprised, maybe, but not mad.” Going up on her tiptoes, she strokes a lock of my hair. “You’d make an excellent Raoul.”

I give her a questioning look.

“I don’t know. The suit. The hair. The way you’re loaded, and you whisk me on these adventures even though I’m poor as fuck.”

Her voice is light, but a muscle tics in my jaw as she adds that part.

Money is a sore point between us. It’s not just the I’m her boss; I have more money than that, and that bothers Nic. She’ll accept dates and dinner, and even a new diamond nose ring that I bought after she playfully confessed hers was cubic zirconia. She told me that she understood that my love language was spoiling her with gifts, and if she rejected them, it was the same as rejecting me.

I’ll admit, I had no fucking idea what she was talking about, but after I dropped her off at her place that night, I parked my car around the corner and Googled the shit out of it.

There are a bunch of different love languages. Nicolette’s not wrong when she says that I show my affection by giving her everything I think she deserves. As for her, after doing my research, I decide that her love language is ‘words of affirmation’.

She needs to hear me to tell her how fucking amazing she is, and how much I’m into her. Once I started to do that, so much of her hesitation seemed to melt away over the last few weeks. Throw in her praise kink and how happy it makes her to watch some old musical with her, and it’s almost like I unlocked the secret to making Nicolette Williams want to be with me.

Now Nic accepts my gifts, and I give her my cock while rumbling that she’s my ‘good girl’, and we’ve settled in a rhythm that works. Which is why I don’t say anything about what she just said… unless she finishes her thought.

“If the Phantom’s the bad guy in the story, Raoul’s the good guy.” Nicolette presses a kisses to the underside of my jaw. “You’re the good guy to me.”

Me?

I’m a killer. Doesn’t matter that I never fired a gun—I’ve never had to. I’ve lost track of how many lives I’ve ended with a nod, or how many I disappeared after Link decided they were expendable, a threat, or just because he was in a shitty mood that day. For fuck’s sake, I run guns, allow Breeze to be sold openly at the club, and enable a very well-run prostitution ring.

I’ve manipulated her into a relationship that I will never, ever willingly end… I’ve stalked her and, though I pretend we don’t have a power imbalance, I’ve done everything I can to keep her… and I ’m the good guy?

I don’t say anything to that. I can’t. If there’s one thing I can say, it’s that I won’t lie to Nicolette. I might not tell her the truth, either, but a flat-out falsehood? Nah. She’d never trust me if I did, and while I can justify a lot of shit I do, purposely deceiving her isn’t one of them.

Letting her come to the wrong conclusions, though… I can’t help that, can I?

I don’t know. But because she’s looking up at me with such adoration in her soft brown eyes, all I can do is say, “It’s chilly out and your legs must be freezing. Come on. Let’s go see if any of these restaurants have a table.”

We never make it that far.

Later, I’ll blame myself for being distracted by Nicolette. Growing up in the seedy underbelly of Springfield, if you’re not aware of what’s going on around you at all times, you’re dead. Just because we were in the suburban Riverside instead, that doesn’t mean that danger doesn’t lurk around every damn corner.

In this case, danger comes in the form of a dark-haired, pleasant-faced, hard-eyed bastard in a long duster, a pair of black jeans, and a smile that instantly makes me thinking about slugging him when he calls out to Nicolette from behind us and, immediately, she tenses.

I’m not afraid of this fucker.

Nic is.

It happens so quickly. One second, we were discussing whether we wanted seafood or Italian. The next, a male voice is hailing my Nicolette, calling her by her full first name to catch her attention. She didn’t turn around, though she did stop.

Me? I spun on my heel, getting my first look at him.

Whoever he is, he’s not familiar. I’ve never seen his face before, but when our eyes meet? It doesn’t matter that he’s not someone I’ve ever met. Like knows like, and whoever he is, he’s a dangerous bastard.

When she sees that I’ve turned around, Nicolette reluctantly does so. She also, to my surprise, takes two pointed steps away from me.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

I know her well enough to catch the slight tremble to her voice.

So does this asshole—and when he hears it? The smug smile on his face widens. “I haven’t seen you in ages and that’s how you greet me? Shit, Nicolette. I couldn’t believe that it was you when I came heading down this street. I just wanted to say ‘hi’ since we happened to bump into each other. You can’t fault me for that, can you?”

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. After a moment, she closes it, and nods.

Okay. Something’s going on here. I don’t know what it is—and I don’t like it.

“Nic, you gonna introduce me to your friend?” I ask.

He holds out his hand. I don’t take it.

He shrugs. “Name’s Kieran.” Kieran smiles, then adds, “I’m her brother.”

Nicolette avoids his smile—and my gaze. Her eyes dart over to the man, then drop to the sidewalk. “My stepbrother,” she murmurs. “ Ex -stepbrother.”

“Your mom might have given up on my dad before moving on, darlin’, but I haven’t given up on you. We’re family .”

I go still, my own empty grin freezing on my face. “Darlin’?”

What the fuck? He’s got the same Springfield accent as I do—which means no accent—and, yet, he affects this Southern drawl shit as he calls my Nicolette ‘darlin’’.

“Yeah,” he says daringly. “A little pet name for my sister. What about you? You got a name?”

Not one he needs to know.

“This is my boss, Kieran. So cool it, okay?” Nicolette is still refusing to look at me as she says, “Stop this overprotective BS. You know how much I hate it.”

He says something in response to it, but I’m not listening.

Nah. I’m a little preoccupied by what she called me.

‘Boss’. Not ‘boyfriend’, which I get because I’m thirty and not a boy. ‘Guy I’m fucking’ might be too much for her, but what about ‘guy I’m seeing’? Hell, I’d even take ‘partner’.

But ‘ boss ’?

Is that all I am to her?

And what about this guy? He seems a little placated now that she’s told him who I am—though I do notice she also didn’t give him my name—but I haven’t forgotten the way he called her darlin’ like that.

Know why? Because, as far as I’m aware, she doesn’t have a brother.

Tanner ran Nicolette. Because Devil is a paranoid bastard who’s only gotten worse since he knocked Ava up, he has our tech guy run anyone who might integrate with the syndicate.

The only family Nicolette Williams has is her mother. That’s it. Her mother was recently divorced from some insurance adjuster in Springfield. No kids for him, so how the hell does she even have an ex-stepbrother?

I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.

Because this is obviously a conversation for the two of them, I stay quiet as Nicolette wraps it up as quickly as she can. She uses the excuse that we have dinner reservations, then hooks her arm in mine before waving the guy off.

He’s obviously not ready to end it, but what can he do? Giving me one last assessing look, he nods before strolling back the way he came. Meanwhile, Nicolette is trembling—and something tells me it has absolutely nothing to do with the March chill.

I let her lead me to the first restaurant we see so that she can sell her reservation story. However, before we step inside, I unloop my arm from hers and, fisting my hands at my side, I demand, “Who was he?”

“I told you who he was,” Nicolette mumbles, ducking her head in the light from the restaurant’s open doorway. A curtain of pretty blonde hair covers her face. “He was my stepbrother. That’s all.”

Hell fucking no. She’s hiding. Hiding her face, hiding the truth…

No. Not from me.

Lifting my hand, I tuck her hair behind her shoulder. Then, once her face is clear, I cradle her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Nic. Who was he?”

Her eyes are panicked. He’s gone, and now that he is, I can see the fear she struggled to hide during their conversation.

“Who is he?” she asks, her voice cracking. “That’s Kieran Alfieri.”