Kya shifted her head and looked up at me. “What was she like?”
I could see the heartbreak in her eyes. Yet she didn’t pity me, or say she was sorry. I almost loved her for that.
“She was…” Perfect, innocent, everything to me. “Happy.” Was the word I chose to go with.
“That’s good.” Kya sighed and tucked her face in my neck. “Most people spend a lifetime searching for happiness. I’m glad she found hers.”
I was stunned. Unable to say anything, as I stared at her.
“You’re gonna hurt me, aren’t you?” she whispered in my neck.
Glancing over at the drawer where I had her engagement ring stashed, I sighed. “Probably.”
“What the fuck am I doing here, Jackson?”
I could be cuddling with Kya and watching the sunset right now, if my brother hadn’t called me to his office. She hadn’t been out of my sight since she came into my office.
I ate with her, bathed with her, walked with her. Whatever the hell she wanted to do, I was there. Happy to be around her. How fucked up was that?
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Carmine grumbled, “I was in the middle of a training session.”
“Boo hoo,” I muttered back.
Fuck Carmine and his training session. I was missing time to explore more of my future wife. Smiling, I palmed the ring in my jacket pocket. I had the whole thing planned.
Drink a bottle of champagne while watching the sunset, and then give her the ring. I didn’t expect her to jump up and say yes.
Then again, I wasn’t going to ask her. Just tell her how it was. But if I gave her that sappy romantic crap all girls liked, she couldn’t, say, throw it back in my face a couple years from now when we were sick of each other's shit.
“Don’t think I forgot about what you said the other night.”
I glared at Carmine. Good. I hope he fucking hated me. Thirteen more years of that and he’d be where I was now.
“Want to know what his last words were?” I asked, arching my brow.
Carmine’s jaw ticked. Part of him didn’t want to believe it, because then he would’ve wasted all that time hating the wrong brother.
“Knock it off.” Jackson clapped his hands in the air, drawing our attention to him. “We have bigger problems.”
I sighed. I’m sure we did.
“Who took what now?”
“How much do you know about your betrothed?”
That caused my brow to arch. What was there to know? She grew up in a small town. Her mother owned a shitty diner, and her stepdad spent most of his time buried in a bottle.
Not exactly people that could cause problems for men like us. I didn’t know much about her sister, but considering she came from the same place Kya did, I doubted she was a threat.
“You’re worried about Kya?”
“Yes,” both Bias and Jackson said in unison.
Okay.ThisI was not expecting. “You sure you have the right Kya Caruthers?”
“Actually,” Bias gave Jackson a look before turning his attention to me. “No.”
Okay, that made even less sense.
