The Billionaire Bad Boys Club (40 page)

She looked from the screen to him.

“Child’s play,” he repeated.

He saw the intelligence he’d once admired come into her face. “You mean it,” she said, searching his expression.

“I will do
whatever
it takes to protect the people I love.”

Hurt flicked across her eyes an instant before she looked away. She shoved her own phone into her spangled purse. “I won’t bother you again,” she said.

~

Rebecca and Trey snagged a small stand-up table to sample the hors d’oeuvres. She’d meant everyone to share it, but they seemed to have disappeared. Most troubling, after Mystique’s big entrance, Zane had strode across the ballroom in the same direction.

Rather than give in to paranoia or jealousy, Rebecca frowned at the cell phone she’d just shut off.

“That was weird, huh?” she said to Trey. “Who knew the wildlife people were such pranksters?”

“Mm,” he said, attention focused where the well-dressed crowd might be concealing Zane and Mystique. He didn’t seem worried, but like he was distracted.

“They had to hack everyone’s phone to do it.”

“Maybe they had people’s numbers from their fundraising.”

“They didn’t have mine.”

Trey finally looked at her. “We’ll get you a new one, with better security.”

“
I’ll
get me a new one. Don’t you remember what you pay me?”

He smiled with soft eyes and a hint of wickedness. “I’m sure I barely scratch the surface of what you’re worth.”

A ripple among the partygoers stopped her from coming up with a smart remark. “That’s Mystique,” she said. “She’s leaving without her date. I hope whatever Zane said to her didn’t rile her up even more.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Trey soothed. “He’s pretty good at encouraging people to cut their losses.”

Something in his tone made her brows lower. “You know what he said. Her being here wasn’t an accident.”

“And there’s the man himself,” Trey announced as Zane’s warm hand settled on her shoulder.

Rebecca turned at the touch. “Zane. What have you been up to?”

He smiled the way Trey had—like a mischievous angel. “What I’ve been up to is looking forward to our dance. I noticed the orchestra taking their seats on the balcony.”

Rebecca wasn’t that easily fobbed off. “Where are Pete and Charlie? Why
did
Caroline bring her laptop in here?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they’re helping her study. Those summer courses can be a bitch. Come on, Rebecca. Aren’t you going to dance with me?”

She was, and after that she’d dance with Trey, an arrangement she was secretly looking forward to. Apart from chaperoning Pete and Charlie, she’d skipped the proms in high school. In the interest of making up for that, she let her suspicions drop.

“No dipping,” she stipulated. “Balancing on these heels is hard enough.”

Zane’s seductive grin broadened. “If I dipped you, you’d just have to hold me tighter.”

“Oh God.”

“Trey’s the one you need to watch out for. He can dip
and
spin his partners.”

Despite her trepidation, she let Zane lead her onto the dance floor. The music that started up was waltzy. Thankfully, Zane simply pulled her close, put his arms around her, and coaxed her head against his big chest. When he sighed, she felt tension run out of his whole body.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, stroking her short hair. “Nothing now that you’re here.”

She couldn’t spoil a moment like that—or the ones that followed when Trey took over. The men danced with her like no one else existed. Their care for her was wonderful and humbling at the same time.

Zane drew the line at taking a turn on the floor with Trey.

“He steps on my toes,” he joked. “And he’s way heavier than you.”

She couldn’t complain about his limits, not when he’d bent so far. Zane touched Trey nearly as sweetly as he touched her. He wasn’t shoving people’s faces in their relationship, but neither was he hiding that they all were romantically involved.

The people who knew the men appeared to take this in stride moderately well. Their trio wasn’t avoided or whispered about where they could see—any snarky remarks being saved for elsewhere. Some of the folks who stopped to talk were stiff, but no one was impolite. The worst the awkward ones could be charged with was that they didn’t know what to make of them. Rebecca understood that. Although arrangements like theirs weren’t unheard of, they weren’t generally public.

Rebecca’s biggest surprise was how natural being with both men felt.

You’ve come a long way
, she thought. Her former worries about sleeping with the boss seemed quaint by comparison.

“What are you smiling at?” Trey asked as they enjoyed one last twirl around the dance floor.

“You. Zane. How lucky I turned out to be.”

“We’re all lucky.”

His soft sweet kiss was better than a cherry on a sundae.

~

Rebecca knew the college kids wouldn’t admit to being up past their bedtime, but all three slept through the flight to Boston. Once there, the twins decided it was time to return to their own lives.

Rebecca hugged them on the pavement outside their idling cab.

“Love you,” Charlie said, sliding into the back seat where Caroline waited.

“Love you,” Pete seconded.

“You have enough to cover the fare?”

“Yes,” Pete said. “As long as you stop hugging me sometime in this century.”

She held his face a moment longer. Apparently, her brothers had left off worrying about her. More than anything, that told her they’d been involved in scaring off Mystique at the fundraiser. The question was, did she really want to know what they’d done? Whatever it was, they—and her two bad boys—wanted to spare her the responsibility for their actions. Maybe, just this once, it was enough to know her life was blessed with truly amazing men.

“Go home and enjoy your hunks,” Pete encouraged. “We’ll call you before the next Sunday dinner, to find out where it is.”

That startled her enough to let go. Sunday dinner was always at the row house. She waved as the cab drove off, noting that the boys also waved to the men beside her.

“Sunday dinner?” Trey asked.

“The boys and I have one together once a month.”

“We could have it at our place,” Zane said.

Rebecca turned to look at him.

She guessed he interpreted this as doubt. His jaw hardened stubbornly. “We’re not putting you in a cab. You’re coming home with us. And not just tonight, either.”

She smiled. She understood how Trey knew Zane loved him—with or without the words. An impulse to truly open to the miracle they were offering prodded her to speak.

“Could we stop at my place first?” she asked.

“Promise it’s not pick up clothes.”

“You’re horrible!” she accused, unable to keep from laughing. “What if I need fresh underwear?”

“The stuff I bought for you is nicer. It’s even comfortable.”

Zane was right, so she relented. “I have another reason for wanting to stop. It’ll just take a few minutes.”

The sun came up as Zane drove, waking the old-new city with a wash of gold light. Rebecca’s street was a quiet tunnel of leafy green, the trees at their peak of late-summer growth. As Zane parked his beloved silver convertible at the curb, she realized the construction dumpster was gone. Jesse must have finished the basement apartment.

What she’d feared would be a source of anxiety now barely made a blip on her nerves’ radar.

“Should we come in with you?” Trey asked.

“Please,” she said.

She unlocked the old scratched front door that held so many memories. She hadn’t been away long, but the house smelled foreign—part staleness and part sawdust. She went to sit on the steps to the second floor. The snugness of her blue velvet dress meant she had to do this carefully.

“I thought you needed to get something,” Zane said in confusion.

She patted the steps next to and below her. “I want to tell you a story. And to show you where it happened.”

Trey lowered his narrow butt next to hers. Zane chose to lean against the opening to the living room. He’d pulled his bowtie open at some point. Looking tired but insanely hot in his formal wear, he peeked in at the old couches—curious to see how she lived, she supposed. She was no decorator, and there wasn’t much to see. Most of their furniture came from bargain stores.

She clasped her hands on her knees, refusing to give them a chance to tremble. “You see that door?” she said. “Where we just came in? That’s where my father stood before he left.”

Trey laid one hand around her forearm.

“It’s funny how vividly I remember it when it was so long ago. His overnight bag was at his feet, right there on the penny tile. His shirt had a stain on it that hadn’t come out in the wash. My mom had been dead a week, and he hadn’t figured out the machine.”

Zane was looking at her now, his eyes sad and serious. Rebecca shook off that consciousness. Pity wasn’t what she was after.

“He told me he couldn’t handle Mom being gone. He told me when I tried to cling to him, all he wanted to do was run.”

“Shit,” Zane said softly.

“I don’t know if I’d been clingy or not. I was sixteen. Dad had never done much parenting, so maybe me needing anything from him was too much. I remember how he shuddered when he said it, like I disgusted him. When I saw that, I was so angry, I swear I’d have killed him if I’d been able to. I refused to beg him to stay. When he did go and didn’t come back, I thought maybe I should have pleaded—for the boys’ sake, at least. I expect it wouldn’t have made a difference. He told me to call child services. He said there’d be a family who wanted Charlie and Pete.”

Trey breathed a curse like Zane had. Rebecca turned on the step to him.

“One of the last things my mother told me before she passed was to be patient with our dad. She said he needed us kids to love him. I still don’t know if she was right, only that he needed even more to escape.”

“We need you,” Trey said, taking her hands in his. “We need you to love us.”

“I do,” she said. “That’s why I’m telling you this. For most of my life I was convinced I’d never trust my heart to a man. Absolutely, I’d never let myself need one. You two did an end run around my fears. You made it easy to love you.”

Trey’s eyes spilled over, and hers did too.

“You need to sell this fucking place,” Zane broke in.

She and Trey let out matching laughs.

“I mean it,” he said, glaring at their amusement. “Your brothers shouldn’t even live here. Those memories are bad mojo.”

“I have good memories too. Raising Pete and Charlie here was great.”

“Make new good memories with us. Move in with us. There’s plenty of room for your brothers whenever they want to stay. Trey, give her the thing.”

She looked at Trey, who smiled crookedly. He took one hand from hers to dig in his pocket. “We hadn’t decided when to do this, but I guess now is a good time.”

He handed her a plain square box with a lid. A quick glance at Zane showed he was frowning—not an angry frown, more like a worried one. He wasn’t sure she’d like this. She lifted the lid carefully.

A ring of keys lay on the white batting.

“Front door,” Trey said, touching one with his fingertip. “Garage and master for all the cars. This one opens the door to our flat in Paris—”

“You have a flat in Paris!” she couldn’t help exclaiming.

“We do. With an awesome view and a balcony. Remind Zane to speak French for you sometime. Trust me, it’s super-hot.”

“I bet it is.” The leering grin she exchanged with Trey was all the more entertaining for the power it had to embarrass its subject.

“Show her the last key,” Zane ordered Trey gruffly.

The final key was beneath the others and dangled from a golden chain. The links were hand-fashioned and looked a bit Medieval. The key itself was modern, but more complex than the others.

“The playroom,” she breathed, knowing instantly.

“We’ll put your prints into the system,” Zane said. “That plus those keys will give you access to anything in the house.”

Rebecca dropped the gold chain around her neck. The weight of the key fell gently between her breasts.

“Thank you,” she said, her heart beating fast and strong. “I accept your very kind offer to move in with you.”

“Good.” Zane’s blue eyes met hers with breath-stealing directness. “Let’s go home and fuck ourselves silly.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Cherry on the Top

REBECCA
deserved a medal for not attacking the men in the car. They seemed to expect it. Both had erections when they got out.

“We’ve done the garage,” she said airily, though her body was simmering. “Please follow me to the house.”

Zane chuckled behind her. “Have something in mind?”

She didn’t answer, just smiled to herself. Inside, the mansion had its usual nocturnal hush, twinkling with just enough tasteful lights to see by. She was carrying her heels and consequently dared to add an extra sway to her hips. It would have been a shame not to. The formfitting dress was made for it.

“Look out, Trouble,” Trey said, apparently liking what he saw.