I collapse onto the king-size bed in Ares’s massive bedroom. “Thank you,” I tell him for the seventy-gazillionth time.
He nods and peers at me.
After two hours of baking cookies with him—including gingerbread, which Viktor finally confessed to liking—I think I’m beginning to understand some of his silent communication, and I’m pretty sure he’s asking if I’m okay.
Understanding him is a relief. Joey told me he was a big ol’ teddy bear, but committing to living in his room for a week to get here to help Manning was a terrifying thought.
“I’m good,” I say. “Just a little tired. It’s normal.”
He nods, pats me with surprising gentleness on the head, and takes the monkey with him when he leaves me for a nap.
When I wake up to voices down the hall, the sun is setting behind the mountains. Holy dog, the pinks and purples over the blue haze that the Blue Ridge range is known for takes my breath away. When I was in Copper Valley for that golf tournament a couple months back, I got out to walk in the mountains but I didn’t get a chance to appreciate the beauty of a mountain sunset.
Conversation continues down the hall, and curiosity gets the best of me. I step into the bathroom attached to the bedroom to freshen up and freeze in the doorway, because holy crap amazeballs again.
There’s a huge clawfoot tub that might actually be big enough to hold Ares, along with a tiled-in shower stall the size of my bedroom that has ten—no, twelve nozzles in the wall, two overhead rain shower fixtures, and a sprayer on a flexible hose as well. I take two more steps into the room, and the toilet seat lifts automatically.
I start to thank it before I process that of course it won’t thank me back. Because it’s a toilet.
“Oh, boy…we’re not in Alabama anymore,” I whisper. I snap a picture. “Honey badger, text Joey. Holy fuck, I could live in this bathroom.”
Honey badger reads me the texts that have come in from Nancy and Tammy, telling me all is fine with the bakery and Mister Beans, my cat back home, and from Peach, asking if I’m going to keep walking or if I’m giving up on ever beating her again with our fitness tracker challenges.
I ignore her message—I’ve been a little tired to keep going at my previous pace—and gape at the rest of the bathroom. The double sink is made of granite, the faucet and knobs fancy brass like I’ve only ever seen on the Home and Garden Channel, and I stop in my tracks when I realize the large rectangular glass-and-metal thing on the wall beside the shower is a towel warmer.
A towel warmer.
I might actually whore myself out if it would get me a towel warmer. Can you imagine? I’ve listened to books where the hero pulls a fresh warm towel right out of the dryer for the heroine, but I’ve never used a warm towel myself.
A burst of laughter draws my attention away from drooling over the bathroom, and curiosity gets the better of me. I finish quickly—only squealing a little when I find the toilet seat warm, like someone’s been sitting on it already, before I catch on that there’s a toilet control panel on the wall. The toilet has a control panel. And there’s not only a heated seat function, but also a bidet function.
I am such a simple country bumpkin. But you’re damn right I’m going to try that bidet before Manning or Elin finds a way to kick me out.
I try to act cool walking down the hallway when I realize the framed prints aren’t prints at all, but original paintings.
Last time I was here, I didn’t notice much more than the marble and slate. Now I’m seeing all the other signs of opulence, and despite that dollar figure on the payoff paperwork Manning sent me, it’s beginning to sink in just how much money a king has.
I don’t recognize the paintings, but I have a feeling they’re at least worth my monthly mortgage payment.
Probably more.
At the end of the hall, I find a small party going on around the polished dining room table. Because I’m completely and totally lame and have given up Dancing with the Stars and America’s Got Talent for Thrusters hockey games, I recognize Duncan Lavoie and Nick Murphy—whom I belatedly realize were the two goons here the night I came to tell Manning I was pregnant—though I don’t know who the strawberry-blond woman sitting between them is. Elin is sniffing at the cartons of food scattered about the table. Ares is using a fancy silver serving spoon to feed himself some kind of noodles in sauce. Manning is expertly wielding chopsticks, but he freezes when I appear in the doorway.
His gaze sweeps over me as though he’s verifying I’m still in one piece, then sweeps over me again a second time as though he’s enjoying the view and imagining himself pushing up my shirt to feast on my breasts. While my nipples tighten, he visibly swallows, his bright blue eyes go smoky hot, and a muscle ticks in his jaw despite his strained smile.
He looks down at his food as though he hasn’t seen me, smile still in place, and it strikes me that his smile might be perpetual, but it doesn’t mean he’s happy.
Duncan Lavoie notices me next. “Hello, love.” He wiggles his brows and pats the seat beside him. “Come. Sit. Eat. Let me tell you all the things I’d love to do to you if your poutine is half as good as your cookies.”
“Back, small dick,” Ares growls.
“I hate when he fucking pulls that card,” Duncan says to Manning.
Whose dick is nothing to sneeze at, but considering I’ve seen—never mind.
Again, not going there.
Point is, I suspect none of these men have dick problems, but I imagine it is hard—oh, dog, now I’m going to giggle—to compete with Ares.
Ares trades places with Duncan, by which I mean he rises, points, and gives Duncan a growly-eyed glare that makes Duncan sigh and rise with a few grumbled curses that make me glad my baby can’t hear yet.
“The whore’s not eating with us,” Elin declares.
“Of course she’s not, because she’s not here,” I reply. I take the seat Ares points me into between him and the woman I don’t know.
“So, you’re not a whore?” Nick asks. “Damn.”
The woman extends a hand to me. “Hi. Felicity Murphy. Apologies for my dumbass brother. He has a permanent case of hornball-itis.”
“That usually means they’re compensating,” I tell her. And then I hiccup.
She cracks up. “Fuck the handshake. You get a hug.”
We bond over a mutual lack of appreciation of hornballs while Ares produces a plate from somewhere and piles it with fried rice, noodle something, random meats in sauce, and tops it all with a fortune cookie still in a wrapper.
He also gives me a spoon, a fork, chopsticks, and tongs.
I’m not sure what the tongs are for, but I thank him anyway with a peck to the cheek that makes him blush.
I hope Joey marries Zeus just so we can have Ares for a brother-in-law.
And I’ll have to find more excuses to kiss Ares on the cheek, because Manning is positively fuming now.
Oh, he’s still smiling. But his eyeballs suggest he’s mentally stabbing Ares everywhere it’s possible to stab a man without killing him.
Men are so cute when they get all worked up and jealous.
Serves him right for trying to buy me off. Even if he thought he was doing the right thing.
Most everyone else is just nibbling at what’s left on their plates as I dig in, so they all sit and chat about the away games in Canada last week, meeting Duncan’s family in Calgary, who got salad dressing on their shoe at lunch—weird, but okay—and the stick Duncan got from Edmonton’s enforcer.
Ares keeps eating.
Manning keeps avoiding looking at me. At least when I’m looking at him. When I’m looking away, I swear I can feel his gaze on me. And not just on my face. My nipples are so puckered they’re probably inside out, and I’m having to cross my legs and squeeze my thighs together.
Every time I hiccup, Elin glares at me as though if she puts enough concentration into it, she can slowly burn a hole through my skull and into my brain so that I die.
Or possibly she loves my brows and wants to know where I get them waxed.
But she’s going to have to say please if she wants that info. I’m polite, but I’m not easy. Especially to people who like to call me a whore.
I don’t notice the monkey’s missing until it leaps onto Ares’s shoulder as I’m pushing my plate back.
“Give. Me. Back. My. Monkey,” Elin growls.
“The monkey’s happy. Let it go,” Manning tells her.
“Loki is mine,” Elin hisses.
“This monkey belongs to no woman,” the monkey says.
I start and stare at it. Food dribbles out of Duncan’s mouth as he, too, stares at the monkey. Even Manning and Elin go wide-eyed.
Nick chokes on his noodles.
Felicity takes another bite of a dumpling.
So does Ares.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Elin gasps.
“Does your mother know you say fuck?” the monkey says.
Except the voice isn’t coming from the monkey.
Ares and the monkey are on my right.
The voice is coming from behind me.
Or possibly my left.
Elin, who’s at the end of the table on Ares’s other side, is going pale.
The monkey stares at her.
Manning shifts uncomfortably. Even Viktor, casually lounging on the couch six blocks away in the massive living room, lifts his head to watch with some I’m-ready-to-take-out-the-demon-monkey lurking in his see-all, know-all expression.
Nick is now choking on air like he’s having some kind of seizure.
“Does he need the Heimlich?” I ask Felicity.
“Do you have brothers?”
“Kind of. I mean, I have my sister, Joey. She’s special.”
Felicity shakes her head. “She’s probably more of a man than he is. Talking monkeys freak him out.”
“Loki, go to your room,” Elin says.
“You can call it my room if you want, but it’s really a prison, and one day the whole world will know the truth,” the monkey replies.
Viktor smothers a smile and turns back to his paper.
I glance at Felicity.
She sighs and claps Nick on the back while he continues to cough. “Are you going to live?”
“I fucking hate you,” he gasps. He’s holding his stomach, tears streaming down his face. I’m pretty sure those are laughter tears, but that coughing sounds serious.
“He’s had these spasms since he was a kid,” Felicity tells the table at large. “Happened in the mall once. One time at a neighbor’s birthday party. The time at the dentist was bad.”
“Fucking hate you,” he repeats.
“You know what?” Elin says. “Keep the monkey. I’ll get another one.” She throws her napkin on the table and gives Manning a look that suggests he’d best sleep with one eye open.
“We’ll merely rise again together,” the monkey says.
She flips off the table at large and marches down the same hallway that leads to Ares’s bedroom.
Shit damn fuck hell. So she’s sleeping close to us.
I look at Felicity again and hiccup. “I think I’m in love with you,” I whisper. If this is what city living is like, sign me up.
She grins and winks.
“Want to move in with me and Ares?” I ask. Because with Elin just across the hall, I could use someone who can make a monkey talk.
At this rate, we could get rid of Elin in hours.
And then all of Manning’s problems will be over.
“What the fuck was that?” Duncan asks as he eyes the monkey reverently.
Even watching closely, I can barely tell Felicity’s making the monkey talk. If the sound weren’t coming sort of from her direction, I’d have no clue. “What do you mean, what the fuck was that? What the fuck are you? You think just because my brothers and sisters don’t talk, we’re not evolved? Because we don’t tear down trees to build houses and pollute the air with gas engines? Who’s evolved now, fucker?”
A silence descends around the table.
Nick finally stops coughing. He wipes his eyes and reaches for his water glass. “Okay, Lucy,” he says. “You’re such a fucking downer.”
“Lucy is not a downer. Harold is.” Felicity grabs a fortune cookie, cracks it open, and hands the fortune to Nick. “Here. I obviously got yours.”
He looks at it and shoots her the bird.
“What’s it say?” Duncan asks.
“Your dick is a masterpiece to be worshipped by thousands of women worldwide,” Nick replies.
Clearly he got Manning’s fortune. I glance at His Highness, who’s watching me. Electricity sparks across the table, and I swear to dog, he just silently told me he wants to eat my pussy until it weeps for mercy.
I fan myself and hiccup and I’m pretty sure my pussy just wept anyway. Happy tears. Dammit.
“What’s it really say?” Duncan says.
“Beware the ego, for what pride giveth, karma taketh away,” Felicity answers.
Except it’s not Felicity.
It’s Felicity sounding like a grumpy old man without moving her lips.
This is fucking awesome.
“Holy shit,” Duncan says, clearly catching on. “Whoa. Murphy. Your sister is hot.”
Loki throws an egg roll at him.
“Good monkey,” Nick says.
The monkey screeches. He and Ares share a fist bump. Ares angles a look at Felicity, who goes slightly pink. Then he points at me, and the monkey offers me a fist. I laugh with total glee, because how often do you get to fist bump a monkey?
I feel a heavy weight between my shoulder blades and look back to find Manning watching me.
Watching us.
A shiver dances down each vertebra in my spine.
He pulls a fortune cookie from the pile and shifts his attention to unwrapping it and cracking it open.
A cloud dampens his smile as he reads his fortune.
He tosses it down and rises. “Poker tonight, gentlemen and my lady?” he says to Felicity. “Let’s clear the table then.”
Before I can move, Felicity leans across the table and reads his fortune aloud. “If you haven’t got your family, you haven’t got anything.”
Way to twist the knife, cookie.
He’s halfway to the kitchen with a stack of empty cartons, but I see his shoulders hitch.
“We need a Catan rematch,” Duncan announces. “You play, Felicity?”
“I don’t play. I rule it.”
“How about you, Gracie? You in?”
I clap my hands. “I love Catan.”
Manning eyeballs me. Ares slides a look at me and shakes his head.
So Joey warned him that I’m a horrible player and probably threatened to pluck his nose hairs out if he lets me lose.
Whatever.
I’m not playing to win.
Until it comes to getting Manning out of his betrothal. That’s the only game I care about.
And I’m going to win it too.
I don’t know how yet, but I will. Because my baby deserves to know her father.
