“Just being a realist. It sucks for your mom if she’s got feelings involved.” He sounded hesitant. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think your mom will let herself go there emotionally. She’s too smart, and she’s a good mom. She won’t want this blowing back on you, especially with what you’ve gone through. That’s my prediction.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Because you asked what your mom was hiding. Didn’t feel right knowing the answer and not sharing with you. And because I love you and I know you’re a realist, too. If your mom is doing something with her eyes wide open, which I’m sure you’ll assess tonight at dinner, then you’ll feel better about it, because you really want to just make sure Chrissy Hayes is okay at the end of all this.”

  “You sound like you know me.”

  “You have a big heart, you got a shrewd mind, and I know every inch of that body of yours.” A dry chuckle came from him that I swear was acting as a caress, sliding over me. “I know my woman.”

  My voice was hoarse. “When are you coming back?”

  “Probably early morning. You want me to wake you up?”

  “You know me, you should know that answer.”

  Another chuckle, this one echoing the arousal I was feeling. “I’ll wake you up.”

  After hanging up with him, I went home. I had about an hour to change or get ready before Matt would be picking me up, and it’d be Matt’s driver. Not just Matt. Both Kash and Peter thought it was a good idea if all of us had two guards on us at all times, at least until the media attention died down. So because I only had an hour, I opted to stay in what I was wearing. Dinner was usually more casual, although that was when Marie was there.

  Payton would be there. The Quinn-look-alike aunt. Just thinking about her, I started tensing up. She hadn’t said a word last time, but she’d been there. Staring. Always in the background. Seraphina was hanging on her almost the whole time, and Cyclone kept running over to her for hugs, so the two little ones were attached, to say the least. They hadn’t been like that with Quinn, so I was trying to tell myself that meant something. Trust the kids. They usually knew. Still, none of them had almost been kidnapped because of her. So maybe I was dealing with trauma, but there was extra trauma that I thought I had processed out of me. Maybe not?

  I sighed.

  That meant I had shit buried, and I’d read enough psych books to know that stuff would not stay buried. It’d come up.

  It always came up.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten out of counseling so fast … But no, I’d been ready. I hated going in there and talking it out with that counselor. Loathed it. Me ending those sessions was a good thing. I felt like I could breathe, once I knew I didn’t have to go in and dredge up both kidnapping events. And I really liked not having to see her get quiet and pensive, stare at me as if she could literally read all my haunts and demons, and then write down notes. Those notes. I hated that notebook she had. I wanted to grab it and burn it, but I knew she wouldn’t let me. I asked once what she was writing and she told me it was her own code, so nothing would make sense to me.

  That pissed me off even more. I wasn’t stupid, but she treated me like I was.

  And since I had an hour, I did the time calculations in my head.

  I’d be in the car with Matt for forty minutes to the estate. Dinner would probably be two to three hours. Ser and Cy would want us to stay after, so by the time we’d be heading back I was looking at not getting to the apartment till ten, and I was being generous with that guess. Matt would try to talk me into going to Naveah, but I couldn’t.

  I looked through my assignments and there was a whole code I needed to finish.

  Maybe … I was thinking here, because what I should do now and what I wanted to do weren’t lining up. I should do the code, but I really wanted to hack Hoda.

  Crap.

  If Matt was texting on the phone the whole drive up, I could do the code then, or most of the code. Could I? Yes. I was going to try for it.

  That meant I had fifty minutes to hack Hoda and the other ten were for the bathroom and me changing clothes.

  I went to the office, settled in, and within a minute I was already running the program to get Hoda’s password. First up, her social media accounts.

  All of them.

  THIRTEEN

  Within the hour, I had uploaded my programs to Hoda’s Facebook, her Twitter, her Instagram, her emails, because she had five separate addresses, and her website. The program acted like a window. It was a back window she didn’t know she had, but I could get into her accounts anytime I wanted or needed.

  I could watch her activity.

  Was it an invasion of privacy? Yes.

  Did I care? No.

  She thought I hadn’t earned my place. She underestimated me. She released that image of Kash and me, so in the way of us Hayes women, vengeance was totally appropriate here. She screwed with me, I was going to obliterate her if I so chose.

  I just wasn’t there, yet.

  Ring! Ring!

  Buzz! Buzz!

  Shit. Damn. Crappers.

  It was five-forty. Matt was late and so was I.

  I ran to the door and hit the speaker button. “I’m late, too. Tell Matt I’ll be down in five minutes. I gotta pee.” I didn’t wait for the guard’s confirmation. I let the button go and sprinted to the bathroom. Then I sprinted to the closet and changed super quick. It should be casual at the estate tonight, but one never knew. I threw on jeans and a nicer sweater than what I’d been wearing to school. I ran my fingers through my hair quickly and called it done. My hair could go up in a clip. It’d look like a messy ponytail. That was fine by me. Chrissy would say something, but I wasn’t caring at this moment. I could braid it if necessary.

  Grabbing my bag, another litany of curses fell from my mouth, because I needed everything to go with me to do my coding in the car. Shit, shit, shit.

  My wallet and phone were stuffed in my backpack, and I had my laptop in there. Yes. I was running down the checklist. I had everything I needed. I thought so, anyway. If I didn’t, I’d be up later than I wanted to finish my coding, because I had reading to do for tomorrow, too.

  There was a knock at my door.

  I pulled it open. “Hey.”

  It was Scott.

  He held the door for me, falling in line behind me as I dashed to the elevator that was being held open for me.

  Scott hit the parking lot button, folding his hands in front of him as the doors slid closed. “I’ll be the guard accompanying you tonight.”

  I was half-distracted, thinking that I really needed Matt to be texting on the drive there, i.e., not talking to me.

  “Huh?”

  “Your guard. That’s me tonight.”

  I was a bit slow. “Okay…?”

  A faint grin from him. He was being patient with me. “We are taking your brother’s vehicle. Both his guards are going. You won’t need both of your guards, so Mr. Harkman will remain behind here.”

  “Oh!” Then I grinned. “Harkman. I like it.”

  We were nearing the parking garage when I thought of it. “Could you do me a favor?”

  He glanced to me just as the elevator stopped.

  “I need to do work in the car. It’s difficult if Matt’s talking. Can you distract him for me?”

  His mouth twitched before smoothing back into a blank wall. “Sure. I can do that.”

  The elevator opened. I was guessing Harkman was the guard standing just inside the garage, because we walked past. He and Scott did a nod thing to each other. I faltered, because instead of the normal SUV, it was a limo.

  Matt’s guard opened the back door and Matt was there, grinning. He saluted me with a drink in hand. “We’re late, sis. Figured we should do it in style.”

  Guy’s face poked out from the inside of the limo. He smiled wide at me. “Heya, Bailey. Guess who’s going to dinner with you guys?”

  My stomach bottomed out. “Oh no.”

  His grin only widened. “Oh yes.”

  I slid inside, or started to.

  I paused midslide, with one leg still outside, because Guy wasn’t alone.

  Tony was inside. He was at the far end of the limo. Guy was on the couch that ran the length of the limo. Matt and I went to the back.

  Scott bent down, looking inside, assessing the situation.

  He looked at me. “There’ll be a vehicle following. I’ll ride in that one.”

  I wanted to ask if I could go in that one, too, but Matt must’ve sensed my thoughts. He threw an arm around my shoulder, his eyes falling on my backpack, which I was holding in my lap. He motioned to it with his drink. “What’s this?”

  I was pleading with Scott not to leave me alone.

  His mouth only twitched before he shut the door.

  Matt’s breath was already strong. “What were you doing before this?” I asked.

  He just laughed. The alcohol was rank.

  His eyes were dilated and lazy. His smile was sloppy. “Partying. What do you think?”

  “Partying?”

  Both Guy and Tony had glasses next to them, and Tony was in the process of filling his with rum, but they didn’t look as gone as Matt.

  “Why are you guys here?”

  Guy lounged back, throwing his legs up on the seat across from him. He raised his glass toward Matt. “Your bro’s been on a bender since last night. We heard you got a visit from him, too.”

  Whoa. Matt seemed sober earlier.

  Tony finished pouring his glass and leaned back, but he was more sipping, with his eyes pinned to me, almost squinting. “The fuck called this afternoon at some chick’s place.”

  Guy started laughing. “He was freaking, didn’t know where he was. Totally forgot he had two guards waiting on him.”

  How much had he drunk between this morning and now? I must’ve been a pit stop.

  Wait. He had breakfast at the Chesapeake Estate this morning. Had he been drinking during that, too?

  I stiffened, throwing him a side-eye of my own.

  Matt removed his arm from me, shoving to the corner, and he slipped farther down in the seat. He growled, “You both are assholes.”

  Guy’s head tipped back. He just laughed.

  Tony rolled his eyes. “Asshole friends that came to pick you up and acted like it’d been the plan the whole time so your babysitters didn’t report to your sister’s man, and the Great Authority Kashton Colello didn’t rain hell down on you. We’re super fucking horrible friends.”

  My stomach was twisting up, hearing all of this.

  Matt still growled, looking outside. “Whatever.”

  Tony snorted before sipping his drink again.

  I didn’t say a word. Matt was on a bender. Noted. I would be sharing that with Kash, but Tony was wrong. I knew Kash wouldn’t be chasing Matt. For one, he couldn’t, since he was in Brazil.

  I looked at Matt. “Were you drunk at my school earlier?”

  Matt froze.

  And my second question. “Were you drunk at breakfast, too?”

  Matt didn’t respond. His head was down. His phone was buzzing, and he was responding to that, not to me.

  I looked at Guy and Tony. They weren’t looking at me.

  “When did you pick him up?”

  Neither of the guys spoke up, and that had my stomach twisting all the more.

  I leaned forward and hissed, “You should’ve called Kash. Maybe then my drunk brother wouldn’t have been around my other brother and sister.”

  Tony’s jaw clenched, but he still didn’t look at me.

  Guy was just looking at his phone.

  “How bad were you?” I squared off against Matt. He continued to ignore me. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll take your phone and load a virus to it so you’ll never be able to use another phone again.”

  He continued typing, then stopped. He froze a second before lifting his head. “You can’t do that. You’re good, but not that good.”

  My lips thinned. “Try me.”

  Guy spoke up, his voice strained. “He wasn’t that bad in the morning. He called us early, around six. We got him, thought food and family would sober him up, because he wanted to go to another after-after-hours club. It didn’t work. He got all worked up about something, demanded we bring him to you, and then we’ve been at Octavo this whole time.”

  “Octavo?”

  “It’s another club in Chicago.”

  I was going with a hunch here. “One that Kash or our father doesn’t own, right?”

  I was met with silence. All silent.

  I had to sit and contemplate, because what was my role here? I knew Kash used to deal with this, bailing Matt out before and after he got into trouble.

  I ran down my list of options.

  Option one: Blow a gasket that Matt was on a bender and be alarmed at how good he could handle his liquor, because I never once thought he was drunk at school.

  Option two: Do nothing and tell Kash later. Let Kash deal with Matt.

  Option three … I had no clue.

  I went with a mix of all the options and I announced it. “Okay. This is what I’m going to do.”

  All the guys looked at me, each with a different expression.

  Guy was mildly curious.

  Tony was glowering.

  Matt was wary, but there was a “fuck ’em all up” look in his eyes, too.

  “I’m going to sit here and do my coding for school. Then I’m going to text Kash later that you were drunk tonight, but you and I both know he won’t be flying in to deal with you. And three, if you do anything tonight to scar our little sister and brother, I will blow a gasket.” I leaned in close. “You’ve not seen me blow a gasket. You do not want the gasket to be blown. Trust me.”

  Matt’s eyes filled with that crazed look like he was going to call my bluff, but he only raised his glass for another sip—make that a gulp—of alcohol. Guy was back to lounging; he almost looked like he was going to fall asleep. And Tony’s eyes were narrowed and fixed on me before I looked at him. He raised his chin up, in a slow way, like he was almost challenging me, but then his gaze slid away to the window. From his profile, he looked pensive.

  And me, I set my bag on the floor, pulled my computer out, and did my coding assignment.

  FOURTEEN

  Cyclone thought Guy was hilarious. That was fine.

  Seraphina had a crush on Tony. That was not fine.

  Matt gargled mouthwash, spit it out, rinsed it with water, and was the best actor I’d ever seen. Really, really not fine.

  If I hadn’t smelled the booze, I never would’ve known he’d been drinking. As we ate—it was a spaghetti night—the only person who gave him a long, questioning look was Theresa. Chrissy, no clue. Payton, I was assuming no clue, but then again, it was a repeat of the other time. She said nothing. She kept in the background, only there when Seraphina and Cyclone went to talk to her or hug on her.

  Cyclone and Seraphina really had no clue. Matt was the most charming and sober acting around them.

  That was scary to think about.

  He didn’t have a great history of being sober—or being drunk, for that matter. Having an affair, getting trashed, and inviting a crap ton of randoms to his place … and that was just the highlights I could remember from this summer. His being drunk but acting sober was almost terrifying.

  We ate. We bowled.

  After, I was right in the time frame. We were in the limo heading back, fifteen minutes to ten. If I’d been worried about how Tony and Guy would act around my siblings, I would’ve worried for nothing. Both were normal, and both did the mouthwash trick right alongside Matt before walking inside. Tony was quiet, almost competing with Payton for who was the quietest. Matt and Guy cracked jokes, and Guy loved teasing Chrissy.

  As for me, I was too distracted with watching Matt like a hawk, while trying to make sure Ser and Cy had no idea I was tense as hell, so I forgot to pull Chrissy aside and talk to her about my dad. I also wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to her about it. Kash seemed sure nothing would come from it, and I still didn’t know how I felt about the whole sleeping together thing. So when I did not get an invitation to extend this party at Naveah—where I knew they were going, even though they didn’t tell me—I was mostly thinking about what I needed to finish before hitting the bed.

  I needed to finish my coding, and I needed to read six chapters. And then I needed to sleep, because Kash was going to wake me up whenever he rolled in. He’d only sent a couple texts and called once before he was loading back onto the plane after his one-hour meeting.

  He was in the air now and not within cell range.

  I slid into bed around one a.m. My eyes felt like they were bleeding, but I fell asleep with a smile because I knew what I’d be waking to in a few hours.

  * * *

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  His mouth woke me.

  Hard. Demanding.

  The bedsheets were whisked away. The bed depressed as Kash crawled more on the bed and his body came down over mine. He still held his weight up, both his arms resting beside my head, but his mouth was on mine. And it was impatient.

  I opened for him, and his tongue slid inside. He was tasting me, claiming me. Commanding me.

  “Fuck.” He pressed down on me, grinding into me, and I felt how hard he was. He was ready to go. “I missed you.” He whispered those words against my lips, not even lifting away to talk.

  I opened my mouth, trying to reply, but he drowned the words.

  “Babe, I don’t want to wait.”

  I didn’t want to either.

  I grabbed the back of his head, my fingers fisting into what little hair he had, and I pulled him tight against me.

  I slid my hand down, undoing his pants, and I found him. I wrapped my hand around him, pulling him out and kicking his pants down at the same time.

  He helped me, maneuvering, and then a savage growl left him and he was gone.