“Fleur…”
“You can’t stop me.” I breathe a lungful of him, holding his scent until it fuzzes my senses.
“I can.”
“But you won’t because you’ve all tried everything to get a crumb from him, and you got nothing. Now it’s my turn.”
“Do you know how fucking much I need to protect you? To make sure you’re safe? Untouchable?” He pulls me away from him so that he can level his gaze with mine. “You’re asking me to go against everything that I’ve done. That I made others swear to do. That I have every intention of doing for the rest of our lives.”
My heart speeds up at those last words. My tummy swoops and every part of my being sighs. The rest of our lives.
“I love you, Trouble. Isn’t that enough?”
“Enough? Casper, there’s nothing about you that is simply enough. You’re bigger than life, than this world.”
“Then why are you so intent on seeing him?”
“This is me not giving up or quitting. I’m standing my ground.”
“Don’t use my words against me.”
“I’m not using them against you, big man. I’m reminding you of them because sometimes we all need reminding. Besides, I think you’re going about it all wrong.”
“How so?” he asks, following behind me to the bedroom.
Casper sits on the edge of the bed, watching me pull out a fresh change of clothes.
“He needs a reminder of what he’s missing.”
“A bullet in the head?”
“You’re being wildly psychopathic about this.”
“You should know what you’re getting yourself into.”
I laugh at his self-deprecating dig. Stripping my jeans and baggy T-shirt, I throw them on the bed next to him before I slip on the wrap dress I pulled out of the wardrobe. I haven’t worn something so pretty in a while. I sort of feel badass enough to take on the world.
“We need to approach this from a different angle entirely.”
“And what’s that?” His eyes meander down my exposed legs, then trace back up to linger at the lowish V.
“There was this one day of the week where the maid wouldn’t be around, and his girlfriend was useless at being a functioning adult, so I’d cook dinner. Something I remember my mum doing too. It wasn’t fancy, mostly pasta with sauce. Big surprise, right?” I make a dig at my cooking before he does.
“We’ll work on that. Maybe we can get a chef or something?”
“I’d settle for cooking lessons. Maybe we could do one of those couple session things…”
“Yeah, no. Moving on swiftly…”
A chuckle vibrates from me at his horrified expression before I carry on. “It was the only time we spent as a family where Natalie wouldn’t say shit about me because she didn’t have a leg to stand on, and he didn’t look at me like I was a burden. It was as close to family as we got really.”
“What are you asking me, Trouble?” he sighs, leaning over his thick thighs. He grabs mine, pulling me closer.
“Maybe we should lay off the threats and give him something in return for co-operation.”
“In other words, you want to cook him dinner?” Casper rolls his eyes up at me. The set of his face is hard and stony.
“Do you have any better ideas?”