“Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
She frowns harder and finally sighs. “Can we talk about this after we get through the next hurdle? I don’t think I’m superstitious, but I’m about to find some salt to throw over my shoulder or something because I don’t want to jinx us.” She shifts against me and rests her head on my chest. “I’m afraid to want what you’re offering.”
“I know.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “But you’re right. We’ll talk about it when the future is cleared of this last barricade.” Of Peter. His death won’t magically fix all the issues in this territory, but it will remove the leader the dissenting voices are trying to rally behind. Without Peter pushing things forward, I’ll have time to actually fix things here. Our operations will never go completely clean. Even with all the money in the world, if we go completely legit, someone else will try to move in. Finding the right balance is a challenge I can’t think too hard about because there’s still so much to be done to get us to that point.
“Jameson?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for tonight. It doesn’t magically make the pain go away, but it was exactly the distraction I needed.”
“Anything for you.”
I hold her as her breathing evens out, nearly matching Gaeton’s on the other side of her. In the morning, the big man will be off to fight his own battles, but he sleeps in the safety of my bed now because it is safe. If we ever go to war with—Well, it’s not the Man in Black’s territory anymore. I suspect it will pass to his eldest daughter, Cordelia.
She and her wife will hold the center, though I shudder to think about going up against them. I’ve only met Cordelia a handful of times, and she’s easily as ruthless and ambitious as her father was. Her wife, Muriel? People who cross Cordelia have a way of disappearing, and I am nearly certain it’s her wife behind it. One wouldn’t know that they’re a pair of the most dangerous people in Carver City when standing next to them, watching them make eyes at each other.
Cordelia is the eldest, the most ambitious, the leader, but she’s arguably not the most dangerous of the Belmonte daughters. The middle, Sienna, is a certifiable genius and one of the coldest people I’ve ever met. The only exception to her icy attitude is her sisters, and her husband who’s a startlingly normal guy. And the youngest? I look at Gaeton, relaxed in sleep. Isabelle Belmonte might seem like a nice girl, but she’s playing a dangerous game with Beast and Gaeton and doesn’t seem to care.
No, it’s in everyone’s best interest if the inheritance of power happens seamlessly. There have been too many changes lately in the city. All it takes is someone rocking the boat, and we’ll all end up underwater.
I cuddle Tink closer and close my eyes. Dawn is nearly here, and we have more than enough problems without borrowing from the future. We’ll figure it the fuck out.
We don’t have another choice.
Chapter 25
Tink
If not for the delicious ache in my body when I wake up alone in Hook’s bed, I could almost convince myself I imagined everything that happened last night. Not the sex. No, the scariest thing that happened last night was admitting my feelings to Hook. They aren’t going away, and that terrifies me. I don’t know if we’re going to live past the confrontation with Peter that’s barreling down on us.
The possibility of a future? A family?
If I reach for it, grasp it with too much enthusiasm, will the universe respond favorably? Or will it kick me in the teeth for having the audacity to believe I deserve a happily ever after?
The only way to know for sure is to jump and hope I learn to fly on the way down.
Hook walks out of the bathroom. He’s got on slacks and nothing else and seeing his bare feet peeking out from beneath the black fabric feels strangely intimate. Silly considering everything we’ve shared in less than a week, but the strangest things become kicks to the chest with this man.
He studies me in that way of his, as if he knows I’m sitting in his giant bed and having a silent freak-out. “You want to talk about it?”
“I don’t believe in happily ever after.” As soon as I blurt out the words, I feel foolish. I don’t know what I want him to say. I’m precariously perched on a cliff edge, and one word will send me back to safe ground, and a different one will push me right over the edge. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I need.
Hook turns, freeing me from his gaze, and pulls open one of the wardrobes. All his clothing was cleaned in record time and put away the day after I sent it to be dry cleaned, though I have no confidence it will stay that way. This man is a hurricane in motion. He shrugs into a cream button-down and does it up with deft fingers. “There’s no such thing.”