Eight Brothers Fiancee (Love by Numbers 7)

“Stavamo semplicemente contando i giorni fino a quando voi ragazzi finalmente siete venuti a trovarci di nuovo. Spero che resterai per due settimane intere questa volta.” She looked over at me with a grin. “Chi di voi è responsabile di questo gattino?”

“Con un po 'di fortuna, sarò io.” He winked at me. “È la nostra nuova società di collegamento e capo ancora, Alexa. Lei non parla italiano.”

I heard my name amongst the fray of words I was unable to make heads or tails of and held my hand up. “H-hi.”

She walked over to me. “Hello, Alexa.” Her accent was thick, but I could still understand her. “I’m Sienne. Welcome to the family.” She gave me a huge hug.

I eyed Delvin, unsure of what he’d said to her or if I should call him on it right now. “Thank you.”

Sienne giggled and looked back at Delvin. “I helped.”

Delvin laughed. “Yeah you did.”

I shook my head at him, but he just turned around and walked into the house. The rest of the brothers greeted Sienne with warm hugs and kisses and led me inside the estate. It was like walking into a museum of fine art. Beautiful sculptures and artwork lined the walls and hallways, and an extravagant, expensive looking chandelier hung down from the center of the ceiling.

“Jeez,” Maverick called out, his voice echoing through the foyer, “we only come once a year. The least you could do is be down here to greet us!”

“You don’t have to scream. He’s in a meeting with Dante.” My skin-crawled at the sound of the voice I heard, and if the way the guys’ expressions all turned sour, our sentiments were shared. Even Sienne developed a look of disgust. Malia walked around the corner from one of the rooms off to one side of the foyer. She had her hair up in a bun and wearing nothing but a two piece swimsuit with a sheer sarong around her waist. She took one look at me and a wide, evil smile grew on her face. “Well, if it isn’t Miss Storm. What an unexpected surprise.”

“Part of the job we offered her is an inside look on our family,” Huxley said quickly, making me nervous. Did she know I’d slept with him and Harley? “Hopefully that’s okay with you.”

Malia put her hands on her hips. “Why of course, why wouldn’t I be okay with a brilliant journalist covering my big day?” Her eyes bore into me as if lasers were going to shoot out any second. “Looks like our family vacation is going to be even more fun than I first anticipated.”

17

Alexa

I scanned the different family portraits that hung above the stone fireplace in the Foxxes great room. Apart from one gaudy painting of Richard Foxx sitting in a literal throne in a royal blue suit with Sienne standing at his side in a bright pink evening gown, a lot of the images were of the Foxx family. Harley and Huxley in their caps and gowns graduating college, the other boys holding their varying degrees and accolades throughout their lives, and one in particular, with Quentin holding up a peace sign and sticking out his tongue. I giggled at the sight.

“What’s so funny?” I looked over my shoulder and Huxley was walking up to me.

“Just Quentin. This picture seems so him.”

“Oh, and what exactly do you know about him?” Huxley asked. He closed in on me fully, wrapping an arm around my waist and bringing his face close to mine.

I shrugged. “I mean he’s got the whole ‘don’t care,’ vibe. I know he graduated from Yale, but he’s got the DUIs and is into all that adrenaline stuff like skydiving and free climbing. I bet his childhood was filled with fun. You know, before it wasn’t.”

“Good guess,” he stared at the picture of Quentin pensively, “but wrong.” He sighed. “The only ones who had good childhoods were Harley and I. The rest of our brothers were plucked from the brink of destruction by my dad.”

It shocked me to hear it so frankly. “Really?”

“Yeah. Quentin, his dad just bailed and his mom battled with depression, among other things. She accidentally lit their house on fire, with Q in it. Burned him up bad.”

I thought about how Quentin always wore clothes that covered his entire body other than his face, and how even it had a notable scar. “That’s why he’s so into death-defying stuff.”

“Yeah, because he literally defied death, though if you ask me, he secretly hopes one of them kills him one day.” Huxley looked truly sad. “He’s never really recovered from that.”

“I never would have guessed.” It broke my heart to imagine Quentin in so much pain. It made me feel like I needed to make it a point to tell him often how happy I was to know him. “What else?”