Eyes Wide Open (The Blackstone Affair 3)

We figured out that much, at least.

20

? "How does it feel to breathe, son?” Dad raised his glass with an ecstatic grin.

“Like the three-ton elephant has moved off my chest and now just sits on my feet,” I answered truthfully and toasted him back.

“I bet you do. But really, the ceremonies were the most magnificent feat of organization. Absolutely brilliant show, that. Bravo, I say.” I guess we could all assume my dad had been thoroughly impressed with the opening ceremonies because he couldn’t seem to stop talking about them over our midnight dinner. I just felt immense relief that they had gone off without a hitch.

Even if I was exhausted and longed for my bed with Brynne in my arms, I found I was actually enjoying the celebratory evening tonight at Gladstone’s. Ivan had got us a reservation somehow, despite the insanity of the city, but then everyone love

d Lord Ivan, Britain’s golden arrow, with his good looks and celebrity name. It’d had been a long time since we’d gone out for anything nice together and I knew that Dad and Neil and Elaina appreciated his connections even if I could take it or leave it. Brynne looked like she was having fun, and that was enough for me.

The whole city was in celebration mode, as the Games were now underway. I could actually start to see some light at the end of the tunnel for us. We’d made it through another week and the start of the Olympics with no problems, threats or messages. Just regular life.

I brought my hand up Brynne’s back and caressed between her shoulders. “Yeah, the hard part is done. Opening ceremonies went off smoothly. No crazies interrupting the show. The perfect end to all the months of planning. Now it’s just getting the various VIPs to the separate events and venues, but they’re much smaller and easier to manage, plus I have excellent staff to see to most of it.” I nodded to Neil and raised my glass again.

“If we can just keep the psychos back from Ivan, this thing’s a wrap,” Neil said with a smirk.

“Yes, please. I’d very much appreciate a wide berth between the psychos and anything to do with me,” Ivan retorted.

There was still that . . . Some lunatic Korean rival had it out for Ivan over a grudge stemming back three Olympics ago in a judgment dispute that got him disqualified and Ivan the gold. The mess had never gone away. Rather like messes often do. Once you step in shit, it sticks to your shoe for a long, long time, and it’s a wicked bitch to get all traces of it off.

“You look tired, baby,” Brynne said softly, her hand brushing over my arm.

“I feel tired,” I said, glancing at my watch, “just think—if we leave now we can be in bed in half an hour.” I winked at her, thinking all I really needed tonight was her close enough to touch, and a few hours’ sleep. Those two things really would top off this night for me in the most perfect way.

I was teasing about leaving the party, but my girl surprised me, as she often does. “Then what are we waiting for?” she asked in a quiet voice. “I think I could pass out in my soup.”

Looking her over, I could see the signs of fatigue and felt guilty for not noticing earlier. She was pregnant and needed rest for two people. I saw my window of opportunity and grabbed it.

“Goodnight, everyone. Time for us to be off. My woman is begging me to take her to bed.” Brynne gasped and thumped me in the arm. “And seeing as I’m a semi-intelligent bloke, I think it’s best if I let her have her way just now.” I rubbed my arm where she’d busted me and spoke with exaggerated emphasis to the group: “Pregnant women—insatiable all the time.”

I grunted when she kicked me in the foot, but the laughs I’d gotten were worth it.

“You are so dead, Blackstone,” she told me on the way out to the car.

“Hey, now, it got us out of there, didn’t it?” I snaked my arm around her and leaned down to steal a kiss. “And everything I said about you was true.”

She turned her lips away to avoid my lips and laughed. “You’re an idiot and you won’t be so smug in about five months.”

“What happens in five months?” I asked, confused.

“The insatiable pregnant female thing?” She cocked her head and shook slowly from side to side. “That goes away. Completely.” She made a cutting motion with her hands. “Think no sex. At all. For months.”

Well now, that’s a very unpleasant thought . . . “Wait. Are you joking? You are, aren’t you?”

“You should see your face right now!” She laughed some more at me, giddy at having had the last word. Yeah, my girl was competitive and she didn’t go down without a fight.

“That bad, huh?” Praying she was indeed winding me up about the dry spell because that would truly be torture.

“Yep,” she said, snaking her hand back around to grab my arse. “And you totally deserved it, even though I love you, Blackstone.”

And what a lucky, lucky bastard am I. “You were baiting me with the five-more-months thing, right?”

She laughed again, looking very smug and sexy as hell, but she never answered my question.

? “No, you cocksucker! I said no video! No fucking video!”