The Heir (Gentlemen Rogues 1)

"All right, let's see about this." He grabbed the alcohol and the iodine and made a quick work of starting to clean me up.

I hissed and jerked back when the alcohol touched my skin. "Ow."

"Sorry. No one told you to be a badass today."

"I'm basically a badass every day."

His smile was soft. "I don't doubt it. Your mate said that you were celebrating tonight. What were you celebrating?"

I gave him a sheepish smile. "It's my birthday."

"No shit. Well this is bad. I didn't even get to wish you a happy birthday properly. You need cake."

"No, I don't."

"My mum always said a birthday is not a birthday without a cake. I think we can get some ordered."

I shook my head. "That's really un—"

He already had his phone out and was texting. "The cake will be here in ten minutes. There's a bakery down the way. They're on one of my food service apps."

"Well, isn't that convenient?"

"They're certainly handy. You didn't want to celebrate with your family?"

It was my turn to go somber. "My parents died two years ago."

He cursed under his breath as he put the remnants of the gauze and bandages away. "Fuck."

"Yeah, fuck."

"What happened?"

I chose the cover story. “Plane crash.”

He winced. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

I left out the part about how there had been a bomb on that plane specifically designed to kill them and only them. The madman had figured out who they were and took them from me deliberately. Intentionally.

I also left out the part about having full intentions of finding that madman one day and annihilating him off the face of the earth. Those were the kinds of things you didn't say to a stranger.

"Did they do anything for your birthday when you were little?"

I nodded and smiled. "Yeah, there were two things we always did. Dad always made sure that for my birthday, he would teach me a new skill. Something he expected me to master by my next birthday. Sometimes there was a puzzle. Sometimes it was a martial arts thing. Sometimes it was learning to play a really complicated song. He always said an Abott should be multitalented. He was the best. And Mum she always shared a journal entry she’d written for me when I was a baby. Sometimes they were silly, sometimes they were poignant. But we’d snuggle in bed first thing in the morning and she’d read it to me. I guess she started it when she was pregnant with me."

"You guys were close then?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I get the sense when I wake up sometimes that I can almost hear them."

He nodded. "That happens to me all the time with Charlie. Especially being here. I can’t count the number of times I could swear any moment I would walk out into the kitchen and he'd be standing there doing a proper English fry up. He loved a fry up.”

"How did your parents take it?"

"The same way that they usually do. Distanced themselves. Became detached."

"So, what are we going to do while we wait for the cake?"

"You tell me," I said, my voice husky.

"I have a great puzzle."

"A puzzle?" Had I heard him right?

“If you were some other woman, I would go into lewd detail about all of the dirty things I could do to you.”

The gut punch robbed me of air. “Oh,” I said, ducking my head.

He used a finger to lift my chin up and force me to meet his gaze. “But because you’re you and have me so twisted in knots my hands are shaking with the need to touch you, I’ll keep all my dirty fantasies to myself… for now.”