Page 313 of Romeo

“I object.”

Of course he did.

“Georgie,” Josie warned from beside him.

“I absolutely fucking object.” He pushed farther into the bar, eyes locked on Jasper. “She’s eighteen.”

“I’m aware,” I said.

Georgie glanced at me. “Not helping, Fi.”

“I wasn’t trying to help you.”

A suspicious sound came from Jasper’s direction, and Georgie’s attention snapped back to him. “And you, shut the fuck up.”

Before Jasper could respond, a smaller voice came from somewhere behind the wall of leather cuts.

“Of course you fucking object.”

King’s eyes closed.

Skylar sighed.

Then Cameron squeezed between two of the Sons and appeared at the front of the group looking far too pleased with himself for a child who had just used the word fucking in front of half the adults who raised him.

“Cameron,” Skylar warned.

“What?” He spread his hands, innocence ruined by the smug expression on his face. “I told Dad this was gonna happen. Fiona was next. Nobody listens to me.”

King looked down at him. “Now is not the time.”

Cameron looked back at his father with all the confidence of someone who had absolutely no fear of a six-foot-something biker president glaring down at him. “Seems like exactly the time. I was right.”

Georgie stared at him. “You are not helping.”

Cameron shrugged. “Wasn’t trying to help you, Carebear.”

Josie covered her mouth, but not before I saw the smile.

The tension in my chest loosened enough for a laugh to threaten, and apparently that was all C.C. needed to find her voice. She pushed past one of the Sons and came farther into the room, her attention settling squarely on Jasper. “You were actually going to get married without me?”

Jasper looked from Georgie to C.C., then over the crowd behind them as if calculating how many different executions he was currently facing. “In my defense⁠—”

“You do not have a defense,” C.C. snapped. “I’m your sister, asshole. You were seriously going to do this without me here?”

“I was workin’ with a very short fuckin’ timeline.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

Jasper opened his mouth, probably to say something guaranteed to make the situation worse, but a hand connected with the back of his head before he got the chance.

The slap echoed through the bar.

Several Bourbon Kings laughed.

Jasper slowly turned toward his mother. “Mama.”

Glorianna planted one hand on her hip. “Don’t Mama me. You had enough sense to call your mother and your aunt down here but somehow forgot that the woman you intended to marry might have people who would want to see it?”