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ChapterOne
JESSIE
Five days to Christmas
My fingers are trembling as I press the button for the elevator of our penthouse apartment. If I just keep taking deep breaths, I’ll be okay, right?
You can do this, Jessie. Just breathe. It’s all gonna be fine.
“Where did you say you were headed, angel?” His deep voice carries across the hallway.
Shit!
I have four husbands, Shane, Conor, Liam and Mikey Ryan. Of all of them, he had to be the one to come out here and ask me that They’re pretty much all possessive alpha-holes who like to be made aware of my every move. I also suspect they all know me better than I even know myself, but Conor – well he sees right through me, no matter what.
Taking a breath in and forcing a smile, I turn and face him. “I told you. I’m not leaving the building. I’m going to the basement. I’m going to be perfectly safe.”
He narrows his dark brown eyes at me as he steps closer. “Yeah, I heard that part. But why?”
“I also told you all it was something I had to do. It’s Christmas related,” I remind him. “I’ll be back up here in two hours.”
My breath stutters in my throat as he reaches me. I turn my head, averting my eyes from his intense gaze, but he catches my jaw in his fingers, tilting my chin so there is no escaping him.
“Why are you trembling, angel?” he growls and the sound travels through my bones.
Damn! Now I feel sick too.
“I-I’m not,” I stammer.Idiot!
His jaw ticks as he glares at me. He knows I’m hiding something from him. Even if I wasn’t shaking like a leaf in the fall, he would know.
“What are you up to, Jessie?” his already deep voice drops an octave, making a shiver skitter along my spine.
I gasp in a breath and an unexpected tear pricks at my eyes. I so wanted to do this. It was supposed to be a surprise. I imagined their faces when I showed them and how brave they would say I was to finally overcome my phobia of needles.
“I was going to get a tattoo,” I whisper.
His handsome features are pulled into a frown. Relaxing his grip on my jaw, he brushes a single tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “A tattoo? In the basement?”
“Yeah,” I sniff. “Gia is downstairs. Chester let her in for me.”
“Gia?”
“Yeah.” Chester is one of our security detail, and Gia Fenton is the woman who did most of Conor’s and his brothers’ tattoos. Her designs are stunning and she is a true artist. When I spoke to her about the idea I had, she came up with a beautiful, simple design that would take no more than ninety minutes to complete. I figured I could handle that, but my needle phobia has other ideas. “I don’t think I can do it though. And it was going to be so good too.”
I reach into the pocket of my sweater dress and pull out the sketch she made me. Handing it to Conor, I watch as he unfolds the small piece of paper. It’s a simple rose, but the thorns are his and his brother’s names. They wind around the flower, furling into each other until they reach the top where our children’s names, Ella and Finn, are the petals.
“Fuck. It would look incredible on you,” he whispers, looking between me and the paper in his hand.
“It’d beautiful, right?”
“But you hate needles?”
“I know. That’s why it’s just simple black ink. She said the coloring in takes longer. I thought I could…” a sob wells up in my throat.
He places a strong hand on the back of my neck — both calming and possessive. “You want to do this, angel?” he asks as he hands me back my sketch.
“Yeah.”
