AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Squeezy had seen one of the bastards off their property only the other day. Had, in fact, directed him here.
Ben groaned as the man took their picture. Probablyagain.
He was incredibly tempted to just let the dogs’ collars go and see what happened. He didn’t think PB could swallow a camera whole, especially given the length of that lens, but he reckoned Rads already had a new space earmarked for a notch.
He hauled harder on the restraints and turned, exasperated, to Nikolas for some assistance.
Expecting to find his partner incoherent with anger—having his photograph taken by a stranger would once have seen him as close to awarding himself a new trophy as Radulf apparently was—Ben was more than a little peeved to find his other half tossing their daughter high above his head into the low December light and catching her again with delighted laughter at her screams of fearful glee. Ben heard the distinct click of a shutter, as clear and as meaningful to him as a gun slide being racked—and perhaps just as dangerous.
He hissed in Danish, “Nikolas! For fuck’s sake! He’s taking our pictures!”
Nikolas laughed again, decidedly falsely it seemed to Ben’s ears, and then tossed Molly once more. Again with a click. Now Nikolas spun her around. Ben felt almost as sick as she was beginning to look by all this uncharacteristic, enforced enjoyment.
One last click and then the man in the inappropriate Macintosh scuttled off.
Radulf groaned with disappointment and sank to the sand, relieving Ben of the strain of holding him so securely.
He whirled back to express his fury with Nikolas, but the blond one, daughter now abandoned back to her collapsed masterpiece, was striding by himself through the waves towards the other beach.
Ben had the distinct feeling they’d all just been royally played.
* * *
Chapter 31
Four Months Before April
Ben knew that Nikolas knew he knew. And to his own shame, he was already making excuses for the annoying one, already forgiving him.
Obviously, Nikolas had set them up for those photographs. Squeezy forgetting the code?—his arse. Nik had been texting Peyton to arrange for a grubby little man in a pervert coat to be there, just at that moment of family perfection, to have those photos taken.
No! No forgiveness. Ben wasfurious.
And that Nikolas was not telling him to stop thinking was a sure sign the blond offender was feeling wrong-footed. Nik was silent, staring out of his side passenger window, apparently watching the countryside flow past.
When he had finally got one soaked, over-stimulated little girl and twodrenched,thwarted dogs up to the house, Ben had found Nik already in the car, waiting. Silent as he was now. Cold and closed off.
Apparently the visit was over.
It had not helped that at the very moment he had been about to insist Nikolas get out and help him, a chauffeured Range Rover had pulled up to the front doors, and a small man exiting the house had climbed into its passenger seat. Nikolas’s eyes had swivelled to that vehicle, and a look had been shared between these men, ex-husband, future husband, that was colder than the December air.
Molly had begun to cry as Ben had strapped her into her seat, overwrought, perhaps sensing the atmosphere, but Nikolas had not turned, either to remonstrate or comfort. He continued isolated in his own thoughts. Let him. Ben wasn't so forgiving, wasn’t such a pushover, that he wouldn't let Nikolas suffer for a while. Let the bastard feel guilty. Let him plan lying his way out of this one.
Yeah, let the bastard suffer.
It wasn’t so much what Nikolas had done that infuriated Ben—although he could only imagine the royal ranting when or if those pictures ever became public (hopefully long after they were safely on the other side of the Atlantic)—but that Nikolas had,yet again, unilaterally decided what he was going to do, something that impacted Ben and his daughter, and yet had not even so much as mentioned it to Ben, let alone consulted him. Photographs of Molly, when they spent so much effort now to keep her safe! When she had already once been a target…
Clearly,consultingBen was as necessary to Nikolas’s plans as asking Molly would be. In fact, Nikolas habitually checked more with Radulf than he did with him.
And, although Ben could barely admit it to himself, the most upsetting thing of the whole incident? Nikolas sitting on the rock, apparently happy and serene and stroking his finger over Ben’s knuckles. Those intimate gestures had been as much a deceit as everything else: Nik had clearly been fuming and plotting this revenge.
Even after all these years, Ben was continually blindsided by how little he did understand the complex man he had chosen to spend his life with.
If Nikolas had done this in the past, Ben knew his reaction would have been very different—the god and his devotee acknowledged unequal partners in life’s struggle.
He’d thought things were different now.
This latest episode in the thrilling saga ofLife with Nikolas Mikkelsenmade mockery of such belief.
