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Passing patients and nurses chuckle along, the entire mood of the hallway noticeably lighter than anywhere else we’d walked through the hospital.
As we reach her, she glances up at us, her eyes immediately flashing with recognition, and she gives me a wink.
Another tug at the knot.
Another spark that’s spreading an inexplicable heat through my body, radiating from my core.
“Well, hello again, gentlemen!” she says, with a smile so bright her eyes crinkle at the sides. “Are you following me?”
“I’d be more likely to try to stay out of your way,” I growl, referencing our encounter on the street from last night. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Kylian, in no small part because he’d enjoy me being likened to a grandfather way too much.
“Hi there! How are you doing after your run-in with the guys at the bar last night?” Kylian asks, always Mr. Charming.
“Oh, I’m totally fine. You guys weren’t any trouble at all,” she teases, deliberately misconstruing his meaning.
My brother responds with a hearty laugh. “Oh, I like her!”
“Yeah, just don’t get too close. I have it on good authority that she bites,” I mumble under my breath, glaring at Kylian. What a traitor.
“Ah, so he does talk,” she squeals, shaking her finger at me.
“I talk all the time,” I respond. “To people who aren’t actively trying to antagonize other people.”
Kylian leans in to her, whispering conspiratorially. “He means boring people. He doesn’t actually enjoy talking to people like you and me.”
A flash of something primal, territorial, over how he’s behaving too comfortably with her sears my esophagus, and I grab his shoulder and yank him back.
Whether or not she picks up on my motive, she just grins and reaches into her bag, then pulls out a candy cane with a flourish and pokes Kylian with it before putting it into his hands.
He takes it with a chuckle and a dramatic bow. “Well, thank you for the sweets, sweet lady.”
Automatically, I hold my hand out, expecting her to give me one as well, but she shakes her head and says, “Nope. None foryou. Not sure there’s any point trying to cheer you up, Grumpy Gramps.”
Then, for the second time in as many days, she skips away without another word.
Kylian snorts so loudly that a nearby orderly shoos us out of the ward. He can barely walk as he grabs my arm, bent over, guffawing and roaring “Grumpy Gramps” over and over and over.
“You’re walking back to the office,” I hiss at him once we get to the parking lot.
And when I jump into my car and drive off without him, the reflection of him still laughing mocks me in the rearview mirror.
Four
Kingsley
One Month Later
I wish I could be anywhere but here.
Doing anything but what I’m about to have to do.
Somehow, even the sun streaming through the window is annoying me, the glare on my computer monitor blinding me, hiding the print on the screen. Pressing a button on the desk console, I spin my chair around to watch the window blinds slowly lower, quietly, the mechanical hum the only soothing sound I’ve heard all day.
“Mr. Baxter, the car’s ready,” Marcus, my executive assistant, says a minute later, standing at the door of my office. Dressed all in black, he cuts a solemn figure.
“I’ll be right there.”
“Of course, sir. Is there anything I can get for you?”
