Chapter 61

Brock

It all started so well.

I was patting myself on the back for not punching Steve Kingston's teeth down his throat earlier this afternoon, and while I never liked getting dressed all fancy, Hunter was right. Putting on that suit, looking at my reflection in the mirror, I felt like I was fit to stand beside Jamie. Part of me wanted to compete, to see where I fitted against my pretty-boy brothers, but when she walked out, all that shit faded away. There was only Jamie.

So when she walked into this party like she was a damn queen, I just followed hot on her heels, watching the impudent swish of her hips, all while trying to keep my thoughts PG, lest I ruin the lines of my suit. Then when Frankie demonstrated he had some balls, even if it was just to keep Nadia happy? It let a little flame of hope flicker to life, one that threatened to turn into a proper fire when Jamie confronted her family.

I was prepared to step up, step in, be a meat shield for her family to unleash their barbs on, if it meant that it spared her the pain. I didn't give two shits about these people, feeling none of Nadia's need to make peace with the Kingstons and find a way to co-exist. I barely suppressed the need to pick Jamie up bodily and drag her out of this party, driving her around to Mum and Dad's, so she could lay down on the couch and munch mindlessly on popcorn as the people I loved debated the chances of drag queens winning a competition I didn't really understand. Then she would be safe, happy, and comfortable, and that's what I needed for her.

Instead, I stood here, at a bar, waiting for the guy serving to turn to me. Of course it wasn't just his attention I got though, was it?

"Two rum and Cokes," I told the bartender, sucking in a breath, "and a couple of beers."

The man nodded, moving to get my order, but as soon as he pulled away, she appeared.

Was this what lay beneath the mask of civility? Marjorie's eyes flashed as she stared up at me, but I couldn't give two shits about whatever poison she had brewing in that head of hers. I went to move away, but her hand shot out, grasping my forearm so hard it was either stop where I was or shove her aside.

Shoving sounded so damn good.

But pushing middle-aged women to the ground was frowned upon for some reason, so I just stared her down.

"Something you need, Majorie?"

"What is this?" she snapped, right as the barmen put my drinks before me.

I picked up a drink and took a sip from it.

"It's a rum and Coke."

"No." She used the tense tone only mothers seemed to master. "What are you doing with my daughter? What are you and your…" Majorie swallowed as she looked back. "Brothers doing with Jamie."

I settled against the bar.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes."

Her intense stare was off putting, the whites of her eyes way too apparent, but… underneath that frenzied manner, I could see it. There was a woman who worried about her daughter. It was that, the fact my own mum would worry whenever some guy or guys came knocking on Millie's door to declare their intentions, that had me taking her seriously.

"Loving her." It hurt to say it still. This was a feeling that had been kept down for so long that when it was summoned forth, it came in this god-awful rush. "I love Jamie, and some part of me thinks I always have."

"She started work with you as a child!" Majorie blustered.

"And back then I loved her as a sister. As a young woman trying to find her feet, needing guidance, not my dick." Her nose wrinkled at my crude words, but hey, I was never one for niceties. "That came later."

"So this is a… sexual thing for you." She glanced back at the table, then at me. "You're using my daughter." Her breath was coming in harder and faster, her tone picking up. People started turning around to find out why. "Do the three of you do this often? Find unsuspecting girls and then seduce them with your lies."

"What. Lies." My words were forced out between gritted teeth. "What lies, Majorie?"

I pushed her hard because I saw Jamie jump to her feet, crossing the floor in long strides. She was rushing forward to save me from her mother, but Jamie didn't understand. There was nothing Majorie could say to me that would make a scrap of difference. I didn't give a shit about her or her damn family, just Jamie.

That's why I wanted her mother's poison expressed before her daughter could be touched by any of it.

"That you care about her." Majorie's brows drew down, turning her already harsh face into something truly ugly. "One of you I could perhaps accept, but all three."

She turned around to scan the floor, finding the twins, but they were hot on Jamie's heels. We knew what needed to be done, and that did not include sitting around and making small talk with her family. Jamie had been so stressed about the idea of coming to this party she was willing to pretend we were her dates. Our mission hadn't changed, even if our relationship had. We needed to protect our girl from her family's toxic waste.

Of course, that wasn't how it worked.

"A successful businessman?" Majorie sneered. "Not one, but two male models? I looked them up, saw their surfwear photos. All of you, in love with my daughter." She shook her head sharply. "Jamie was always telling lies as a child, but she was always so easy to see through. Amber said that you're all the brothers of that best friend of Jamie's."

"And you think that's why we did this?" I shook my head. Majorie and I existed in such completely different realities there was no communicating across the chasm between us. "That this was just a favour to Millie?"

"What else could it be? My daughter can be quite pretty if she makes an effort, but for some reason, that girl has no pride in herself. Never making an effort, always looking like some kind of street urchin, and even when she does try, she walks in looking like a man."

Shut up, I wanted to snap, but the need to show respect to my elders that my parents had instilled in me kept me quiet. Shut the fuck up.

"What the hell she thought she was doing spending money on a suit." Majorie shook her head. "It makes her look chunky, the jacket cutting across the widest part of her hips…"

Majorie's speech faded away, a sharp whine starting up in my head as Jamie stumbled closer. Her eyes went wide, her hands slapping down instinctively on her hips and then tugging her jacket tighter around her. No, I wanted to say, needing that brave, beautiful girl back. No. Hayden and Hunter said something to that effect to her, but Majorie? She kept on going, right up until a voice cut through it all.

"Holy shit, Mum…" Frankie stumbled forward, eyes wide, a look of shock so pure I knew it was real. He studied his mother the same way someone might a venomous snake they'd just stumbled across, with growing horror.

"Frank!" That guilty little jolt told me everything I needed to know; the mask of motherly solicitude slapped back on her face. "This party is amazing!"

"It was." Part of me hated the sound of another person's heart breaking, but the burning need to make clear that Jamie had been dealing with this shit the entire time as Frankie blithely went about the world fought hard to be expressed. I ground my teeth instead. "Jesus, is this the way she treats you all the time?"

Frankie was older than Jamie, but he asked her that question like he was a child and she the adult.

"You know she does."

My girl was so fucking strong. She just stood there, the twins at her back, but she didn't need them. She never did. Everything she needed was always inside her. We just helped her find the courage to express it. Jamie's eyes flicked sideways to note the arrival of Nadia.

"Everything OK?" the bride-to-be asked in careful tones.

"It will be." Frankie's eyes burned as he took in his mother, because for him this anger, this betrayal, was so very new and raw. "Mum, you need to go."

"Go?" She hissed that, looking around at the crowds, more and more people turning this way. "Go? I'm your mother."

"Are you?" He swallowed and shook his head. "So how about you show me you can act like it. Jamie's your fucking daughter."

"Don't you swear at me, Francis," she snapped.

"No? How about this then. Fuck off, Mum." Nadia's hand wrapped around his arm, holding him up as he vented. "Leave."

But she didn't. Majorie swelled up like an angry cat, spitting mad now.

"You will not speak to your mother?—"

"It's time to go, Marge."

Not love, not babe or sweetness, just an abbreviated version of her name. Arthur said this in clipped tones, stepping in before she could say another thing and then grabbed her arm, ready to haul her away. She just shook it away. Aware she had an audience now, something in her couldn't stop playing to it.

"I will?—"

"Move your fucking arse to that door, because a couple of the boys from the rugby team volunteered to act as security tonight," Frankie said between gritted teeth. "Each one of them can pick up and dump a man twice your size. They'll manage you without raising a sweat."

"Me too." Hunter stepped forward, flexing his muscles. "You look like you don't weigh much more than a couple lengths of two-by-four timber. I carry shit like that back and forth every day."

"I carry more than that," Hayden said, stepping forward, slapping one fist into his open hand. "And even if I didn't, I'd make this work."

I guess there was no avoiding a scene. We were having one right now whether we wanted to or not, so I nodded to my brothers. The three of us might scrap it out, push each other around and put shit on each other, but when the chips were down, we always had each other's back.

And right now we had Jamie's.

The look on my girl's face when the three of us hoisted a spluttering, then screaming,, Majorie up on our shoulders, only to carry her out for everyone to see before dumping her on her feet just outside the hall doors. The security guards pulled closer, just as we did, closing off access to the party.

"You…!" She stabbed her finger in our direction. "I'll…! You'll…!"

Marjorie incapable of full sentences was a vast improvement, as was her face flushing deep purple. Even better was her staggering around on her heels, but then Jamie and the others came stumbling out, staring at the aftermath.

"Did you…?" Our girl gestured wildly. "You just?—"

"Took the trash out." Hayden tugged her close, kissing her, but I was right there when he was done.

"You never had to do us a favour to get us to be your dates," I told her. "We were always going to be right by your side through this."

"And we'll kick the arse of anyone else who tries to disrespect you." Hunter could be kinda punchy at times, and right now his sleeves were shoved up as he raised his fists.

"No need." Arthur looked like a broken man as he stepped forward, going to his wife, not because he felt as we did, a need to protect someone he loved. No, this was a look of resignation. "I'll take her home. Have a good night, Nadia, Frankie." His eyes settled on his daughter. "Jamie. I'm…" He sighed. "I'm sorry."

And with that, he gripped Majorie's elbow, ignoring her splutters as he frog marched her over to their car.

"That…" Jamie just stared, unable to take in what had happened, her brows creasing then smoothing, before creasing again. "That was amazing."

"Amazing enough to smash some tequila slammers and then do the sprinkler on the dance floor to some shitty Top 40 song from twenty years ago?" Hunter asked.

"Fuck yeah," she said, that wild grin back.

We walked back inside, ignoring everyone's looks, and went straight to the bar, asking the bartender to line the shots up. Nadia and Frankie joined us, even one of Jamie's sisters-in-law having a few.

"To taking out the trash!" Hunter said by way of a toast.

"To the future," I amended.

"I'll drink to that," Jamie said, clinking glasses and then drinking her shot down.