Chapter 20

20

There was a hot Hiller brother stalking her. Around her best friend’s living room. Chantal wasn’t innocent . She knew exactly what was going through Gene’s head.

She was his target once again.

Her stomach tightened. His hand now rested on her shoulder, where she stood behind Genny’s couch. She was tucked right there in front of him faster than she could blink, while two of his brothers crowded close on the other side.

While the Hiller boys supervised Chad examining Genny’s injured ankle. Closely.

Genny was getting a bit beyond annoyed.

Chantal checked her friend’s face. The boys were total dorks if they didn’t see the irritation written right there. Chantal glanced toward the kitchen, where Aubrey and Guthrie were talking quietly while Guthrie treated the cuts on Aubrey’s arm. A man at the banquet Aubrey and Genny had attended tonight had gotten too forceful with Aubrey.

That was why the all-girls-on-deck call had gone out in the first place—to cheer their friend up and convince her to report it. But Aubrey was far too afraid. Chantal was going to talk to her alone when she got the chance. Reassure her that Charlie would take care of things. And that Aubrey would be okay.

Gene’s hand tightened on her shoulder. He pulled her back almost imperceptibly. That man... he was a man on a mission. But she could feel his heat surrounding her.

She liked it.

Chantal just didn’t know what she wanted to do about it.

Gene was just... reacting... to what happened to them. That was all it could be. That was what she and Genny had decided while hiding out at the Barratt. Gene and Chad were just overreacting to what had happened and were going caveman overprotective right now.

With the closest available women.

And cavemen inevitably wanted... cave cuddles... with the closest available women, as their reward for bashing other cavemen over the head with sticks or something, before fetching a moose for their cavewoman to cook over the fires.

Men hadn’t evolved much past that. Chantal was pretty sure of it.

Even her brothers and the Hiller men. Cavemen, the lot of them.

There was no other real explanation why they were... so intent.

Chantal studied Genny and Chad. Chad had Genny’s foot in his big hands, but there was definitely something not clinical in how he was looking at Chantal’s bestie.

Chantal checked Gene and his brothers’ faces, making sure those baboons hadn’t picked up on what Chad was trying to do with Genny. They were still bickering with Greer and Hala about chaperoning their little sisters anytime a man got too close.

They seemed oblivious to what Chad was up to—right under their noses, at least. So much for chaperones. And Gene... well, Gene had a mission of his own. That was how Chantal had somehow ended up far from the sunken living room and over by the breakfast room doors that led to the back deck.

How had that even happened?

Gene’s hand was wrapped around her wrist. The man was good, really, really good, at maneuvering a woman where he wanted her, apparently. Of course he was—the man had had plenty of practice.

Well, no matter what Gene was up to—he wasn’t going to be up to it with her.

Chantal twisted away. She shot him a narrow look. “I know what you are up to, you know. I have you figured out.”

“Good. Then we are on the same page.”

He started to say something else when someone knocked on the door.

“Great. Pizza’s here. I’m starving!” Greer said.

And that broke whatever mood Gene was trying to create.

Chantal escaped while she could.