24. Madden

24

Madden

T essa's reading a story to Harry when I step outside onto the deck. It's a warm evening. The leaves are starting to fall and summer's almost at an end, but the weather has yet to turn colder.

We're supposed to be on a job right now, providing security for a famous songstress while she performs at a charity concert. Instead, we're stuck here, babysitting a mobster's daughter.

Under different circumstances, losing such a lucrative contact and pissing off the client in the process would have annoyed me. It's not the money. I have plenty of that. It's more the hit to my reputation I'm concerned about.

Clients rely on us. They and their management expect us to be there at the drop of a hat. It's all part of our brand.

Not that I blame Tessa. It isn't her fault. I blame her father for not protecting her. He should have predicted something like this would happen.

Hiding in plain sight under an assumed name is not enough protection for the daughter of Alberto Valentino. Yet he let her hook up with a man like Enzo Ferrero, have two children with him, and did nothing.

Tessa's soft, husky words burrow into my skull, hypnotizing me. Harry sits next to her, enraptured. I watch his face as Tessa tells the story of a bug and his first day at school. This book is one of Serena's, so I've heard it before, but it's obviously new to Harry.

Honestly, I could listen to Tessa narrate a laundry list. The woman has a very seductive voice. I stand behind them, picturing her rasping out my name as she comes on my cock.

It's highly inappropriate.

She's a client, and I don't have sexual thoughts about clients.

Not once since I started my security business have I crossed the line with a client. Cin has. Many times. It pisses me off, but he's a grown man and he can make his own decisions, plus it hasn't harmed our business to have female clients queuing up to use our services in the hope Cin will charm their panties off.

He wanders out behind me, his palm brushing over my ass. My dick leaps in my pants and I silently curse him. This is not the time or the place for his antics. If we were alone right now, I'd bend him over the railing and fuck him. But I can't.

Since Tessa arrived, apart from the one time I lost control, I haven't laid a finger on him. And I won't. Not while Tessa and her children are staying with us.

It wouldn't be appropriate. My relationship with Cin isn't public. Sure, we have sex, but it's not serious. He likes women and so do I. I sometimes think he wants more, but he knows better than to ask.

I don't do relationships. Sharing a bed with someone is not an option. Not when I wake every night bathed in sweat and shaking from nightmares so vivid I once came around to find I had a knife pressed to Cin's neck.

We've not shared a bed since. I don't trust myself not to kill him while he sleeps. And if I hurt him, I'd never forgive myself. There are already too many stains on my soul. Too many lives lost because of my mistakes.

"You OK?" Cin murmurs and I jolt, cursing softly when some of my drink spills from the glass in my hand.

"Yeah." We both know I'm lying. The man can read me too well at times.

I scrub the stubble on my chin and swallow the last dregs of whiskey. Fuck, I must have zoned out. Tessa's finished the book about the bugs and Harry is running around in circles, pretending to be a flying bug.

"Those kids are so damn cute," Cin says, his voice wistful as he watches Harry play and Chloe pull herself up on Tessa's chair. "Fuck, she's almost walking!"

"You sound like a proud daddy," I scoff, and he grins.

"Never thought I'd want kids, but these two have changed my mind."

"Probably because you're on the same level as them," I tease, but my smile fades when I picture him married with kids. I know I'll have to give him up one day. No woman will accept me as a third wheel in his life. That's not how relationships work.

Even though I keep him at arm's length, for his own protection, life without him would be far grayer than it is right now. But he deserves to be happy after the shit upbringing he had. He's my sunshine, and he deserves to shine.