BIG: (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (40 page)

As soon as he was well enough to get back to work after the siege at the Maine offices, she’d taken him to town and pretty much thrown him into a barber’s chair to get his mane trimmed by just a few inches—to clean up the split ends and encourage new growth.

She’d ignored the first five minutes of his ungracious muttering about ‘Vikings not taking this shit’, then finally pointed out that actually, they groomed themselves at length every Saturday, which was why they had a better sex life than, say, Celts, Woads or Picts.

“There was a real emergency, you know,” he said suddenly, his thumb stroking down her bare back. “Other than the need to do this again.”

She stretched under his light touch, relishing the warmth. “Tell me, then.”

“I needed an alibi to get me out of Bergen. I’m supposed to be at baby Church’s christening this afternoon.”

“You’re so mean!” She peered up at him. “You’d shirk a christening?”

“I’m not
mean. I helped Jon Church get his steel business back on its feet. He gets to be a hard man of business again instead of a harassed grandpa.”

“True.” She wrapped her arm across his chest. “But that was your conscience talking. The only reason Arensen leaked the story of Jon’s secret inter-family marriage to the press was because he knew Brad would spend a fortune to bail his friend out.”

“Yeah. I still can’t believe how many asshole maneuvers that guy pulled off just to try to take over Rykers. I told you I heard from Goddard? The Feds now think he was behind whatever made their plane malfunction—that time they went missing. He was trying to kill them—even then.”

Annalesa suspected that their parents’ divorce had something to do with Arensen, but she couldn’t prove it. They were both still recovering from losing both Brad and Elsa, although they were both healing. They’d spent a lot of time in each other’s arms, reminiscing. Crying. She didn’t think she would have made it through that loss without Ric.

“
I
can believe it.” She shrugged as he sighed down at her. “Hey, I’m allowed one ‘I-told-you-so’ a year. That was it. Anyway, why are you so grouchy about becoming a godfather?”

“I’m not. I’m happy to be what’s-his-name’s godfather. I just don’t want to spend hours walking around with him wrapped around me like a sticky monkey.”

Annalesa gave his chest a light, chiding slap. “He was very good during the service at our wedding.”

“Yeah, because Henrik silenced him.” Ric caught the second slap before it made contact. “Silenced him with a donut. Jeez, you’ve got to stop finding sinister meanings in everything.”

“Well... that explains why Ewan wasn’t exactly ‘silent’ for the rest of the day. Too full of sugar, poor little thing.”

“Oh! His name’s Ewan!”

She rolled her eyes and got up. “I’ll make coffee. And then we’re going to get dressed, and you’re going to call your pilot. We’ll to go the christening together.”

“You’re merciless. Are you ready for it? Not everyone’s accepted our relationship, you know...”

“The important people have stuck around.” She smiled down at the concern in his face as she pulled a robe on. “And I keep telling myself that anyone new who comes into our lives knows us only as a married couple.”

She went into the kitchen to make coffee, trying not to think about the initial reaction from some of her university friends when she’d invited them to her wedding. There had been a collection of strained smiles and then late excuses, none of them wanting a confrontation, but none of them able to accept it either.

David and his partner had been supportive, but largely on the basis that they wouldn’t mind marrying Ric themselves if he were that-way inclined. A couple of the students from the rental accommodation had found elsewhere to live to show their disgust. One of them even started a Facebook thread among University Alumni groups to share their view on how disgusting it all was.

Annalesa relaxed as a warm arm wrapped around her waist and Ric nuzzled her cheek before reaching for his coffee.

“Mathias isn’t happy, but he’ll pick us up from Le Bourget at two.”

“Good.” She turned to kiss Ric and followed as he tugged her over to the couch, pulling her down next to him. They sipped coffee as he turned the TV on and chuckled through the last five minutes of
The Simpsons
before the news came on.

As Ric laughed openly at Mr. Burns’ heartless schemes, she rested against him, loving how relaxed, open and easy he was these days. They’d had their fair share of crap from the press, but the change in him since they’d come out with their relationship was worth every little barb that some small-minded idiot tried to stick into her.

She found herself watching the selection of miserable headlines in an unthinking trance, and suddenly Henrik was on screen. She sat bolt upright, pointing like a lunatic.

“Ric, look!”

“Yep, I see him.”

“Henrik
is on the TV!
”

“Yeah, I can
see
him.”

“How come?” She found his lack of astonishment irksome.

“If you pipe down, you’ll find out!”

She elbowed him lightly and watched as a confident, almost-smiling Henrik had a friendly discussion with the reporter about the local conditions in Syria. He was in full tactical gear, the italic silver R visible on his flak jacket.

“So, you and your men prevented a raid on a mobile hospital.” The reporter peered up at Henrik, holding her microphone up into the sky for him. “Can you explain your military role in this area?”

“Is not military.”

“Really? Because you seem extremely well-armed.”

“We are, but we’re civilian support.”

Annalesa looked at Ric. “His English is really much better.”

“Shhh.” He nudged her, nodding at the screen where Henrik was still talking.

“We’re here to protect the efforts of the Red Cross in providing medical aid in the area. It is important, I think, that we...” On screen, Henrik scratched his short beard before going on in his halting English. “When we encounter some people who think it is fine to disrupt the effort of the medics, that we oppress their wish to make trouble. Is ‘oppress’ the right word?”

Annalesa pressed her hand against her mouth as the camera panned back to the troublemakers, who were being pinned to the ground by a collection of Norsemen, who looked very benign, but also very, very heavy.

“Don’t worry, Henrik—they look oppressed to me!” Ric burst out laughing, the sound rich and deep in the quiet flat.

Annalesa couldn’t help feeling fond of the impassive giant. He’d been behind Ric all the way in his campaign to ‘put things right’, and it had been Henrik’s experience of coming out into the open with his own secret that had motivated Ric to make his proposal to her in public.

Just a couple of months after the show-down with Arensen, she and Ric had attended Henrik’s wedding to his childhood friend and former brother-in-law, Markus.

Henrik’s beating at Arensen’s hands had pushed them into admitting their feelings for each other to the rest of his family. Henrik always knew how he felt about Markus, but Markus had homophobic shame stamped into him from a young age.

He’d dated and married Henrik’s kid sister, which went well for five years until she developed a severe substance abuse problem and her behavior grew unpredictable and occasionally violent.

Henrik’s relationship with Markus had started on one of Markus’ many ‘escape nights’ at his place, evolving from support, to affection, to unstoppable chemistry.

After Arensen had caught them kissing in the basement parking garage of the hospital in Oslo—Markus’ wife had attempted another overdose—Henrik’s life had become a perpetual cycle of underhanded demands, enforced by blackmail.

One of Arensen’s demands had been escorting Annalesa and Ric on their trip to the caves and taking photos showing their true relationship. He’d done as he was told—but he’d refused to hand them photographs over.

Even with most of his family missing from his wedding, Henrik glowed from beginning to end, eyes bright, happiness coming off him in waves, and he’d been happy ever since.

All that emotion
was
there under the poker-face surface. It was just really tucked away. Inspired, Ric had gone down on his knee publically for Annalesa in the foyer of Hotel de l’Europe and she’d married him three months later.

“He’s doing really well, isn’t he?” Annalesa grinned as the reporter came close to flirting with Henrik on-screen.

“He’s the best. And the whole package to provide MedEvac escort in war zones? That’s his baby.”

Annalesa bit her lip, remembering that exact phrase about Anders Arensen’s kill house nearly eighteen months ago. It was nice to have such a different context. She squeezed Ric’s hand. “I’m so happy to see all this pro-bono work going on, but how are you balancing the books?”

“Through our other protective scheme. We’re earning a damned fortune from insurance companies.”

“How?”

“Is madam board member not reading her memos?” Ric’s arms squeezed around her.

“I’m reading all the stuff on the new Ryker protective services, I’m just not understanding where the money’s coming in.”

“A lot of wealthy people living in high-risk zones have insurance against kidnapping as well as injury or death. We have teams focused on retrieving wealthy captives from hostage situations. It’s a damn sight cheaper for insurance companies to pay our teams to recapture hostages than it is to pay out on the dead clients’ life insurance.”

“Ah.”

“And the hostages’ wives kind of appreciate the support too.”

She rolled her eyes and reached out to lightly clip him around the ear, but his reflexes were way too fast even in his damaged hand. She stroked the knuckle of his thumb with the pad of hers.

“How’s it feeling?”

“Crappy in the winter but way better. My handwriting’s improving, which kind of sucks.”

“Why?”

“My PA’s threatened to leave me unless I slow the dictation down. She’s insisting on written or typed notes now that I’m all better. Oh, and she wants to work for David, because he’s ‘sexy’.”

“Didn’t she used to flirt with you?”

“Yeah... but she caught me changing into my suit a couple weeks back and I think all the ink gave her a heart attack. Not her thing, I guess.”

“I don’t think she’s David’s ‘thing’, somehow.” Annalesa chuckled. Their corporate worlds had seen a lot of crossover in the last six months.

Her phone started chirping the Dallas theme tune—one of David’s guilty pleasures—and she took the call on speaker, knowing she was going to get an earful for leaving him with the historian escort duties, and feeling that Ric needed to hear the effects of his fake emergencies.

David’s voice was prim and terse.

“Has your emergency concluded?”

“It has.”

“Then could Mrs. Ryker relocate her highly-qualified, academic arse from her apartment back to the gallery, where it belongs?”

Annalesa bit back a snort at his indignant tone. “David, I’m sorry, but I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day.”

“Annalesa! For God’s sake!”

“You’re just as highly-qualified, David.”

“That’s not the point. You’re the one who can hold her poise while you’re faced with a bunch of wrinkled, unconvinced noses.”