“A little achy, but good. I was telling Zayne how much I enjoyed last night. That I’ve never felt like that before. It felt so…right.”
“And is it something you want to do again?”
Her cheeks flushed a lovely pink, and Ethan already had his answer. “Yes, very much so.”
“Good, because we’d like to talk to you about making this a more permanent situation.”
“Permanent?”
“Yes. We know you agreed to be ours in the physical sense whenever you’re available, and at the time we agreed that was good for all of us. But like yourself, last night felt right for us too.”
Chloé swallowed, and Ethan drew a finger down her naked shoulder.
“We’d like to get to know you outside of this room.”
“I want that too. Zayne was just telling me—”
She never finished what she was saying because the balcony door flew open and Zayne walked back inside, a curse on his lips.
That didn’t bode well.
“I assume you got through?”
“Unfortunately,” Zayne muttered as he tossed the phone on top of the bureau and headed back toward the bed. “He was calling with a date for his fucking dinner.”
“I figured. Well?”
“Next Saturday, and he reiterated how much he’d rather I bring a lovely young lady as my date.”
Ethan wasn’t surprised. The senator had been trying his hardest to turn Zayne straight from the second he found out he wasn’t.
“He can go fuck himself. You’re my date.”
“Always,” Ethan said without hesitation. “But maybe we could make an exception this time. Accommodate his request…”
“What?” Zayne’s hands froze at the belt of his robe.
Ethan turned to the lovely lady who was lying naked in their bed.
“Oh…I like where your mind is going.” Zayne shrugged out of the robe, crawled under the covers, and pulled Chloé into his arms. “What do you say, Red? Want to come to dinner with us and piss off my old man?”
“The one who sent you away?”
Sent him— Ah, so that was what they’d been talking about when Ethan had come up here. Seemed they’d been getting to know each other already.
“The one and only.”
She looked between the two of them and grinned in a way that said she was all for causing some trouble. “When is it?”
“Next Saturday.”
She thought about that for a second, and then nodded. “Let me make sure I can get the night off, but it should be fine. I never ask for time off.”
Ethan got to his feet and pulled his shirt from his pants.
Zayne hummed as the two of them watched him undress. “I think he likes that idea, Red.”
Chloé licked her lips as Zayne reached for the covers and threw them back, exposing both their bodies to Ethan’s hungry eyes.
“What’d I tell you?” Zayne said by her ear. “A lion hunting its prey.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes, and Zayne smirked. There was a story there, but the time to tell it was not now. He climbed into bed as Zayne kissed Chloé’s ear and whispered, “Ready to be eaten, little girl?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I don’t know what I’d do without my family.
So let’s hope they don’t disown me.
~ Chloé
“CHLOÉ? MON ANGE! Could you get the door? Your brother’s here!”
“Got it,” she called out as she headed downstairs to the front door and pulled it open to see Justin standing on the porch with a six-pack in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
“Hey there, kiddo.”
“Hey there, yourself. You’re running a little late tonight?” She reached out and took the wine from him, examining the label. “Let me guess? Fifteen bucks at the local grocery store?”
“Twenty—I decided to splurge. And yeah, the school is putting on a musical at the end of the semester and—”
“You’re going to be in a musical?”
“No… I volunteered to help build the set.”
“Oh, I see.” She grinned as she shut and locked the door behind him, then held up the bottle of wine. “You do know that Père won’t touch this, right?”
“I can’t afford what he drinks, and it was all they had. Plus, Dad’s not going to let any bottle of wine go to waste.”
“This is true.” If there was one thing their dad knew how to do, it was have a good time—add in some alcohol, and he had an even better one.
They headed up the stairs and spotted their fathers in the kitchen. Well, one of them was in the kitchen, and the other two were sitting at the island watching him sing into a spatula.
The soft crooning of Sinatra went hand in hand with the delicious aromas wafting through the air, as the familiar smell of the famous Bianchi spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove.
Chloé smiled as she watched the scene play out in front of them. A family tradition now, pasta night had started with her dad’s nonna, who had taught him the recipe, then he had taught it to his husbands, who had then taught it to her when she came along. It was always on a Wednesday, and their papa and père made sure they were home from the office or restaurant in time to help roll out the dough.
She remembered sitting on the counter with flour on her face and chubby hands, her dad singing along to whatever tune was playing—and then one Wednesday, that family grew again…
She glanced at Justin to see a similar smile on his face. The song and smells filling the kitchen evoked an acute sense of nostalgia for him too. It was moments like this that she realized how lucky they all were to have each other, and that was even more apparent now, after learning about Ethan and Zayne this weekend.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine the heartache Ethan had gone through after losing his parents at such a young age. She wouldn’t be able to function. Her fathers meant the world to her.
Then there was Zayne, who clearly had a strained relationship—if any—with his parents. It made her sad to think that anyone could just send their kid away because they didn’t want to deal with them.
Her fathers would never do that. They would rather lock her in her room than have her go anywhere. Hell, they were practically having a fit over the idea she might be moving out one day soon.
But that was how she knew she was lucky.
There was no anger between them, no resentment, no loss to grieve. They were one big, crazy—and somehow functional—family, and she’d never felt more fortunate than she did right then.
Just as that thought entered her mind, her papa looked over at the two of them. He was such a handsome man, with his thick sliver hair and beard—it was hard to remember that his hair had once been the same color as hers.
She kind of liked this silver fox angle he worked now, though. It made him look more distinguished than ever when he was in his dress pants and shirt like now, and her père and dad certainly didn’t seem to mind.
A lawyer through and through, her papa was always working. If he wasn’t at the office, he was on his computer somewhere in the house. But in moments like this, he put everything down to be here with his family.