When the tickle torture stopped, the girl caught her breath and turned to look at me. Again, her dark eyes filled with judgement. And maybe a little jealousy.
“Dyadya, if she’s not Satan, who is she?”
Ronan cast a glance to me, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “She’s my maid.”
I shook my head with a smile.
The girl frowned. “Why she in bed?”
“She’s trying to make the bed, but I refuse to get out, and she’s too weak to move me.”
She giggled at her uncle. “You’re lazy.”
“Lazily handsome.” He winked at her.
The girl turned to me and announced, “Papa can move him.” On second thought, she pursed her lips. “Nevers mind.”
“Why never mind?” Ronan asked with humor. “Does it have something to do with his phone in your hand?”
She glanced at the cell and made a face like she didn’t like the question. “Papa says I can play a princess game if I eat breakfast.”
I smiled. “And I’m assuming you didn’t eat?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like eggs. Or toast. Or porridge. Or—”
“Okay,” Ronan chuckled. “You don’t like food.”
Happy he understood, she nodded, then said quietly, “I might like food after I play new princess game.”
Wow. This little girl was going to rule the world. Not to mention, she appeared to be about three with the vocabulary of a child much older. She would grow up to be a gorgeous female Einstein. Or a criminal mastermind.
She was giving Ronan those big dark eyes that would be impossible for even Hitler to resist.
Ronan chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, kitty Kat, what do you need from me?”
She smiled real big and handed him the phone. “Find game, please. I could do it,” she said haughtily, “but Papa won’t tell me the password.”
“What a tyrant,” Ronan drawled. “What’s the game called?”
“I dunno. It was on commercial after one of Mamma’s kissy shows.”
It took Ronan three tries to figure out his brother’s passcode. I was beginning to think this entire family was full of geniuses. He opened the app store and searched for princess games with bloody inked fingers.
His niece peeked over his shoulder while he scrolled through the games, and I felt more than content just watching them.
“Okay, we got Princess Hair Salon,” Ronan said.
“Ew.”
He moved on. “Princess Room Cleanup?”
Her nose wrinkled. Mine too.
“Princess Horse Club?”
“No, Dyadya,” she complained. “The game’s not pink.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Everything’s pink.”
“Princess Makeover?”
“Nyet,” she sighed.
“That one wasn’t pink,” he returned.
She rolled her eyes. “Fuchsia is almost pink.”
This little girl was making me feel like my IQ could use a boost.
Ronan continued to scroll through the list of games before stopping on one that had no resemblance to the color pink.
“The Princess’s Reign of Terror?”
Her eyes lit up. “That one!”
I couldn’t hold in a laugh.
She grabbed the cell from Ronan’s hand and dived into The Princess’s Reign of Terror. Seconds later, noises blared from the phone: slices of blades, groans of pain, and a, “Cut off his head!”
“Well, this looks cozy.”
I turned my head to see Christian in the doorway dressed in a three-piece suit without a single wrinkle. I shifted, a little self-conscious at being caught in his brother’s bed willingly—the one who had me tied up naked the last time Christian was here. Though he didn’t seem surprised or even interested in me, which eased any awkwardness.
Christian was the kind of man who made a woman’s mouth dry just by looking at him, but as flawless as he was, I preferred his brother’s imperfections. That scar on his bottom lip. All the ink. His jaded soul I’d seen warm just for me.
Christian looked like Gabriel the archangel. Ronan was every part D’yavol. I knew if they stood on separate sides of an alley and I was running from danger . . . I’d jump into D’yavol’s arms.
“Your daughter was complaining of the emotional trauma you just put her through,” Ronan said. “What kind of uncle would I be if I turned her away?”
“A bad one,” the girl said without looking up from her game.
I bit my lip to hold in a smile.
“Kat,” Christian said with a warning.
She looked up at him and deadpanned, “Papa.”
“Breakfast table right now.”
“Is there pancakes?” she challenged.
Christian narrowed his eyes. His daughter held the eye contact. An intense, silent father-daughter battle was happening before me, and it was mesmerizing.
“Toast and porridge make my tummy hurt, Papa,” Kat said softly. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, and that seemed to be when her papa waved the white flag.
“Fine. Pancakes. But you’ll finish your game after you eat.”
She smiled real big, jumped off the bed, and skipped into her father’s arms. He lifted her, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Papa.”
His eyes softened. “I love you too, malen’kaya volchitsa.”
As he turned to leave, Kat wrapped her arms around his shoulders and said, “I really want chocolate chips in my pancake. And Fruit Woops. It would make me so happy, Papa!”
It was clear by Christian’s enamored expression, there’d be chocolate and rainbow-colored cereal in his daughter’s pancakes come hell or high water.
Ronan dropped his head against the headboard and chuckled at—I could only assume—how whipped his brother was. Christian gave him a dark look, glanced at me, then looked back to his brother. Ronan’s eyes narrowed. A subtle smile touched Christian’s lips, and then he carried Kat out of the room.
Their absence left this gnawing hole in my chest. I thought of my papa and how his love had never been as deep as what I’d just seen in Christian’s eyes. How I could count on one hand how many times he’d told me he loved me; how I yearned for his affection and rarely received even a hug. Guilt expanded in my chest for thinking this way. My papa was sacrificing himself for me. Wasn’t that the strongest expression of love?
Still, longing tore through me for that expressive kind of love I’d never had and that, soon, it’d be lost to me forever.
“Ronan,” I said uneasily. “I want to talk to my papa.”
Phone in his hand, he cast a look at me. The glint in his eyes was an unwavering “no.”
I swallowed. “Please . . . I might not see him ever again shortly, and I really need this.” My voice clogged with emotion. “I really need to talk to him.”
He watched me for a moment, then reached into the nightstand, pulled out my phone, and handed it to me. “Put it on speakerphone.”
I exhaled in relief. “Okay.”
Turning the phone on with shaky hands, I was assaulted by multiple messages coming in. Most from Carter. A lot from Carter. The man barely gave me the time of day unless we were on a mandatory date. I wondered if he was in trouble from his father for letting his almost-fiancée fall off the face of the earth.