“How’s everything with you?”
Kieran wasn’t fooled for a moment by the lightness of Leon’s tone. The same forced lightness that told him Leon already knew something was very wrong in Kieran’s life.
Fuck, when had his world gone to hell in a handbasket?
Kieran could pinpoint the moment exactly, even if for the past two days, he’d shied away from even thinking about it.
“Everything working out okay with your new living arrangements?” Leon continued to look at him from where he was seated behind the desk in his study.
Kieran gave the other man a scowl that was just short of him actually rolling his eyes. Because his new living arrangements had become nothing short of hell, and more quickly than he could ever have envisaged.
It made him cringe even now to think of the look of hurt and confusion on Janina’s face when he had stopped touching her intimately and removed his hand from inside her panties before standing her firmly back on her own two feet. At which point, Kieran had also stood and moved as far away from her in the confines of the kitchen as he possibly could.
The conversation that followed had been excruciating.
His quiet explanation that her virginity was the reason they had to stop, Janina’s protest, his insistence… Followed by Janina storming out of the kitchen and up the stairs, the door to her bedroom slamming shut seconds later.
They had barely seen each other since then. They certainly hadn’t eaten any of their meals together, neither breakfast nor dinner.
They hadn’t spoken to each other at all once Janina learned Kieran had replaced himself with his brother Liam in accompanying her to the hospital in the two days that followed.
Leaving Kieran to pace about the estate, supposedly carrying out the menial task of ensuring their arsenal of weapons were cleaned and ready should they be needed. In reality, he spent the time fretting and worrying for Janina’s safety, until she returned back to the estate in the evening, and he knew she was once again back inside his field of protection.
Not that he didn’t trust Liam with her life. He wouldn’t have assigned his younger brother to that task if he hadn’t. But the threat against Janina’s life was very real, and Kieran knew he wouldn’t relax again until it, and the person responsible, was eliminated.
Kieran was pretty sure that both of them were going out of their way to avoid each other. Janina, possibly because she was still angry with him for putting a stop to their lovemaking. Kieran, because he didn’t trust himself to continue resisting her.
It had been the shock of his life when he tried to press his finger inside her wetness and came up against the evidence Janina was still a virgin.
Although it probably shouldn’t have when he already knew from previous conversations that once Janina learned who her father was when she was already an adult that he had arranged a full-time bodyguard for her. That bodyguard had died in the bloodbath that occurred after Sergei Federov briefly usurped Janina’s father as pakhan of Moscow.
Even so, the fact that guard had been a presence in Janina’s life since she was eighteen should have warned Kieran she was sexually untouched. What sane man would ever want to incur the wrath of Boris Borsikov by attempting to take his daughter’s innocence?
Apparently Kieran, but then they had already agreed that he wasn’t quite sane.
But sane enough not to seduce an innocent.
Oh, he wanted Janina, to the degree he ached with it. A part of him believed he might even be in love with her. But he was a bodyguard, a thug with a gun, and the son of a past member of the Irish mob. He had nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer her.
Jericho doesn’t have anything to offer Marisha either, and they’re now married.
Jericho hadn’t been willing to take no for an answer. He had told Borzikov he was marrying Marisha, not asked him.
Kieran very much doubted that Borzikov was going to accept another of Leon’s Irish bodyguards wanting to claim his second daughter.
“Obviously not,” Leon drawled. “And you won’t know until you ask. Or not, as happened in Jericho’s case.” His grin was one of affection.
Kieran winced. “Did I say those things out loud?”
“You did.” Leon smiled ruefully. “And I think you’re wrong about Boris. All a father ever wants for his daughter is for her to be happy.” He shrugged. “I didn’t hesitate to give my permission when your cousin Killian asked to marry Natalia, and look how happy they are together,” he added with satisfaction.
There was no denying that, or that Jericho and Marisha were perfect for each other. But… “We’re Irish bogtrotters, with no family but each other and no real home to call our own.”
Leon chuckled. “And obviously, none of these beautiful women give a damn about that.”
“I do.” Kieran scowled.
Leon sobered. “You do have family, Kieran. You have my family and all the men you work with. Don’t be held back from claiming what you want by imagined barriers.”
Kieran hadn’t imagined the barrier of Janina’s virginity.
He didn’t have the right—
“Speaking of which,” Leon continued firmly, “Carla is taking me out to dinner this evening. Apparently, Carla also asked and Janina has agreed, to babysit Marco for us.”
“You’re going out?” Kieran couldn’t remember the last time Leon and Carla had gone out in the evening. Before Marco was born six months ago, at least.
The other man laughed. “Don’t look so surprised.” He stood up to move around to the front of his desk. “We’re celebrating. Carla saw the doctor yesterday. We didn’t tell anyone before now but she’s pregnant again.” He made the announcement proudly.
“Wow.” Kieran’s brows rose in surprise.
Leon gave another chuckle. “It’s twins.”
“Twins,” Kieran repeated.
Leon nodded. “Girls.”
Kieran couldn’t hold back his burst of laughter. It was just too funny not to.
Leon’s first wife had died when Natalia was born, and it had been just him and Natalia for twenty years after that. Then eighteen months ago, he’d met and fallen in love with Carla, a woman eighteen years his junior. Within the first year of their marriage, Carla had given birth to Marco Leonardo Brunelli, Leon’s male heir. And now it seemed she was going to present him with two more daughters.
Although Kieran had to admit, the older man didn’t look too upset about it. In fact, he looked elated.
There was also, Kieran noted with a wince, a decidedly vengeful light in the gray of Leon’s eyes. “I’m going to pay for laughing, aren’t I,” Kieran guessed ruefully.
“Oh yes,” Leon confirmed without rancor. “Starting with you personally guarding Marco and Janina this evening.”
His eyes narrowed. “My place is with you if you’re going off the estate.”
“There are plenty of your men to accompany us,” the other man dismissed. “Carla hasn’t left Marco’s side since he was born, and I’ve never been more than a few rooms away from both of them. But I want to take Carla out to dinner before we have three children at home under two. Carla insists you’re the one she wants to guard Marco, and consequently, Janina.”
Kieran knew that was the end of the argument as far as Leon was concerned. The older man absolutely adored his wife, and if Carla had requested—insisted—Kieran was the one to guard their baby son and his babysitter, then that was exactly what was about to happen.
Luckily, Carla wasn’t the type of woman to take advantage of Leon’s devotion to her.
Except her request for this evening had now placed Kieran in a position where he and Janina could no longer ignore each other.
Deliberately?
If so, by whose design?
“Marco is fast asleep, and he rarely wakes up in the evening,” Carla told Janina. “If by some fluke he does wake, I’ve left him a bottle of my milk in the fridge, and it just needs warming slightly before you give it to him.”
“I know what to do,” Janina reassured, having spent a lot of time with Carla and Marco when she still lived in the house. “Now, will you stop fussing and just go out to dinner with your handsome husband?” Janina looked at the other woman’s reflection in the mirror where Carla was putting the finishing touches to her shoulder-length dark hair.
Carla smiled. “He is rather gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“And obviously virile. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Janina cringed as Carla burst out laughing. “Zoe’s and Paul’s outspokenness is obviously a bad influence on me.”
“Your two friends at the hospital?”
“Yes,” she confirmed with a sigh. “My only friends, really.”
Carla stood, looking very beautiful in a black sheath dress matched with a necklace, bracelet, and matching earrings of diamonds and sapphires the same color as her eyes. Her second pregnancy was only just visible in the gentle outward curve of her lower abdomen.
She squeezed Janina’s forearm. “You have all of us too.”
“Thank you.” She smiled warmly. “But I still shouldn’t have made such a personal remark.”
“I don’t see why not. Leon is very virile.” Carla gave a coy smile. “I certainly have no complaints!”
“About what, my love?” Leon questioned as he entered his wife’s dressing room already dressed in his black tuxedo, white shirt, and black bowtie.
“Virility.” Carla kissed him warmly. “Namely, yours.”
His eyebrows rose. “Janina is looking a little embarrassed, love. Do I want to know the rest of your conversation?”
“No,” Janina answered loudly before Carla could get up to any more mischief. It was something she had discovered early on about her hostess. Carla loved to tease and have fun. It was one of the many things her husband obviously loved about her.
He nodded. “I just came in to see if you were ready to leave and to tell Janina that Kieran has arrived.”
Janina’s gaze dropped as she tried not to look at either of them, afraid of what they might see in her eyes. Although she couldn’t prevent the telling blush that now warmed her cheeks.
Luckily, both Carla and Leon were too polite to comment on her reaction. Or it was just that they were too busy kissing each other to notice.
Either way, Janina really wasn’t looking forward to spending any one-on-one time with Kieran after the way he had so bluntly put an end to their lovemaking two evenings ago.