Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
We hadn’t exactly… stayed in touch.
But we had seen her here and there over the years, mostly when we were in Miami. And she had actually sent us a wedding present, despite not having been invited.
“Not a face I expected to see here,” I admitted as she walked up to me.
“I am a constant surprise,” she said, placing the bag on the table. “It is a toy car. It is loud and obnoxious.”
“We will think of you every time he plays with it,” I said, getting a smirk out of her. “Is that Tony Barelli?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Yep,” I said, watching as he slid off Maeve’s shoes, and started to massage her feet.
“You know,” Natalya said, watching. “I read your wife’s books.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“I had to skim quite a bit of that biker one,” she said, lip curling, making it clear it was because she associated it with me. “But the mafia one and the Bratva ones were good.”
“She’s got a cartel one coming out next,” I told her.
Triss, who was currently the human bubble machine, a task she took incredibly seriously, using several different sized wands and soap she had specially made for the event, had been Maeve’s enthusiastic research partner on all of the books, and demanded that should the books ever be turned into a visual media—say a daytime soap opera—that she absolutely had to help write the scripts.
She hadn’t married a mafia member like she’d once fantasized about, but she seemed just as over the moon about how her own story played out.
“Good for her,” Natalya said. “I was glad I didn’t have to kill her.”
“I’m glad you didn’t kill me either,” I said, getting a slight smirk out of her.
“You wouldn’t have any of this if I did,” she said, her gaze moving toward my son who was toddling away from his Aunt Triss to head straight for some of the flowers Maeve had planted.
“I am not going to thank you for not killing me, Natalya.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I am going to thank you, and your wife, for knocking some sense into me. My life would have turned out very differently if not for the two of you.”
With that, she turned and walked off without stopping to speak to Maeve, or wishing our son a happy birthday.
It didn’t escape me that Natalya, like Maeve, was expecting. Though, of course, she was much further along, judging by her rounded belly.
Her story, like Triss’s, hadn’t turned out anything like she may have once expected. And, yet, somehow, it had turned out exactly right for her.
“Donovan!” a familiar voice called, making me turn to see Zayn, the international arms dealer we’d been doing business with for years now, standing there.
Tall, fit, golden-brown eyes, black hair, tanned skin.
“My friend!” he said, and it was his standard greeting. Everyone Zayn had ever met was his friend.
My gaze moved past him to see his man, Daniyal—tall, fit, dark-skinned, silent and stoic—standing a few feet away, his watchful eyes taking in everyone at the party. Zayn liked to claim that Daniyal was his “assistant,” but everything about the man screamed some sort of special ops training.
Which was why it was extra hilarious to see that someone had stuck no less than fifty brightly colored cartoon animal stickers all over him. And put a coned party hat on his head.
“You have reproduced!” Zayn said.
He was in town for his usual drop from us before he headed overseas again to distribute the weapons, but if Zayn ever got wind of a party, he was going to show his face. Even if it was a children’s party.
“I have,” I agreed.
“I keep saying I need to do that. The problem being finding the right woman,” he said, shaking his head.
“You might need to stand still for longer than a day at a time to find her,” I told him.
“Sounds dangerous,” Zayn said, shrugging. “I had no idea what to get a child,” he admitted, reaching into his pocket to produce something wrapped in plain white paper. “Now, we need to go make sand art. Daniyal insists,” he claimed.
Daniyal’s blank face the entire time said that he had absolutely no interest in the task.
“What’d he give you?” Maeve asked, having untangled herself from Tony who was now talking an eager Triss’s ear off.
“Good question,” I said, turning just so I could unwrap it without being seen, because, apparently, it was rude to open gifts at parties.
“A… watch?” Maeve asked, frowning down at the men’s watch.
“It’s a De Bethune Perpetual Calendar,” I told her, almost afraid to touch the thing.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means Zayn just gave our son a first birthday present worth over a hundred grand,” I told her.
Judging by the raised brows and curious looks Maeve shot over toward Zayn, I had a feeling her next book was going to feature a handsome, mysterious, international arms dealer.