Page 56 of Bad Situation

Paige grins at Ellie before turning her big brown eyes on me. “I just met him, and Jen, he’s hot.”

I take a sip of my mule but frown, shaking my head while I think of the secret man who had me stripped down to nothing and gave me one orgasm before making me work for the second. If I didn’t know for a fact how good it was for me, I’d say he enjoyed it just as much. “I told you no last week. Like I have time for anyone right now, least of all someone in the public eye. You know I hate publicity. People magazine is bad enough. You think I want to add Sports Illustrated to that? No way. Where are Griff and Robert, by the way?”

“I just got Griff to sleep and put him down in the house with the nanny mom hired to watch the kids. Who knows where Robert is, but I doubt he’ll dance with me anyway. Come on, you promised me a fun night and I’m holding you to it.” She looks to Paige and grins. “Your family is the shit, by the way. Seriously, I want to be a Carpino.”

Paige rolls her eyes but smiles unapologetically. If she loves her family half as much as they’ve shown their love for her—and now my brother and his kids—they’re swimming in it and I know she doesn’t take that for granted. “They’re something, all right.” Then she looks back to us and her face sobers as she reaches out to grab our hands. “Thank you for everything. I have two sisters, a sister-in-law, and now both of you. I don’t know what I would have done without you both through everything.”

Ellie pulls Paige in for a hug. “It was really Jen. She’s the glue. I’m just a follower. But we knew if you could make our grumpy brother happy, you were a keeper. We did our best to kick him in the ass for you.”

When Paige pulls away, she has tears in her eyes and I give her hand a squeeze. “Don’t cry. You’re happily married and you’re giving us a new niece or nephew. That means Mom will obsess over you instead of us for the next year. Thank you for that.”

Paige laughs and wipes her eyes. “Trust me, she’s already started. I’m decorating the nursery as soon as we get home from Hawaii. I don’t need anyone else’s help.”

As much as Cam wants nothing to do with MI, we convinced him to take the company jet for their honeymoon since Paige is pregnant. She’ll be more comfortable and the trip will go faster with no layovers.

A group of Carpinos who have taken over the dance floor call for the bride and we all turn that way.

“See?” Ellie complains. “I want to be one of them.”

“Go,” I say to Paige. “Have fun with your people. You leave first thing in the morning.”

She turns back to us for one more hug before prancing her petite, pregnant self out to dance with her family.

Ellie tips her head back and finishes her drink. “Come on. Let’s hit the bar then we’ll join them. I’m ready to move. Dinner was heavy but at least it’ll soak up all the alcohol I plan on drinking.”

I scan the crowd until my eyes stop on something that makes them roll. “Your husband, my controller, has cornered Dad. You really need to get him to loosen up. Besides Dad doesn’t need to be talking business tonight. He should be able to enjoy his son’s wedding.”

Ellie pauses before shaking her head. “I’m not sure we’re speaking after the drive here. I asked him if, for once—for fucking once—he could try to enjoy himself. He’s so uptight lately, thinking he needs to do more to prove himself at work since he’s only married to a Montgomery. If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it a million times. I don’t know why he wanted the job. It doesn’t pay that much more than his last one.”

“Hey, you can’t fault him for wanting to be a part of MI since he’s married to you. You might not get that because you don’t care. As much as I think your husband has the personality of a light pole, he’s good at his job.”

She grabs my mule, taking a big gulp, and turns away from her husband and our father. “He wasn’t like this when we met.”

I take my drink back and give her the side eye. “So you’ve said. Forget about it for tonight. Come on, let’s hit the bar and then you can pretend you’re a Carpino for the rest of the night. My life is so upside down right now, I might do the same.”

That perks her up like the daisy she normally is and she actually bounces in her heels. “I love you, you know-it-all, perfect, executive big sister. What would I do without you?”

I look down at her—four inches shorter than me—and give her a wicked grin. “You’d probably still be grounded for all the shit I helped hide from Mom and Dad back in the day—you rule-breaking, perfect, little dancing fairy.”

She grabs my hand and throws me a look over her shoulder—a naughty smile I haven’t seen in years. “That is no fucking lie.”

*****

Eli

Sitting outside the gate of her parents’ huge-ass property, I text her again. I’d be concerned about her if this place wasn’t locked down tighter than Leavenworth and is the home she grew up in—if you can call it a home. It’s more like a high-west mansion. The party must be winding down, cars have been leaving the property in increasing frequency. I got here twenty minutes early in case she was ready to go sooner than we planned and now she’s thirty minutes late. Sitting in a car for hours is something I’m used to when doing surveillance, but I’m finding myself on edge.

Waiting on a bad guy to show his face is different than waiting on the woman who I stripped naked and had my mouth on her pussy for the first time today. I’m never anxious. It’s my job to be cool so I can think quick if I need to. Too many decisions in my work have been life-and-death ones. I trust my instincts.

On any day but today.

Right now, all I want to do is badge my way in there and wade through the suits, tuxes, and formal dresses to find her. I want to haul her back to my truck and take her home—to her condo or my shitty-ass apartment, I really don’t care. Hell, what I really want to do is drive south, cross the border, find a hut on the beach and forget the federal case against her and all the shit swirling around me.

That might be considered abduction by some but, to me, right now, it’s sounds nothing short of utopia.

If I did any of that, I’d out her and myself. Something neither of us are ready for yet.

I texted her two minutes ago and still nothing.

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