Page 16 of It Must Be Fate

A small hand finds my lower back and runs up my spine, settling comfortably between my shoulder blades as she snuggles up against my side. An addicted shiver shakes my body at having her dainty touch on me. All of sudden, I want to throw Theo at his father so I can push Nera up against the wall and slam my mouth down on hers.

“Can we not talk about torture and murder in front of the baby, please?” she asks.

Looking down at her with heated, yearning eyes, I whisper, “I want one.”

If it were up to me, I’d have put ten babies in Nera by now, biological impossibilities be damned. But my wife is training for her second Olympic medal so I have to wait three more long years. It’s only my unwavering support for her dreams that’s keeping me from saying ‘fuck it’ and pumping her full of my babies.

But once that second gold is around her neck, it’s over for her.

“Soon,” she answers with a soft smile. Leaning forward, she kisses Thiago on each cheek, much to my displeasure. “Thiago, it’s lovely to see you, come in.”

She steps back, but I block his entrance. “Kissing my wife before you’ve even set foot in my home. What’s next? Do you want to sit at my dining table? Help yourself to my robe and slippers too maybe?”

Nera scrunches her nose. “Are you comparing me to inanimate things?”

“No, I’m just saying he’s too comfortable touching what belongs to me,” I answer grumpily.

“Play nice,” she admonishes me.

“What is he doing here anyway?” I ask. My eyes drop down her body for the first time since she joined us and my brows shoot up into my hairline. “And more importantly, what the hell are you wearing?”

It’s a rhetorical question. I can see with my own two disbelieving eyes the black strappy dress she has on.

The verytinyblack strappy dress.

“Tess and I are going out for a much needed, much deserved girl’s dinner,” she explains, grabbing her purse off the foyer console.

“But I was preparing dinner for us,” I pout.

“And that’s why Thiago is here,” she counters. “You two can enjoy a nice boys’ dinner together.”

I could also‘enjoy’a nice firing squad, but I similarly choose not to.

I turn towards him with an affronted look on my face, still holding his son against my chest. “You were okay with this?”

He gives me a deadpan look. “What do you think?” With a deep sigh, he adds, “Tess threatened to not speak to me for a weekend if I didn’t say yes, so I didn’t exactly have a choice.”

Christ. There’s no hope for any of us where our wives are concerned, and it seems that he’s as whipped as the rest of us.

Looking back at my wife, I shake my head. “I’m not letting you go anywhere without me in that dress, Nera.”

Thiago cuts in before she can answer. “I felt similarly about Tess’s outfit,” he grumbles. “But I have that covered.”

He turns and waves at a couple of black cars parked on the street behind him. Six men in suits step out and nod at him.

Thiago faces us once more. “Tess has six of her own bodyguards tonight. These six are for Nera. They have orders to shoot to kill on sight if any man gets within breathing distance of our wives.”

Turns out, I might have judged Thiago too quickly.

He seems like a good man after all.

Very good morals, even better judgment.

Excellent discernment.

All around great bloke.

“That’s overki—” Nera starts.

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