Page 3 of Kingpin's Secret Baby

I curse myself for the foolish question. What did I expect to happen when I forced him to go on the run?

Well, I expected him to die, and to conveniently stop being a problem.

I wonder if Piers can read my thoughts, because his eyes narrow just slightly, his smile becoming more sardonic. He puts his hand over mine on his baseball cap, his fingers strong and square, setting mine alive with sparks.

“Hey there, love.”

Chapter 2

Piers

Iknew this reunion would be a shitshow, but I didn’t expect it to be lethal too.

I don’t look away from Fantasia’s face, even as a thousand emotions flash behind her eyes. I drink them all in- horror, confusion, anger, agony. She jerks her hand away from mine, but there’s nowhere for her to go on the crowded bus. We’re already standing, and her attempt to flee nearly knocks her over. I take her hand again, and before she can pull away I wrap it firmly around one of the hand grips overhead.

We’re so close I can smell the soft florals of her perfume, faded as it is after our long plane ride.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Fantasia hisses, jarring me back to the present. “Did Achilles send you?”

Her jade eyes are hard and cold and gorgeous. Her knuckles under mine are white.

I’m a little irritated she thinks I’m here under her brother’s orders. He might’ve been the one keeping me hidden from her this past year, but that doesn’t mean I move at his beck and call. In fact, my old friend will almost definitely be pissed when he realizes I’ve left London. As the newly established head of the Warwick family, I have a thousand responsibilities at Wesley Hall, after all.

And Achilles has never approved of my feelings for his little sister.

That’s why I didn’t ask for permission to board her flight and follow her to the States. That’s why, if he has words for me later, I probably won’t ask for forgiveness either.

Like it or not, this was something I had to do.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend, Fantasia?” I ask sweetly, and she blanches.

“We arenotfriends,” she spits. “Not since-” She twists her face away, hiding whatever expression comes with the memory of her coup. Her voice is even more quiet and bitter when she asks again, “What are you doing here, Piers?”

“I’m here to help you settle in, of course,” I tell Fantasia lightly. “Good thing, huh?”

“Were those your men?” she demands. “Was this all just some ploy to get me alone?”

Since she tried to sic her brother on me, I suppose it would be only fair for me to return the favor. Lucky for her, I don’t play the games of politics and blood that she grew up learning.

“I don’t know who they were, but I was under the impression your guys pissed them off first,” I say, though I can’t be sure. It all happened so fast. One moment, two men were coming out of the crowd, making a beeline for Fantasia only steps ahead of me. The next, they were being rebuked by Fantasia’s bodyguards and a shot was fired.

The way my heart stopped when that sound exploded through the airport and I didn’t know who had fired a bullet and who had been hit- it’s still sending pangs through my chest even now.

And the fact that neither of us seemed to recognize them or know what they could’ve wanted has me worried.

“What do you want, Piers?” Fantasia asks, her teeth gritted so hard I can hear them grind together.

“I told you, didn’t I?” I return, looking her up and down. “Is that all you brought? We’ll be done unpacking in an hour.”

“There is no ‘we’ here,” she spits. “I’m an exile, remember? And you’re supposed to be in London. Who’s squatting in Wesley Hall while you’re gallivanting over the ocean?”

I couldn’t care less about the old Warwick manor house right now. The place is four hundred years old, and it looks and feels it. My predecessor, Marcus Warwick, made attempts to modernize it but never finished, so many of the appliances still run on gas, and the lights flicker ominously at night.

Not to mention that it’s absolutely packed to bursting with ghosts and bad memories.

“I have my men looking after the place,” I tell her vaguely, and see the flash of jealousy in her eyes. Mere weeks ago, the place was hers, but now she’s an exile and her childhood home is mine. I can’t say it feels fair to me, but I can also admit she didn’t use her time under Wesley Hall’s roof doing anything saintly.

In fact, if she’d managed it for much longer on her own, I think it would’ve cost her her life instead of mine.

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