Page 20 of Unveiled Wishes

“How much am I spending for this?” I was going to take Grizz’s advice and let it play out.

“A hundred and fifty thousand. A hundred thousand to wipe away the taxes, and fifty thousand for her troubles. You could cut me the other fifty thousand formytroubles. You’re welcome.” Count smiled.

Mr. Jones came running over with a stack of papers. “I found these on the fax machine.”

Cyph couldn’t hold his laughter in at the old technology and walked away.

Count looked at the documents. “Tell her I’ll have them to her by the end of the day.”

With that, we walked out. The deal was done.

Chapter 8

Make it Right

Grace

I was making sure that the spare room was ready for How’s sister before breakfast. Tucking in the last corner of the blanket, I heard a knock on the door.

“You rang?” Pretty instantly stuck his head in the door’s crack.

“Come in.” I hurried to the door, trying to get him to move quicker. I didn’t want anyone to see him in the hallway. This was innocent, but the brothers would hound us for details. It was already going to be hard enough to get Pretty to agree to my mischievousness.

“If this is going to get kinky, I am not that kind of brother-in-law.” He paused a minute, and his eyes went to the ceiling like he was thinking it over. “Oh shit, maybe I am.”

I rolled my eyes at him as I opened the door. Grabbing his arm, I pulled him over the threshold, glanced down the hallway to make sure no one had seen him, and then closed the door.

“Damn, woman. You know I am fragile.” He rubbed at the imaginary red spot on his arm.

“Are you done being dramatic?”

He gave me a few more seconds of the wounded face, and then I watched as his regular smile appeared.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asked.

“Do you remember when you were a kid, and the older brothers would dress up like Santa with his elves for Christmas?” I was trying to appeal to happier times, hoping that it would work to win him over.

“Yeah, Bear would get the elves drunk so that they wouldn’t bitch too loudly when they had to put the costumes on. If they made a kid cry, they were on punishment duty.” He paused, and his eyes narrowed at me. “How do you know? Is this from when Sabre and the brothers were discussing Christmases past?”

“Who’s my favorite brother-in-law?” I asked with a wide, cheesy smile.

“You’re not married to my brother.” He pointed at me, making a circle with his finger.

“Small technicality, but I need a favor, and you’re the only one who can do it.” I made the same motion with my pointer finger, mirroring him.

“What did you do? You know, everyone’s been trying to figure out what’s in the stockings.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his fingers tapping against his bicep.

“I got Thunder to play Santa,” I rushed. “I just need you to be an elf and get the enforcers to play along.”

“No.” He vehemently shook his head.

“Why not?” Pretty was normally the first one to volunteer for silly shenanigans. I almost wanted to cry and beg because I needed him to play along.

“It’s tights!” He waved his hands at me, like I would easily agree that this was absurd.

“It’ll make your butt look good.” I appealed to his vanity instead. He couldn’t dig his heels in when I needed to make this happen.

His hands instantly stopped midair. “You were checking out my ass?”

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