Page 26 of Made for You
Eddie nodded. “We’re glad to have you, and I know Sarah will enjoy maternity leave a lot more now with you on board.”
I smiled, hoping that would be the case.
“Beast’s a personal security expert and a man of few words, but he’s also got secret smarts, so don’t count him out based on the nickname.” He grinned when Beast grunted and gave me a sharp nod.
“Nice to meet you.”
Bruce grinned at me, then notched his chin in Dorian’s direction. “And we have no idea why he’s here because he’s technically not an employee, and yet he’s been showing up to monthly all-hands since he moved to town over a year ago.”
The man sat blank-faced without any reaction other than the most minuscule nod of all time in my direction. Already, I had questions.
“Are we doing introductions and I missed them? Shame on you, Jaws.” Kenny waltzed in and opened his arms wide. “You already know me, nickname Barbie, the man, the myth, the legend.”
“The idiot,” Beast said on a cough behind his hand.
Kenny feigned a lunge and Beast didn’t even flinch. Another ridiculously handsome man walked in with a folder under one arm, studiously focused on his phone, followed by a woman with olive skin and brown hair whose eyes darted around the room in a quick sweep.
“That’s Adam Carter, a.k.a. Doc, and Jess Korbel, a.k.a. Pop,” Bruce said, right as the man in question raised his head and speared me with stunning blue eyes, andwow.And Jess’s were this mesmerizing green I could see from across the room, plus she looked like she could be a fitness model. Had they just collected all the best-looking people? Did applications for this place usually require headshots?
“Welcome aboard,” he said, and Jess tipped her head to me, right as Kenny was whispering something presumably insulting at Beast while Beast seemed to be glaring in the newcomers’ direction.Interesting.
Tristan arrived and set a hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “That’s enough now,” he said in that quiet, steady way he had.
My eyes met Tristan’s, and he nodded. Such a calming energy, especially in contrast to Kenny’s showboat approach. Tristan had this feeling surrounding him I would describe as chill—not cold, but simply calm, cool, not about to be ruffled. Bruce possessed something similar, except every time I made eye contact with him, I felt like my insides had discovered nuclear fission and the atoms were splitting and exploding, moving from heavy to light and rendering me mildly radioactive for the next million years or so.
Okay so maybe my bedtime reading last night on the latest advancements in clean energy, one of which was the recent progress in nuclear fusion, had caught up with me. But my insides didn’t combine—they divided, devolved, practically fell apart in little internal atomic booms of attraction like now, when Bruce’s hand brushed across my lower back and urged me into a seat at the table.
Wilder strolled in a moment later, a baby cradled in his left arm, and everyone in the room visibly responded. I didn’t bother noticing anything other than Bruce.
Bruce, my neighbor and boss and impossibly good guy in a gorgeous body with a perfect smile and a local business and what I was gathering was a really attractive brain… he reached out right as Wilder said, “Hold this for a minute.”
And Bruce took the baby with the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
And I died.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Bruce
Wilder liked to pretend this baby didn’t have him wrapped around his tiny months-old finger, but it was all lies. We all knew it.
We all felt it, too, and he wasn’t even our blood. But in the same way that none of us were technically related, this place had become a family. I used to say brotherhood, but we were missing parts to it, and now with Eddie as our slightly grumpy little sister and Jess on board, it just felt right. Add to that the Washingtons, as our resident married couple, and we were one big extended family, especially when we factored in the patron Saint, Jane, as the resident mother hen to our larger familial tree.
Which had to be why I took genuine joy in holding my best friend’s baby. I’d never been a baby guy, but little James Saint had to be one of the cutest of all time, and he’d barely nailed down holding his head up and smiling.
“All right, let’s get into it,” Wilder said when he slipped into the chair at the head of the table and passed me a bottle. I took it and the proffered burp rag and went to work, ever-mindful of Nikki’s presence next to me.
As though I could forget. I’d known the instant she’d entered the building—not just because we had state-of-the-art security systems but also because I could swear the air had changed. Like something in me had become primed, ready to light some kind of flame and start an explosion the second I saw her.
Maybe it all sounded a bit dramatic. Itwas, in truth. And it felt entirely too accurate.
Nikki Hastings had a hold on me, and I honestly didn’t know how it’d happened.
Forcing my mind back to the moment and not letting it get lost on the rabbit trail that was the mess of my way-too-intense response to my new employee, I focused on the meeting and the squishy little babe in my arms.
“Boots, Cookie, and Hijack are running late, so let’s give ’em a minute,” I said, aware our guys dialing in would be slow to tune in this morning. “The Washingtons should be popping on any second.”
I’d felt Nikki’s eyes on me as I’d taken James, but I hadn’tseenthem. Did she like babies? Did she want kids?
