Page 37 of The Forbidden Sitter
He eyed me with a critical glare. “Do you? Do you care about her as an employee, or do you care about her as somethingelse?”
Now I had to lie. “An employee. But also as a friend. I really like her. She’s so pure. So real. Youknow?”
“And she’s innocent, Gannon. She’s not like the women you fuck around with. She’s nothing like them, and she never will be. Not that I would give you the chance to make her into one of your flavors of the week anyway.” He took three long strides to the minifridge and pulled out a beer. I watched in stunned indignation as he opened the brown bottle and turned it up, drinking it alldown.
Well, he did need to calm the fuckdown.
“I can’t believe you think I’d hurt someone who means so much to you, Brad. It’s kind of shitty of you to think so little of me.” Okay, so what if I actually was screwing his sister? I loved her, damnit!
He tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket and walked right past me. “I’m going to go see her. Ask her some questions about you. Youcoming?”
Oh,shit!
“Yeah, I’m coming, Brad. You’ll see, she won’t have anything but nice things to say about me. All this is for nothing. You’ll see.” I hoped he would see anyway. I hoped Brooke could pull off lying to her bigbrother.
Chapter23
Brooke
The familiar clickingof Gannon’s shoes was heard by Braiden, and he took off, running full speed to find his daddy. I was right behind him, running too. Then I slowed down as I heard another set of expensive shoes. Someone was withhim.
I stayed behind Braiden, a few feet back. “Here he comes,” I heard Gannon say. “There’s my little man. Hi, son.” I imagined him holding Braiden close, reassuring him after all the chaos of the day. The poor kid had been through so much already. I only hoped today wouldn’t set him back after he’d made so much progress. We were even starting to move away from diapers to big boyundies.
When I made it to the foyer, I saw my brother was with Gannon. And he had that look in his eye that told me he was looking for information. Brad came toward me, and Gannon shook his head as he mouthed that he hadn’t told him anything aboutus.
Fear ripped through me. I’d never lied to my brother before. It seemed there was indeed a first time for everything. “Hi, Brad. It’s nice to seeyou.”
“You too, baby sis.” He came up to me, pulling me in for a hug. “We need to talk,” hewhispered.
“K.” I was on pins and needles as Gannon looked atme.
“I told Brad about what’s going on here with the threat on Braiden. He was worried about you,” Gannon said with a smile. “I told him I have the best man watching over you two and that you’re every bit as important tome…”
Brad butted in. “I need to talk to her alone, Gannon.” He pulled me away with him. “Take me to your bedroom, little sister. I want to see where yousleep.”
He was onto us. I knew he was. He wouldn’t ask me to do such a thing if he wasn’t. And the fact Gannon hadn’t told him about us told me that when he’d tried to test those waters he had talked about testing, he’d gotten some pretty badfeedback.
Oh Lord, help me lie to my overprotective brother,please!
Leading him to my bedroom, I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle things. I decided just to wait and see where he was going to go with this. “I hope you’re not worried about me being here with this thing going on. I feel very protected with Samson around. It’s so funny, I never even realized Gannon had a bodyguard before today. He stays out of the way so effectively that I never even knew he was around atall.”
“Yeah, well, with a client like Gannon, a guard has to learn how to be invisible. Gannon couldn’t bag all the chicks he has if they knew someone was right there, watching.” Brad stopped just outside my door, looking at Gannon’s bedroomdoor.
My stomach knotted as I thought about Gannon bagging chicks, as my brother had put it. “Um, this is it here.” I opened my door, and he walked in backward, looking at Gannon’s door the wholetime.
“I thought his son would be in this one. I thought you might be in the next one.” He turned and saw the door on the side of the room. “That one leads to the kid’sroom?”
“Yes,” I said as I walked over and took a seat on my bed. I pointed at the chair in the corner. “You can sit over there if you’dlike.”
Instead of taking a seat, he meandered around my room, looking everything over. “So, how’s he treatingyou?”
“Very well. He’s very nice to me.” I winced when he picked up a scarf I had hung on mymirror.
Gannon and I had taken Braiden out for a walk in the back of his property. I’d gotten hot with the scarf around my neck and pulled it off. Gannon had been feeling playful, and he had taken it from me and wrapped it around his neck. It smelled like him, and I kept it there so I could catch a whiff of him every now andthen.
I found myself cringing when Brad pulled it to him, taking a big ole sniff. “Smells like cologne. Why’s that?” He eyed me as he came up to me. Standing over me. “You know you can tell me anything,right?”
“Of course, I do.” I smiled at him and batted my lashes. “You’re my bigbrother.”
