Page 52 of Extradition (Mobsters + Billionaires 1)
“Yes, I’m fine. I suppose the meatloaf is sufficient. No need to call Grayson.” Ah, there’s the haughtiness creeping back in.
“Sufficient? What kind of bullshit answer is that?” I say, then look at him and realize he’s just fucking with me.
“You billionaire son of a bitch.” Laughing, I grab him up in a half nelson, messing with his perfect hair.
He stumbles and lets out an adorable squeak, pushing my hands away from him. “Get off me.”
I release him and bite my lip when he yanks down his T-shirt. My breathing picks up as I fixate on his discomfort, and it makes me want to soothe and fuck him simultaneously.
Instead of doing either, I spin on my heel and turn toward the kitchen, refocusing on meal prep.
Just as I’m pulling together the ingredients, Grayson walks in. “Oh, I see how it is,” he says with an anxious smile. “Trying to edge me out of a job by rendering me useless.”
I know he still feels terrible about suggesting we play hooky from the security folks, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. Rand needed to get out and see a little bit of the world. Hell, I needed it just as badly. We just should’ve been smarter about it.
“Even I know that’s a lie, Grayson. I know your list of to-dos has got to be a mile long. In fact, I bet you know him better than anyone.”
Grayson dips his head. “That I do, Joe.”
I tilt my head, waiting for eye contact. “You weren’t lying the other day, were you? Rand is a good man.”
“Yes. He very much is.” Grayson regards me for a few seconds. “And thanks to you, more people will get to see him the way I’ve seen him.”
“You think so?”
He nods, thoughtful. “You put a big crack in that mask of his, and right in time. The strain of wearing it was getting to him. I think your confrontation in that meeting was the last time he could convincingly tell that lie.”
I shift, turning toward him. “Yeah?”
“He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I wonder how he’s never stumbled. Even in that meeting, he did everything exactly from the playbook he’s been given since birth. And some part of him probably believed it. But then he spoke to a man with real power.” He gestures at me. “The kind of power that comes from understanding who you are at the core. And very quickly, all of that posturing seems very cheap indeed.”
“Do you think he likes being a leader?”
Grayson’s smile is a little uncertain, like maybe he doesn’t trust himself after everything that went down this morning. Still, he answers in the affirmative. “I think he likes it very much. I think he would like it much more if he could be the kind of leader he was born to be.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Nurturing. Gentle. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I was thinking when I suggested he find some breathing room. I think he’d enjoy…”
Grayson lets his words die off, but I need to know. “You think he’d enjoy what?”
He shakes his head, then continues. “I think he’d like to play sometimes, you know?”
“Play how? Like with the VR games?”
“Sure, that’s a start. But from a business perspective, I think he’d enjoy playing with ideas. I’d never seen him so alive until this whole incident with you. But in the Wolfe family, notions of play and nurturing, of being gentle, are viewed as female qualities, which, in their mind, is the same as weak.”
I thin my lips. “You shoulda heard how he talked about his mother this morning. Told him he sounded like his dad.”
“That’ll make him think twice,” Grayson laughs. “My mother is near the end of her life, and she’s still the kindest and strongest person I know.”
“Exactly. If Wolfe Sr. tried to tell my nonna—may she rest in peace—that she was weak for being nurturing or gentle, he’d have been dead before he got the words outta his mouth.”
Grayson’s eyes sparkle. “Not smart to mess with a Mafia wife, I suppose.”
“Too right. Nurturing the family was everything to Nonna,” I say, then pause, a harsh reality nearly taking the wind out of me.
Tilting his head to the side, Grayson asks, “What just happened, Joe? Your face went sad.”
