Page 171 of Carnal Wagers

My brother?

A water bottle landed in my hands as I stood, and I glanced down at it in a daze. Cillian cracked it open and gave it a little push up to my mouth.

My head spun toward all the people huddled around us. At least fifteen, if not more. Liam, with his signature wink. Arthur, Big Charlie, and at least half a dozen more of Cillian’s men, their shoulders and necks marked with the O’Leary clan’s shamrock and skull tattoo. Then there was Erel, serious and unruffled as ever, surrounded by men in tactical attire that I’d spotted on my brother’s estate over the years. Lastly, and probably most surprisingly, there was my brother himself.

“Alizé,” Adrien De Villier said with a sharp nod in greeting.

Yep, that was my brother all right. Cold and to the point, with only a few rare niceties sprinkled in on rare occasions—except for his wife. She got everything no one else did. Good thing I wasn’t dying, or I’d keel over without receiving so much as a glint of concern, never mind a hug.

“You really know how to steal the attention,” he added in French.

I ignored the reprimand with a tired smile. Getting shipped to Colombia might not have been my end goal, but forcing his hand into getting involved…yeah, that was all me. His own fault, really. He and Erel should have taken me seriously when I first requested the hit on Sosa.

“So you’re working together?” I asked between gulps of cool, fresh water. If only I could bathe in it.

Sweat stains decorated what remained of my thermal outfit, and my hair clung to my face in patches. I felt like a petri dish cultured specifically for mosquitoes.

Just in case, I checked for spiders on the ground, the stalks, and clusters of bananas. Nothing. Nevertheless, I stayed close to my husband, knife tight in my grip, in case one of them came at me. Against men with guns, I hated being treated like a damsel in distress, but against spiders and critters, I’d play that role as if my life depended on it.

“Someone got herself kidnapped. There wasn’t much of a choice,” my brother snarked.

“Don’t lie. You’re enjoying being away from your desk right now.”

“Maybe,” he grumbled.

“How is Tessa’s pregnancy going?”

The crowd around me thinned considerably. Actually, come to think of it, none of the Irish, other than Cillian, lingered around anymore, not even his brother. I then caught sight of some of Endgame’s tactical team jogging in the direction of the road. What was going on?

“She’s wishing for her first trimester to end. So am I. I can’t deal with her being sick.”

“Uh huh,” I muttered absently, taking a step toward whatever commotion everyone was headed toward. “I heard that doesn’t last forever.”

He blocked my path, arms crossed, fists tucked beneath his armpits, and I grunted with annoyance at his stance.

“What?”

“Later, you and I”—he pointed between us with harsh gestures—“we need to talk.”

Granted, a lack of food was leaving me a bit woozy, and this heat was killing me, but I couldn’t find a single reason, aside from the Urabá cartel and our family’s alliance with the O’Learys, for us to pick up a conversation when we’d done swimmingly avoiding practically all discussions in months.

“What in the devil about?”

He cut the little distance between us with two strides, each one charged with his blustering need to always dominate the conversation. Cillian made to step between us, but I held him back. Adrien was all bark and no bite when it came to family. His intimidation tactics had long ago stopped working on me. He just hadn’t figured that out yet.

“You’ll need to explain why my second announced to me on the plane here that he’s planning on leading an expansion branch in the US and wants my blessing.”

“Ah.” I scratched my cheek, half thrilled that Erel was finally willing to make Maeve his priority and move to the States as I’d suggested, and half pleased at how much it irked my younger brother. “What can I say? Feel the love and go with it.”

“Erel? In love?” My brother blew a raspberry.

The man in question pivoted around at the sound of his name, phone to his ear. He stood in the middle of the dirt road offshoot I had turned into last night before crashing into the grove of bananas. With his typical grouchy frown plastered on, he headed our way.

“Are we talking about the same man?” Adrien joked.

I shrugged as I finished the last drop of my water. “Maybe. Just maybe, his heart is as gooey on the inside as anyone else who’s found that one person they’re meant to be with. We all fall eventually.”

I gazed up at my husband lovingly. This man was the very definition of that for me. Not once since he arrived had he left my side. His hands hovered over my arms, never quite touching, which was a blessing in this sweltering, tropical oven. It was the reassurance I needed not to crumble under the weight of all the stress I’d felt since waking up in that trunk.