Page 114 of The Price of Forever

I still had emotions. I’d just bottled them up so tightly I’d forgotten they were there.

“Go on,” Trojan prompted.

“What if we do fall in love and then something happens to her?” My heart raced as I spoke, my mouth suddenly dry. This fear had lain quiet and slithering inside me since the second I saw Jordan and realized I needed to have her. “Like what happened with Olivia.”

Trojan’s voice was softer when he spoke this time. “Seven, dude, that’s not—”

“She’s putting herself in danger. I can be there alongside her. I know this. But I can’t prevent everything. I didn’t prevent what happened with Olivia. I wasn’t there. And I just feel like the closer we get, the better chance there is that something might…happen to her.”

“Dude. First of all, you falling in love with someone does not curse them to getting hurt or worse. I promise you. History’s not gonna repeat itself.”

“You don’t know that,” I told him.

“You’re right. I don’t. But I do know there’s no cause and effect there.”

I sniffed, inspecting my hands as I rubbed them together. “I know we can’t be together while her brothers are my employer. They made that clear. But I can’t keep myself off her.”

“You need space,” Trojan said.

“Yeah.” I needed it desperately.

“Assign her a different guard like you had planned,” Trojan went on. “That’s step one. Then stay busy. Focus on your business. You’ll figure out how to fix this once you get some space. Just don’t lose sight of the goal, my man.”

I nodded, trying to plant Trojan’s words so deeply they rooted and took over. I knew he was right. And part of the problem was that over the last couple of weeks, I’d secretly made Jordan my goal.

I’d lost sight of my real goals.

And that needed to change.

Now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

JORDAN

Thud thud thud.

I jolted awake, looking around me. This wasn’t my bedroom. It wasn’t Seven’s room. It wasn’t even my old bedroom. I rubbed at my eyes as the knocking returned.

“Rise and shine, cupcake!”

Axel’s voice. Then the doorknob turned. Axel strutted in a moment later, bringing memories with him. The fuck-you feast from the night before. The vast quantities of wine consumed. The laughter, the fun, the bone-deep warmth.

I groaned, looking toward the nightstand. I grabbed my phone to check the time. Ten a.m. “Aren’t you up early…?”

“Is ten early for you?” He strode to the curtains along the far wall, tearing them open like a museum director revealing his finest art. Sunlight streamed in, making me squint.

“Considering what time we went to bed last night…yeah.”

He grinned, easing into an armchair along the wall. “Well, I’ve got a lot of annoying big brother activities to catch up on. The wedgies are coming next.”

I collapsed back onto my pillow, laughing. My brothers were hilarious—a fact I was reminded of by the distant muscle pain I had from so much laughter the night before.

“Damian will handle the noogies,” he went on.

“Then I’ll have to make up for lost annoying little sister time somehow,” I shot back. “I might hack your social media accounts and tell the world how much you love eating boogers if you’re not careful.”

Axel’s eyes turned to slits. “Don’t you dare.”

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