Page 66 of Under His Protection

“What are you thinking, being with someone like Nina?”

I sighed, hating that she’d ask this again. We’d gone over this. In the first couple of days that Nina had lived here, Eva texted, called, and flat-out confronted me about why this woman was here. I’d told her that we were dating, not wanting to mess with having to explain that we’d been pretending to be a couple. Now, it was a moot point. Nina and I were together.

“She’s not from our world.”

“So?” I leaned back on the stool I’d claimed.

“She’s a civilian.”

Not for long. The moment I knocked her up or married her, she’d be a Mafia wife through and through.

“She’s…”

I held up my hand, deducing from the snarl and disdainful expression on her face that she was ready to unleash more bitter judgment. Eva was orphaned as a young child when my sister and brother-in-law were killed. She was like the daughter I’d never had, but I was well aware of how spoiled and entitled she’d become. A Mafia princess.

“Stop right there,” I warned her. “Whatever your bias is with Nina, you need to either get better at swallowing your words or forget about them. I won’t stand back and let you question the woman I want in my life. And I won’t stand by and listen to you bitching and whining that another woman dares to be here.”

“She doesn’t fit in.”

I stood. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Ever look at it that way?”

She had no reply. Instead, she lowered her gaze and twisted her lips into a pout.

“Has she done or said anything to you to warrant your defensiveness or cattiness?”

After a long moment, she shook her head.

“Has she bothered you? Interrupted your plans or life in any way?”

Again, she stalled until shaking her head.

“Is she asking you for help? Begging you to stop what you’re doing and?—”

“No.” She lifted her chin and frowned at me. “No, Uncle. She’s not. She’s just here, and…”

“She’s going to stay, too.”

Her brows raised. “How serious is this?” Huffing lightly, she glanced to the side. “I thought… I thought it was some sort of deal. That you’d keep her from Reaper and the bikers as a way to attack them or mess with them.”

“No.” It felt like a lie. At first, I had offered to date her so the bikers would back off. It wasn’t to thwart them, though. It was just because I didn’t want her to suffer or be stuck in such a fate.

“You mean it. You actually like her well enough to want to keep her around.”

“Yes. Nina is here to stay.”

Who I was romantically involved with wasn’t any of her business. She wanted to make it her business because she worried about me. Eva was protective of me and Romeo, but she took it too far sometimes. Her default assumption was that everyone was out to get me, to get the Constellas. She was quicker to think someone was conning me than she was to consider the possibility of my being persuaded into matrimony. But there was no room to worry with Nina. She had no ulterior motive—other than to avoid the future her brother almost expected her to suffer.

“Nina isn’t going anywhere.”

She huffed. “I heard you say that last night.”

Exactly.

“She’ll be here as long as she wants to be.” As I passed her to grab things out of the fridge to start making breakfast, I added, “And you'd damn well better get used to it.”

26

NINA

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