Page 55 of Reluctant Surrender

He grabbed my chin, his fingers pinching me. “My men protecting you is no waste of time. It’s no waste protecting something so damn precious.”

His mouth crashed over mine in one of the most possessive kisses he’d ever given me. If his motive was to get his point across, he’d succeeded. Everything inside of me melted.

“Now, in the car.”

I climbed inside and pulled the skirt of my dress inside just as he shut the door. He tipped the valet and moved around the front of the car. The headlights hit him as he walked past, showing off his physique. His body was tense, strong, and even in the casualness of our night he still had so much power to wield.

“Would you have told me?” The silence in the car had dragged on for miles.

“Told you what?” he asked, giving me a quick glance.

I sighed. “If you’d lost. Would you have told me about the guy in the cellar?”

His jaw tightened. “Sure.”

“Who was he?”

He laughed. “You didn’t win.”

“But still, if you would have told me then, why not now?”

He looked at me as we pulled up to a red light. “Maggie, I will tell you almost anything you want to know, but when it’s a matter of your safety I will risk pissing you off over getting you hurt.”

“What does that guy have to do with me?”

He hit the gas and took off down the street, toward the highway. “I’m not sure yet, and until I know, it’s better if you just stay out of it.”

“But if I had won, you would have told me,” I reminded him.

His features darkened. “His name is Jared.” He sped up the car and merged onto the expressway. “That’s what I would have told you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He nodded.

I sighed and settled back into my seat. It wasn’t much information at all, but I wasn’t going to fight him about it. At that moment, I held onto one thought.

I was precious to Lukas Kaczmarek.

Chapter 26

Lukas

Light specks of snow fell from the sky just as I stepped out of my front door. My motorcycle would have to stay in the garage. I hadn’t been able to take Maggie on a ride yet, and now it would probably have to wait until next spring.

My phone went off as I went back into the house to get the car keys.

“Lukas! Finally!” Hanna, my little sister, burst through the line. “I’ve been calling you for days!”

“I’ve been busy.” I snagged the keys for the Lexus from the box inside the garage.

“Busy with your new wife, I know. And Christian is busy with his pregnant wife. And I’m here stuck at the fucking school all alone waiting for one of my brothers to give a damn about me!”

I stopped walking and gripped the phone tighter. She was in rare form. Hanna was always opinionated, strong-willed, and stubborn. All reasons our oldest brother wanted her at the boarding school. Not only to get the best education possible, but to keep her out of trouble. If she lived at home with one of us, we’d have to hire a damn nanny to keep up with her. At least at the school, she had dignity of freedom.

“Watch the language,” I chided. No matter how old Hanna got, she’d always be the little blonde girl with the pigtails and the freckles splattered across her plump cheeks.

“Oh, for fu…” She blew a hard breath into the receiver. I could imagine her pinching her nose the same way our mother used to when she was getting to the end of her rope.

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