Page 35 of Beneficial Misfortune

“She was freaking out. It took me a second to understand, but I left Vince with Addison and went back. I wasn’t sure what was wrong. All she managed to tell me on the phone was that she needed help and didn’t have anyone else to call. I found her crying in the hallway.”

“What the fuck?” I shout, bolting upright from my chair.

Of all the things I expected him to say, this hadn’t been it. I thought maybe she’d caught his attention the way she had ours, and maybe she still had, but fuck me if this doesn’t make me see red.

“Someone had broken into her apartment, busted the door down, and ransacked the place. I couldn’t just leave her there.”

I’m mad, damn near seeing red. But also grateful that he didn’t leave her and happy she called him.

Slumping back in the chair, I let myself seethe for a second before I let it go, for now.

“Did she file a police report?” I ask, and he nods.

Shit, well, we can still work with that.

“We’ll come back to that later, all of us. But that still doesn’t really answer my question. We own six houses on this street just for staff. So pray tell, brother, why she’s in our house instead of the one intended for the nanny.”

His jaw ticks, but he knows as well as I do that I’ve got him. Nate bringing her in isn’t strange. As I said, we have housing for that. But we made a deal after Natasha. We don’t bring women into the house. It’s the whole reason we have the pool house.

A smile pulls at my lips as I watch him struggle to find an answer to appease me, and he comes up blank.

“So tell me, dear brother, how did you two meet?”

And he does.

Apparently, they met a few months ago, and just like Des and myself, he was taken by her beauty at first, which was only made sweeter by the fact that she had no idea who we were. Seeing Katherine with Addison is what sold him, though. I can see it in his eyes when he talks about seeing them together.

Finding a nanny for Addison has been a fucking challenge. She’s got a lot of energy, she’s smart, and stubborn, but more than anything, most of the ones we hire seem to only be doing it to try to get into our good graces for one reason or another. Some think they can be the one to tie us down, while others have sold our personal information to tabloids and other bullshit places.

It’s not fair to Addison, but there's nothing we can really do about it.

“I told you, you’d like her,” I say, unable to help myself once he’s finally done catching me up.

“Yes, well, that’s not what I think we need to be discussing right now,” he says, not even bothering to try and deny it.

Good, because we both know it would be a lie.

“No, you're right, it’s not. Though it’s still true.”

He waves me off, but before we can continue our conversation, the door flies open and Des strolls in with a smile on his face and a pep in his step.

Yeah, we have a lot to talk about because there’s no way I’m letting her get away again.

Chapter 12

Iwake up in the morning tangled in my blankets and sweating. It has nothing to do with the actual temperature of the room and everything to do with the dreams of three sexy men and the things they could do to my body. It started like my dreams of them usually do, reliving our night of fun in the pool house, but somewhere along the way Nathan joined in, and if I thought it was hot with the two of them…

Fuck, three of them were otherworldly.

At least they were in my dreams, though I can’t imagine it would be anything less.

Looking at my phone, I find it’s only five. With the summer program ending yesterday, I have no reason to be up right now. The movers won’t be here until around ten, but there's no way I’m going to be able to go back to sleep now.

The house is quiet as I make my way down the hall, and I walk slowly, taking in the dark wood of the walls and the carpet beneath my feet. The sun is just starting to rise, pouring through the window behind me, but even still, the hall is full of shadows, making it almost creepy to be alone. The sound of my footstepsmight be muted by the soft carpet, but not one hundred percent, and with the high ceilings, the sound bounces around until I’m suddenly walking a lot faster.

Making it to the stairs, I slow down so as not to fall down the stairs in my haste, but I make sure not to look behind me until I’ve made it to the kitchen. This house is going to take some time to get used to.

Ruby is lying in the kitchen when I enter, and he pops up, nearly giving me a heart attack. He growls at first, but it quickly dies when he realizes who I am, and he lays back down.

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