Page 80 of Broken King

Her chipper way fades a bit, but she keeps the show going. “Yeah, sure. She’s so sweet.”

Good. Sabrina picked up on what I was really saying. Now she needs to remember it.

“So you and Ronan seem to be getting close,” I say with a flatness that doesn’t give away that I know what she’s been up to.

Once more, she perks up. “Oh, he’s so great. I’m so happy he found Theo. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how he got into the master bedroom. But Ronan saved me, so I owe him big.”

I lean in toward her side of the table and fix my gaze on her. “Don’t you mean he saved little Theo?”

That throws her off, and for the first time since we started talking out here today, she stumbles. “Oh, yeah, I mean, sure. My focus was always on Theo. I’m just so happy he’s all right.”

“Uh-huh.”

I let her stew in that for a few minutes as I listen to Theo squeal with delight in the pool. Like the brother he’s named after, that kid is one big bundle of life. He’s also not even a year old and still hasn’t mastered standing, even in his crib.

That’s how I knew less than thirty seconds after Ronan came rushing into my room in a panic that there was no way in hell that kid got out of his crib, crawled out into the hallway, and got all the way to the master bedroom. Little Theo was never in any danger because she set the whole thing up to get Ronan to be her savior. That way she could profess her undying gratitude and have yet another tie to him.

My youngest brother is dealing with too much between struggling with the reality of his new life without a right hand and how he feels about Kate to figure it out. That girlfriend of his is smart, so I bet she knew the truth, though. That’s why she ran out of here so upset.

Hopefully, Ronan explained to her in that kind way of his that Sabrina is just the nanny and nothing else in his life. If I know him, he found a way to reassure Kate. Those two are meant for one another, so I think they’ll figure out how to get past what this little minx has been up to lately.

She doesn’t look at me as I sit here pretending to enjoy this beautiful sunny day. Like Ronan said, at first glance, it seems odd that she didn’t latch onto me instead of him.

He’s too good a person to understand why she wouldn’t, but I know. Sabrina saw him as an easy target. She must have thought it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. He’s struggling with what he lost and was barely hanging on. All she had to do was flash him a pretty smile and walk around here pretending likeshe was Miss Helpful. Ronan was so lost in his misery he didn’t see her trying to ingratiate herself with him.

But I did. It didn’t take a day from when I arrived to see what she was trying to do. Now she’s going to find out her plan is blown. Let’s see how she takes that. Something tells me Matthias and Ava are going to need a new nanny pretty soon.

“I saw Ronan and Kate leaving right after he found Theo. They’ve been in love for a long time. Did you know that?” I ask Sabrina but don’t directly look over at her.

No need to look into her eyes to see her reaction. All I need to do is stare straight ahead and catch how her mood changes in my periphery.

Unlike my youngest brother, I’m not kind nor am I nice. Now she’s dealing with a King who knows how to manipulate as well as she does.

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you. What did you say?” she asks, and now all her sweetness is gone.

Interesting how different she sounds when she isn’t pretending to be the sweet, young thing. She almost seems like a much older, much more jaded version of herself.

After nearly a minute of making her wait, I turn my head to look at her and smile. “Just shooting the breeze. I’m happy for Ronan that he and Kate are back together. They’ve been in love since high school.”

She’s practiced at controlling how her emotions show on her face, but I can see in her eyes she’s disappointed the King brother who seemed like such an easy target isn’t anymore. That only leaves me if she’s looking to snag her a man with money in this family, but that won’t happen.

“Can you watch Matty for a few minutes? I need to visit the little girl’s room,” she says, her perky act back in full force as she stands up to go inside the house.

“Take your time.”

She disappears behind me, and I hook my foot onto the front of the stroller to pull it toward me. Leaning down, I tickle Matty and make him giggle.

“Can you believe she thought she could pull that nonsense off without anyone noticing?” I say to him.

Of course, it might have happened if I didn’t show up. Matthias is swamped between work and everything here, and Ava has her hands full with two children under a year old. Eleanor is too sweet, just like Sabrina said, so she may not have figured out what she was up to.

And Ronan? Until Kate started coming around, he couldn’t see any future that included love and happiness for him ever again. He was like a sitting duck primed to fall for Sabrina and all the attention she was giving him.

I knew the second Matthias mentioned to me when I called a couple weeks ago that Sabrina and Ronan were getting close that something felt off. Not that he wouldn’t have a woman interested in him, but knowing how difficult he’d been with everyone since he moved here, something wasn’t right.

It only took one day to see Sabrina had set her sights on Ronan for reasons that had nothing to do with actually caring for him. I couldn’t let that happen to him. He’s my baby brother, and even though I enjoy busting his balls about nearly everything, it’s my job to protect him like we all did for his entire life.

So just like that day I found him bleeding out and close to death, I did what I had to do. A well-placed word or two with Kate that night at the restaurant when I knew neither she nor Ronan would move fast enough to ensure Sabrina didn’t sink her claws into him and that’s all it took.

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