Page 114 of Wilde and Deadly

“That’s not your call to make, baby girl. You’re family. And family doesn’t just walk away because you screwed up. You should know that by now—after all the shit you’ve seen my men pull. Hell, after all the shit your sister’s pulled. And I’ve kept them all around.”

A laugh caught in her throat—rough, brittle. She wasn’t sure if it was amusement or something closer to grief. Maybe both. “I do know it, Dad.”

“Good. So you can come home now, and we’ll figure out the rest later.” A pause. A breath. And when he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its gruffness. “Just come home, Rowan. Your mother misses you.”

Translation:I miss you.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her lids to hold back the tears. How easy he made it sound. As if stepping back into the life she’d left behind was as simple as walking through the front door.

But it wasn’t that easy. It never had been.

She wanted to tell him that. Wanted to say that she wasn’t ready, that there were still things she needed to do, that she wasn’t the same little girl he imagined her to be.

Instead, all she managed was a whisper. “I don’t know if I can.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and knowing.

Then, after a beat, he made a sound that was half grumble, half sigh. “Don’t make me hire Davey again, for fuck’s sake. The man charges too much.”

Rowan huffed out something that was almost a laugh. She tipped her head down, resting her forehead briefly against Davey’s shoulder before turning her face into his neck and breathing him in. “If it’s any consolation, I think he’d do it for free now.”

Davey let out a quiet chuckle, shifting beneath her as he lifted their joined hands. He mouthed, “Damn right,” before pressing a kiss to her palm.

A choking sound crackled through the receiver. “Who the hell was that?”

“Davey.” She let herself sink into him, her body molding against his as she matched the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. “If you used video like a normal person, you’d know he’s right here with me.”

There was a beat of dead air, thick with suspicion.

“Withyou?” Gabe finally said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, measured tone she knew too well. “Rowan Kendra Bristow, you better not be telling me what I think you’re telling me.”

Why did she suddenly feel like a teenager caught making out on the couch?

She curled into Davey’s chest a little more, and his arms tightened around her in a silent show of support. “If you think I’m telling you that Davey and I are together, then yes. I love him.”

Silence.

Then—a sharp inhale, followed by the kind of explosive sound a volcano might make before it obliterated an entire coastline.

“Oh, fuck, no. Not a Wilde. Not Jude-fucking-Wilde’s son.”

Rowan could practically see it—the way his granite face darkened, his skin turning a dangerous shade of red, a vein in his temple about to burst. A beer bottle was definitely being squeezed within an inch of its life.

Yep.

This was a full Dad detonation.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “After everything I just told you,that’swhat you’re mad about?”

“I paid him to find you—not to put his damn hands all over my baby girl like he owns her! Like he—” A sharp inhale, followed by a muttered curse. “No. Fuck, no. I forbid it.”

She grinned, and even though her dad couldn’t see her, she slid a hand under Davey’s shirt, fingers gliding over the hard ridges of his abs.

Davey sucked in a sharp breath, his whole body going rigid beneath her.

Oh, she knew that reaction. Knew exactly how ticklish he was.

Her grin widened as she dragged her nails lightly across his skin.

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