Page 29 of Viktor

“He’s too pink. It wouldn’t show.”

Mason leaned down so he could whisper conspiratorially. “That’s why we use bright pink on him, like Hello Kitty pink. We’d sneak in and do it while he was asleep!”

Delia laughed and demanded he sit up and close his eyes. She proceeded to glamor his eyes up with sparkly blue eyeshadow.

Viktor pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of them, and then did a closeup of Mason’s face. This was going out to the family.

“Come on, let’s go outside. She’s perfectly safe with him.” Viktor took her arm and steered her back out onto the porch.

“What if she realizes we’re not there?” Sara worried as Viktor pulled her to the porch swing. “She’s not good with strangers.”

“She’s apparently good with the Kincaid men.” Viktor sat beside her, using his foot to propel the swing.

“And I don’t know why.”

“She knows we’ll keep her safe.” He slid closer to Sara, his arm brushing against hers. This was stupid to be so close, but after seeing his brother wrapped around her, the need to be close to her was too much. He could no more resist it than he could stop breathing.

Sara sighed and leaned back. Viktor followed her, and then she seemed to realize how close he was, because she went completely still.

He started to say something, but his phone went off. He looked to see Kade’s image pop up. He let it go to voicemail. He’d ignored his brother for days. A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt. Besides, he needed to know Kade could run the company. His brother might be a former FBI agent, but he hadn’t run a business before. Viktor wanted to see how he handled radio silence and dealt with all the issues as they arose.

“Don’t you need to get that?”

“Nah. I’ll call Kade later. It’s probably just KSI business. He can handle it.”

“I’ve never met him.”

“He’s the oldest, so maybe that’s why he’s the stuffy one.” Viktor laughed. His brother would give him a black eye over calling him stuffy. His wife called him a prude already. Angel would start calling him a stuffy prude if she heard Viktor refer to Kade like that. It might actually be worth the black eye just to irritate the fucker.

“I remember Dimitri talking about him. He’s the one who forgot he was married, isn’t he?”

Viktor grinned. It never got old ribbing his brother about that. “Kade would be the one. If you ever meet Angel, you’ll understand why we all find it funny. She’s the least forgettable person you’ll meet. Full of fire and passion.”

“I think I’m going to use that scenario in a novel,” Sara mused. “It’d be hilarious.”

“I’m pretty sure Dimitri has the same idea. Better move fast.”

“Hmm…” She looked out across the yard, thoughtful. “Maybe we should put together a box set along that theme with a couple other authors. We could donate all the proceeds to charity.”

“That should garner you all some really good publicity.”

She shrugged. “It’s not about the publicity, though. It’s about doing something that’s meaningful and important not only for our readers, but for so many out there who feel helpless every day. The more light we can shed on an issue, the better it’ll be. Without someone speaking out, issues end up buried under so much other crap.”

Sara continued to surprise him. His first thought had been of how good something like that would be for her writing career, and she went and busted that bubble. She cared more about others and what that money could do for them than she did herself. It said a lot about the kind of person she was.

“You and my brother are pretty good friends, huh?”

She smiled, and it hit him right in the gut. She had this big, genuine smile that caused her entire face to light up like the dawn cresting the morning sky.

“Dimitri isn’t just my friend. He’s family to me.”

Viktor shifted so he could see her better. “You think of my big brother as family?”

“I remember when I saw one of his posts for his debut novel. It was probably the worst thing I’d ever seen as far as marketing. It was so awful I downloaded the book just to see if it was as bad as his marketing attempt.”

“I thought Becca did all his marketing?” His future sister-in-law brought a smile to his lips. That girl was special. He’d known it when they’d met when she and D were still in high school. He also knew that girl owned his brother, even if D was too stupid to realize it during his senior year.

“This was pre-Becca. Thank God she took over all that, or he’d have fizzled out before he got started. But anyway, I read the book, and I was moved to tears by what he wrote. It was amazing. Up until then, I didn’t think a man could honestly do a romance novel justice. I thought what I was about to read was a porn novel disguised as romance.”

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