Page 65 of All The Way Under
I set Grimace down on the wooden deck, and he jumps into Catherine’s lap. She grins, talking to him like a little baby. He won her over, and the fatherly pride makes me swoon.
Rushing from the balcony, I head down the stairs and into the four-car garage where they’ve cleared a space for her security’s vehicle. They’re pulling a black sedan in as I exit, wearing flip-flops and swim trunks. Saylor exits the back seat quickly. Her big blue eyes locked on mine, then they dip down to my abs.
“My god, this is the only sight I’ve wanted to see since Portugal.”
Saylor runs to me, folding into my arms against my chest like a puzzle piece. This is contentment. Full, true, and pure.
Exhaling loudly, it’s as if I’ve been holding my breath while we’ve been apart. We’ve talked on the phone and do video calls before we go to sleep at night, but it’s not a true replacement for this.
Dropping a kiss on the top of her head, I inhale the scent of her shampoo and settle into tranquility.
“That’s your black truck, isn’t it?” Saylor asks, her face turned toward the garage that is indeed housing my truck. Nolan’s is on the other side, and there’s an empty bay that holds a work area with benches, tools, and anything one would possibly need to repair anything in a house.
“How did you know? Do I give off big black truck energy?” I ask.
She shrugs, still captured in my arms. She bites back a grin. “A little.”
“There you go again, without missing a beat. I’m not sure if I should be flattered or offended.”
Saylor releases the hug and walks over to my truck.
“A little of both. It’s exactly how you described it.”
A security guard hands me her duffle bag and tells me they’ll be covering the outside from all access points. I ask a few pertinent questions while Saylor rounds the vehicle and looks at the tools on the other side of the garage space. I also tell themthat the guest house on the side of this property is unlocked and has four bedrooms that they can use as a base. Saylor wants them to stay out of the way as much as possible, and putting them in the guest house seemed like the only option. She runs her hand over a drill, then spins once she hears that our conversation is over.
“Now that the business of my wellbeing is out of the way, I don’t want to even think about anything dangerous. I want to languor by the lake with a drink in my hand and not a thought in my mind. I want to meet your brother and his girlfriend and hear baby stories about you. I want to eat BBQ chicken and have sex with you all night long.”
Saylor pauses her list of very doable demands, then her smile falls.
“Dad hasn’t let me go into the office, so I’ve been working on a new project from home, not talking to anyone except Angie, our chef, my mom, and her best friend, Bitsy, short for Beatrice, who is breeding prize winning orchids in our greenhouse at the moment.” She spins and licks her lips. “I almost forgot. She also curates a personal collection of rare teas. I talked about your strange hobby all day today.”
I burst out laughing. “You don’t say. Sounds like I need to meet her. I bet she has some good options to blend.”
Saylor shakes her head vehemently. “God, no. She’s a cougar. The definition of cougar has her photo next to it. She’d have you pinned and under her middle-aged control in less than a day. Heck, maybe half a day.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You must not have any faith in me if you think I can be swayed by a tea-loving bitty.”
Saylor’s gaze looks apologetic. “You haven’t met Bitsy. If she wanted me, she’d find a way to turn me into a lesbian, Brody. I don’t know why she didn’t go into law as a hobby. No one is better at convincing people of things.”
Saylor crosses over.
“Show me to our room?” she says, and the twinkle in her gaze makes my cock hard.
I press my lips together to stifle a grin.
“This way,” I say. “Did you learn anything about tea? I can put a pot on if you’d like.”
Saylor makes a noise, grabbing my free hand as I lead her into the house.
“I should be happy that you have a random hobby that will endear you to my mother’s harem of harlots, but it’s still weird. Tea later. Where is Grimace?”
“Let’s put your stuff down, and we’ll go outside after. Grimace is with them on the second-story deck.”
We take another staircase that leads up to the top floor. Nolan had this house gutted and expanded when he purchased it. The seclusion makes it perfect for Saylor and me now.
My first day back from Portugal, I ran onto base to grab some things I left there, and that’s when my buddy told me how bad the media frenzy would be surrounding the Wyndhams, and by proxy,me. Because Bianca went rogue after Saylor was kidnapped, her face was everywhere. The details about her life are breakfast talk for the average American family. If someone didn’t know what Wyndham Technology was before the kidnapping, they do now.
The company’s stocks soared during the period that we were captive and continue to climb due to the spotlight on the family and just how intelligent and beautiful they are. It’s rare in real life to have a combination of folks who are equally brainy as they are good-looking. They are sensationalized, and Wyndham Tech is capitalizing on it. Some would say at the expense of the family’s privacy. That was the disagreement Roger had with his former law firm—they couldn’t agree on how this kind of fame should be handled. Even though Roger won in the end, tryingto shield his family from the press, the damage was done, and Jennings’s holdings in WT were stripped for breach of contract.
