Page 6 of Mistletoe and Mayhem

“No, there’s never a good time for an ex to rock up into your world,” I told Chrissy and turned to Cheri. “And yes, he was a lovely ex, though it was a short but blazing relationship, and yes, he kissed excessively well and hasn’t lost the skill.” This last was directed at Ana. “And before you bombard me with more, no, I had no idea he was a soldier, or that he’d turn up here, or that he was even an Aussie! I met him at the strip bar I was working in Bangkok, and I thought he was Russian.”

Every mouth shut around the table and eyes grew wider. I couldalmostfeel Ryker’s approval in drawing and maintaining a crowd. The girls shifted as one and I could sense the oncoming storm of gossip—

“Oooh,” I gasped as a tiny foot hit me in the center of my spine. Air whooshed from my lungs and the gossip turned from imminent destruction-level to baby love.

Chrissy and Cheri cooed around me while Ana scooted a little closer, checking my teacup and hovering her hands over my bump. She looked at me uncertainly and leaned back.

“It’s fine,” I reassured her. “The bump is house property. At least, that’s what we were calling it.”

Her eyes widened further, and pity edged into the overdose of baby wonder.

Dammit.

“No, it’s fine. It’s your bump and your special time,” she murmured, scooting backward as though feeling the shades of the twins as keenly as I did.

“I didn’t mean to—” I started helplessly as she shook her head, hands up as she backed away further.

Sighing, I placed my hands to either side of my bump and pressed in gently. A tiny fist popped right on back, leaving me with a smile.Good to know you're awake,I said silently.Baobei has a long way to grow.

Our scans had been good, and the baby was the right size and growth set them dead-set in the middle of all the graphs my eyes bleared over trying to read. There were no health worries, only an obvious gap in our family tree.

The girls rushed around me, doing everything and nothing while I sat still in the eye of the metaphorical storm, reflecting. They took me in as family—the boys, too—when I lost the twins, despite our unusual three-way arrangement. But I was so grateful that, like the boys, the unit hadn’t made me choose, either.

Ace set me to work on compiling intel and collating patterns, since that seemed to be something I had upskilled in, working in the strip bar what seemed a lifetime ago. I could watch reconnaissance footage and gauge the motivations of most of the people in the room.

What I couldn't work out, Cheri, our office manager who had a talent for reading micro expressions, picked up and, together, the two of us were a reasonably formidable team.

Thus, we had a home, and a purpose. Considering I still didn’t own a passport, or even a fake driver’s license, it made getting medical attention a bit of a struggle but nine times out of ten the boys sweet talked their way into everything they needed. That wastheircombined talent.

The chatter around me slowed as the girls seemed to realize I was all right. But their attention wasn’t the only one that weighed on me. I glanced up through my lashes, searching the shadows...there. Leaning against the wall opposite and around the corner a little, Ruski lounged in his particular way. He stood half in the shadows, and I knew the only reason I saw him was because he wanted me to see him and that...that did strange things to my stomach.

Nothing I said to the girls was a lie. We had a brief relationship that sang with sparks, a whirlwind of love and lust and hot Bangkok nights. Nights spent with far less clothing on than any normal couple in a honeymoon period. Not only could the man kiss—my stomach flopped over and ran into a growing mini human at belly height—but he could fuck.

Even as a late teen or twenty-something— or whatever age he’d been then, the Russian mafia prince had all the skills in the right places. I hadn’t lied about that either; I hadn’t known he was military until the moment he turned up at the door to Fairview House hours ago.

But I had known what his father did, who his family was, even if he tried to hide it.

There was no hiding a Familia like the Boryenkas in any country.

Which was why it scared me a little that Ruski let me see him, that I knew he was there. And I wasn’t sure if that should be more terrifying, seated in a secret military unit base where I doubted that anyone of the covert ops unit knew just how dangerous a wolf they let into their home.

But when Helix trotted into the kitchen followed by her trainer, who looked distinctly sour and tight around the lips, I couldn't help stealing a glance at Ruski where he stood listening in on three conversations at once from his place in the doorway. More than once, Noah King looked his way, Scotty Evans too, but neither said a word, waiting, I suspected, on Ace’s command.

When he caught me staring, he gave me a wink that heated my core temperature several degrees and slipped deeper into the shadows.

The girls drew me back into their conversation by design, each flitting cautious glances at me as though I was likely to explode in a mess of baby goop at any time. I let them, though my lips curled in a smile that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the man who slipped so easily into the house and caused so much mayhem and chaos in such a short period.

The boys would have approved.

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