Ms. CEO's Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Till Breakfast

Finn fell asleep in the car with a paper shark hat crushed under his cheek.

Abe carried him up to bed.

I took the hat off and found chocolate in his ear.

"Is Aunt Brooke in trouble?" Finn asked, with his eyes shut.

"Yes, baby."

"Big trouble or timeout trouble?"

"Big."

He thought about it.

"Technically she gave me two scoops," he said, and was asleep again.

Abe stood in the doorway with his hand on the frame.

He'd been holding himself together since the deck.

I watched it come apart in the hall light, very quietly, so it wouldn't wake our son.

Downstairs I put the kettle on and he sat at my table with his elbows on his knees.

"I'll go to Geneva tomorrow," he said. "Alone. I'll tell him you won't come."

"And he'll know something's wrong."

"Then he knows."

"No." I put a mug in front of him. "He thinks he's winning. Let him."

He looked up.

"He wants a wedding and a widower," I said. "His brother's girl, his brother's son, his brother's company. He's patient. He's waited six years."

"So we give him the wedding," I said. "Or the start of one. And never the widower."

"Yvette."

"If he asks me, I say yes."

He stood up so fast the chair scraped.

"You will not let that man put a ring on your hand."

"I'll let him put it on. I'll take it off in front of everyone he's ever lied to."

"He ordered your death on a terrace."

"I know. I was there."

He walked to the sink and stood with his back to me and his hands on the edge of the counter.

His shoulders rose and fell.

"I can stop him tonight," he said. "One call. Nobody would ever find him."

He said it quietly.

I believed him completely.

"And then what do I tell Finn?" I said. "That his father makes people disappear?"

"I'd tell him his uncle went to Geneva."

That was so terrible I laughed.

He turned around.

"I want him to fall where people can see it," I said. "I want his mother to watch. I want the cameras. I want my board and your board in the same room when he hears it in his own voice."

"We don't have his voice."

"We will."

He looked at me for a long moment, the CEO in a sweater with chocolate on her sleeve.

"Tell him tomorrow that Finn has a fever," I said. "Buy us days."

"You've done this before."

"I've run a board for four years. It's the same thing with fewer guns."

He came back across the kitchen.

He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me, hard.

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark.

"Upstairs," I said. "My room. Lock the door."

He kept my face in his hands.

Then his hands were gone.

I heard the lock turn.

I heard the sound of it settling into the old wood.

He crossed the room to me slowly.

His eyes didn't leave my face.

That look had a weight to it.

The lamp on the nightstand was already on.

He stopped at the edge of the bed and reached for the hem of my sweater.

He didn't ask.

He peeled it up over my head and dropped it on the floor.

My bra was plain grey cotton.

He looked at it like it had insulted him.

"This whole house is beige and grey," he said. "Take it off."

I did.

He watched my hands do it.

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