Blake, Abby - Wild Fascination [A Bride for Eight Brothers 3] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) (4 page)

“You should’ve told me,” she said quietly. He couldn’t deny that. He should’ve told her. He’d wanted to protect her from the ugliness of his ex-fiancée’s ambitions, but selfishly he needed her close.

“I’m sorry, Mikayla. I should’ve told you.”

“You should’ve,” she agreed, “but the three of us will be beside you for this afternoon’s meeting.” He opened his mouth to protest her involvement, but she put a hand over his lips to stop the words. “And we’ll talk about honesty later. Right now I need my wayward husband to make love to me.”

Ryan and Ty’s faces lit up with excitement, but Peter was quick to douse that idea. He might share his wife with his brothers, but he wasn’t about to share her in his bed. They both gave him rueful looks, indicating that they knew full well his thoughts on that matter, but they smiled and indicated for him to lead the way.

Peter sent his brothers a nod of gratitude and then lifted his beautiful wife to her feet. They held each other close as they headed to his hotel room. It still didn’t feel quite real as he left his brothers in the living area and took his wife into his hotel bedroom. She kissed him all over as he tried to strip her of clothes. He carefully levered her shoes off and kissed the red marks where they’d rubbed her skin raw.

Mikayla was so beautiful in such a natural way that he couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than his wife pregnant and barefoot. It was such a sexist attitude that he didn’t voice it out loud, but he hoped that one day soon he could convince her to try again. He could understand her reluctance after the miscarriage and was more than willing to give her time, but he loved the idea of her as the mother of his children.

She sighed as he lifted her onto the bed and began worshipping every part of her he could reach. He dipped his head to taste her honeyed warmth and massaged her thighs as they began to quiver. She tilted her hips higher, demanding more, and he gave it to her, unable to deny her anything. She rode his tongue, her hands fisted in his hair, her pussy slick and swollen. She moaned when her orgasm hit and he gentled her with soothing, long strokes of his tongue.

She tugged his hair, and he moved up her body, fitting his cock against her entrance, pressing in slowly as he watched her face. She held him with her body, trapped his heart with her love and ensnared his soul for all time.

When his orgasm came, he sighed at the perfection of the moment and caressed his wife’s lovely face. She smiled sleepily and he rolled onto his back, pulling her over him, staying inside her where he belonged.

It wasn’t long before Ryan and Ty woke him, so he could attend the negotiation, but this time he wasn’t going alone. This time he had his family to support him.

* * * *

Mikayla’s first glimpse of the woman who would sue her husband was disconcerting. Dressed in a formal power suit with high heels and perfectly styled hair, Jessie Evans made Mikayla feel more than a little underdressed. Mikayla glanced down at her simple cotton sundress and smoothed a wrinkle from the front with her slightly shaking hand.

Maybe this was a really bad idea. Peter had spent the last hour arguing that she should stay at the hotel with Ryan and Ty. When she’d explained that her place was at her husband’s side, he’d tried to order her to stay behind. That hadn’t gone down very well. She might enjoy being submissive in bed, but that didn’t mean she would let her men dictate her life outside of the bedroom.

She swallowed nervously, tried to find the courage she thought she possessed, and quietly listened to the conversations going on around her. The woman smiled at her, the expression far from friendly, and Mikayla tried not to feel even more intimidated.

Even though Peter held her hand in a comforting grip, and Ryan and Ty stood off to her left, Mikayla couldn’t quite shake the cold contempt she sensed from Peter’s ex. The woman’s smirk certainly seemed derogatory. She looked Mikayla over for another moment, apparently assessing her potential as a rival, and then dismissed her just as quickly. To say the woman was extremely intimidating was probably an understatement.

What Mikayla couldn’t quite understand was how Peter would’ve ever considered himself in love with her. The woman gave off a vibe that surely every other person in the room could sense. Or maybe not. Mikayla was the only other woman in the room. The men seemed oblivious to Jessie’s malice. Mikayla glanced away, trying not to look in the woman’s direction. A moment later she realized her mistake.

“Ryan, Ty, how lovely to see you again.”

“Again?” Ryan said, sounding startled. “I’ve never even met you.”

“Oh, darling, how you wound me. Peter is being positively arctic, but I never expected you two to reject me as well.” The woman did a good job of looking stricken, but Mikayla could see through the ruse even if the lawyers couldn’t. Everyone in the room watched the exchange closely. The woman’s lawyer even smiled slightly as Jessie Evans played the jilted lover to a waiting crowd. “Peter even brought a date to our reconciliation talks. I’ve tried so hard to have him love me, but he couldn’t be more callous if he’d taken a knife to my breast.”

Mikayla rolled her eyes. She may have felt intimidated by the well-groomed bitch, but the woman was laying it on a bit thick. Reconciliation talks?

“Is that what you’re calling it now?” Peter asked disdainfully. “Reconciliation? It sure feels like you’re trying to sue me for everything I have. That’s not reconciliation in my book.”

“Well, I can see by the little homewrecker attached to your arm that you have no intentions of trying to settle our differences, so I have no choice but to protect myself and ensure my financial future.” The sweet smile the woman managed chilled Mikayla to the bone. It was the sort of smile a predator wore when the prey had nowhere else to go.

Peter’s lawyer stepped up to him, urging him not to engage in any more conversation, but Peter seemed unable to walk away from such obvious lies. “Mikayla is not a home wrecker, she’s my wife. I met her nearly two years after you and I broke up.” The look of interest in the woman’s eyes was quite chilling. Obviously she’d heard something she liked. “And as to your financial future, I suggest you go find some rich fool to hand over his money and leave me and my family alone.”

The woman did it perfectly. Her bottom lip quivered, her shoulders shook, a strangled gasp escaped her perfectly made up lips, and then she managed to rush from the room while looking both heartbroken and distressed without getting a hair out of place. Displaying concern Mikayla doubted they actually felt, her lawyer and several others followed.

Peter’s lawyer shook his head. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

Peter shrugged, clearly not concerned by his lawyer’s wish. The man turned his attention to Mikayla. “Are you married only to Peter?” She shook her head as Peter became very still. “How many brothers are you married to?”

“All of them,” she answered in a small voice. What the hell was going on? Polygamy was legal. Granted, eight husbands was unusual, but it was certainly no crime.

“Damn, Peter, I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Why?” Ryan asked as he stepped forward to take Mikayla’s other hand in his own.

“Because now Ms. Evans has reasonable proof that your engagement was a promise to marry all of you. I can practically guarantee that her lawyer is tracking down your marriage certificates as we speak. This could get really ugly.”

Peter nodded his head, his hand squeezing Mikayla’s tighter, as the gravity of what he’d done seemed to sink in. Mikayla wanted to reassure him that Jessie probably would’ve found out about their marriage anyway, but it was probably best for her to remain silent now and listen to what their lawyer was saying.

“Contact your brothers. We need to consider offering some sort of settlement. If this gets to court, she could very well win half of all of yours and your brother’s assets and maybe even a yearly alimony payment.”

“But she’s never even met us,” Ryan said through his tightly clenched teeth. The lawyer just shook his head.

“It will come down to your word against hers. Even if you can prove that you’ve never met her, she’ll just claim that Peter was speaking for all of you.” The lawyer grabbed his notepad and started packing his briefcase. “I’ll speak to her counsel on the way out, but I’m sure they won’t be back at the negotiating table today. They’ll want to gather every bit of information they can, so they can claim a huge payout. You should expect a particularly unpleasant day tomorrow.”

* * * *

Ryan couldn’t quite believe he was being sued by a woman he’d never even met, let alone that she was suing him for breaking an engagement he hadn’t been a part of. Hell, from what their lawyer had said, the woman’s claim was not only solid but likely to cost them plenty if it ever got before a judge.

“We need to contact the others,” Peter said tiredly, “and let them know the mess I dragged them into.”

“Peter,” Mikayla said softly, her heart obviously breaking for him. “This isn’t your fault. You have every right to search for love. Just because she wasn’t the right woman for you doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.” He didn’t look convinced. “We are a family. We’ll get through this as a family. Okay?” He nodded. “No more secrets. We need to know exactly what’s happening. Where did she get the idea to claim she was engaged to all of you?”

Peter looked uncomfortable but managed to force the words past his throat. “Because I asked her to consider meeting my brothers and maybe sharing their beds.”

Ryan didn’t think he could be any more surprised than he was at the meeting. Turned out he was wrong. Peter had wanted to share a wife even before they’d met Mikayla? It seemed so far out of the realms of possibility that Ryan had to look to his twin for confirmation. Ty just shrugged, clearly as astonished as Ryan.

“But she never met them?”

“She met John, who didn’t say if he liked her or not, and Matt, who disliked her immediately, but not the others. I think she just got lucky today with Ty and Ryan because she knows my youngest brothers are twins.”

“What happened when you suggested she sleep with the others?”

Peter rubbed his hand over his face, and Ryan could see the toll this was taking on him. Peter had always been rather serious, but today his skin looked pale and unhealthy, his eyes were puffy, probably from lack of sleep, and his shoulders slumped forward in defeat.

“She demanded that I sign over the business and all of our assets to ‘lie with my miscreant brothers.’” He used his fingers as quote marks indicating they were her derogatory words, not his.

Less than four hours ago, Ryan couldn’t have imagined a woman so callous as to demand that sort of payment under the guise of love, but having met Jessie Evans, he now had a very clear picture. The woman was a first-class bitch.

Chapter Four

Ty lay on the bed, his wife cuddled to his side, his twin cuddled behind her, and his older brother asleep in the chair beside them. Mikayla had insisted that they needed to be together tonight, and Ty had wholeheartedly agreed. Of course, Peter wasn’t going to climb onto the bed, but at least by having him this close, Mikayla had been able to fall asleep.

His eyes strayed to Peter’s sleeping form. They’d managed to get all of their brothers into a conference call, and after the expected surprise, concern, and much arguing back and forth, they’d finally agreed to fight. Jessie Evans had no genuine claim over them, and to hand over their hard earned money without standing up for themselves just seemed wrong. Fortunately, Brock, Lachlan, Matt, Bryce, and John had managed to get the station pieced together and were able to lock up and travel back to Earth if it became necessary.

Ty really hoped it wasn’t necessary.

A quick call to their lawyer had confirmed that a court date had been set for six days time. They’d been surprised by how quickly the system worked until their lawyer had explained that Jessie Evans’s legal team had applied for the date nearly two years ago. The negotiations had just been part of the usual legal process under current laws. No case could go to court unless they could provide proof of failed negotiations.

Considering that Peter’s lawyer was about to tell them to go to hell, Ty was fairly certain that would count as failed negotiations.

* * * *

The next afternoon Ryan ground his teeth as he listened to their lawyer explain what would happen next.

“As expected, her legal counsel was quite pleased that you didn’t show up to the negotiating table.” Their lawyer was a pleasant, middle-aged man with spectacles and thinning hair, and there was no doubt he knew his stuff. So far everything he’d predicted had come true. “Mrs. Davidson, they will definitely try to use your marriages as a way of proving Peter’s intent. They may even drag up some personal details to try and paint you as a husband-stealing, gold-digging whore.”

“Hey,” Ryan protested, but their lawyer simply held up his hand.

“Get used to it,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “These are the type of things that are liable to be said in court. If you react violently, the judge will kick you out of the courtroom and be less inclined to listen to your side of the story.” He twisted his pen in his hand as if trying to find the exact words to get his point across. “If you seem to be upset, then the lawyers will use the offensive terms over and over in an effort to provoke you to violence and get you kicked out of the courtroom. Am I making myself clear? Their aim will be to get you to lose your temper. You need to stay very tightly in control.”