highs and lows that living on the edge and trying to take down bad guys could.
“Why do you think everything is a love triangle?” Ridge asked his brother, sounding exasperated.
“I don’t,” Breck replied, offended.
“You thought the job with Davis was a love triangle.”
“That’s because it was. A hundred-year-old one. The one rich guy shot the other richer guy and blamed it on the poor guy. Are you going to shoot Ryan?” Breck asked.
I paused long enough for Leo to give me a look. “No,” I sighed. “I’m not going to shoot Ryan.” Tempting though it was. It would be so easy to make him disappear. “And I don’t love Eric.”
“Lie,” Breck said dismissively.
“I concede I may have. No. I did, when we were both younger. But that was a long time ago.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Grieves,” Steele said. “Or should I call you Jake?”
“Call me whatever you want, I’m ignoring you all from now on.”
“Eric has to pick one of you,” Breck said unwilling to drop it.
“I always thought love triangles should end in a nice three-way relationship,” Danny said.
Wesley eyed him with surprise. “Really?” he asked, drawing the word out.
“Why not? Who doesn’t like a good three-way?” Danny shot Breck a wink and Ridge scowled. He never liked being reminded of Breck and Danny’s stint as hustlers on the streets of D.C. Considering those years had ended with Danny being beaten almost to death and them being used as bait to trap a corrupt senator, I couldn’t blame him. But still, Charlie had brought the case to our attention with photos of Breck and Danny together.
In the privacy of my own mind, I could admit to occasionally picturing the two together. They were both lovely boys. It wasn’t much of a hardship. Of course, I would never say that to Wesley or Ridge. If I did, I’d wake up one morning in handcuffs on the floor of an FBI building with a folder labeled “reasons to arrest this man” tucked under my head. As for Steele, well, I had a suspicion that he shared some of my imaginings and that should he press the issue, Breck would not be opposed to sharing the big mercenary.
“Of course, in movies the choice is usually pretty obvious,” Danny continued, oblivious to my salacious train of thought. “One of the guys is usually a blatant asshole or worse, a boring nice guy and the other is a bad boy with a heart of gold.”
“Who would you go for?” I asked.
“Bad guy with a heart of gold,” Danny said immediately. “No contest.” He winked at Wesley. “Obviously, I have a type.”
Yes. Yes. Everyone was in love and wasn’t love grand, etcetera, etcetera. Moving on. “There’s also another option,” I said. “Eric could pick neither of us. Being single isn’t a death sentence or a lesser choice. It’s perfectly valid.”
Davis spoke up from the love seat he and Ridge had settled on. He had his leg up on Ridge’s lap and an ice pack on his knee. Even though we’d had a golf cart, shooting an entire eighteen holes had taken a lot out of him. “But then Operation Get Carson Laid would be a failure, and if I’m following correctly, your band of merry men has a one hundred percent success rate so far.”
“One of those ‘successes’ resulted in your family losin’ a shit ton of cash,” Steele pointed out. “I still don’t get why you’re here.” Steele didn’t trust easily, and I think he saw Ridge as a kind of brother-in-law. Protecting people was at the core of who Steele was.
Davis swung his knee off Ridge’s lap, wincing with the pain. “Not feeling too close to my family, right now, Steele. Plus, I think they’ll be okay with only the few billions they have left.”
“Still don’t answer the question. I know these Pfeiffer boys are pretty but there’s gotta be a better reason for a man to quit being a Fed and join the bad guys.”
Diplomatic security wasn’t exactly the Feds, but I wasn’t going to split hairs with Steele. The fact was that Davis had been a law enforcement agent not three weeks ago, and now he was for all intents and purposes living on the run with us. Which was unnecessary since, as far as I knew, no one was after him.
“You’re not the bad guys,” Davis said. “I know bad guys.” He threw a quick look at Leo. If anyone would understand, it might be Leo, who was still, technically,