do.”
“My wife and I are married.”
“Okay. Play that card if you want to, but I’m willing to bet you were engaging in stuff well before your marriage.” I could have thrown in his membership at the BDSM club for good measure. You didn’t go to a club like that to be celibate. But I kept my mouth shut.
He said nothing, just gave me a “fuck you” look.
I’d seen that look before. I was actually happy to see it now. It meant he was cooling down.
“It’s the real thing, Joe.”
“You know she decided to go to Paris?”
I nodded. “I actually want her to go.”
“You do?”
“She’ll be safe there. We’ll hire a bodyguard, just in case.”
“I was going to anyway.”
“I figured you were.”
“She won’t want to go now. You know that, right? She’ll want to stay with you and help you.”
“I know. I’m going to insist. She’s going if I have to carry her onto the plane and buckle her in myself.”
That got a laugh out of him. “I see you don’t know her that well yet.”
I returned his smile. “Actually, I do.”
“Then you know she’s not going anywhere. At least not now.”
I sighed. What could I say? He was right. And though I wanted more than anything for Marjorie to be half a world away where she’d be safe, I couldn’t bring myself to be unhappy that she wasn’t going.
“There’s one more thing,” I said.
“What?”
“I found some encrypted emails on our account. In the trash.”
“What?” Joe hurriedly fumbled with his phone.
“Have you been contacting the Spider without telling me?”
“Hell, no!” He pulled up the account. “Shit, I don’t know—”
Joe’s phone dinged with a text. He raised his brows when he looked at the screen.
“What?” I asked.
“The Spider. He says he has news. Maybe he can explain the emails.”
Chapter Thirty
Marjorie
My emotions were tangled. I put them on hold long enough to get the boys off to school and fix a light breakfast for Jade.
Then I couldn’t put it off any longer.
Was there a name for this feeling? This feeling of complete happiness and love mixed with dread?
Bryce loved me. He really loved me, and I’d finally broken through the wall of armor he’d built around himself after discovering the truth about his father. I should be over the moon, and I was.
But I also wasn’t.
Our hell wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Someone was stalking Bryce and my oldest brother, who’d been witness to another heinous crime Tom Simpson had perpetrated.
Now it was coming back to haunt them.
Bryce wasn’t safe. Joe wasn’t safe.
I could escape all of this. I could go forward with my plans for Paris. Indeed, Bryce had told me to go because I’d be safe there.
But he loved me.
And that changed everything.
No way was I leaving him. Not when he needed me. He’d sent his mother and son away, but Evelyn was a senior citizen and Henry a baby. They needed protecting.
I didn’t.
I was a sister to three older brothers, daughter to a father who’d resisted at first but had succumbed to my determination and taught me everything he’d taught my brothers. I could run this ranch as well as any of them. I simply didn’t want to. It wasn’t my interest. It wasn’t in my soul the way it was in theirs.
But I’d done all the chores, learned all the ropes, and I’d built a lot of tenacity along the way.
I could hold my own.
I needed to hold my own.
I needed to be here for the man I loved.
Not to mention my best friend and my brothers. And, though she didn’t recognize me, my mother.
They all needed me, and I would not desert them.
Paris would still be there tomorrow. Next week. Next year. Next decade, even. I was young.
Besides, another brain helping to figure out what was going on now would be an asset.
Bryce had sworn me to secrecy about Justin Valente, and I would keep his confidence. He’d tell Joe, I knew. My brother would be angry, but in the end, he’d be okay. He was Bryce’s best friend. He of all people knew what a good man Bryce was.
Bryce would take care of me, and I would take care of him. We’d take care of each other as equal partners.
Oh, he’d get all Alpha on me sometimes. He’d grown up around my brothers, after all. But I’d also grown up around my brothers. I knew my way around a Steel man, and Bryce was an honorary Steel man. He always had been.
What to do?
First, I’d