Nicole’s eyes lit up as she said, “I’d love that. I know the one here is very successful.”
Over my dead body are the two of them going to meet up…alone.
Brother or not, I’d have to kill the little shit.
I shot Leo my that’s-never-happening-not-even-in-your-fucking-wildest-dreams frown.
He completely ignored it. “It has been really successful so far.”
I ground my teeth as Leo proceeded to inform Nicole all about his breeding facility up north, close to the Welsh border, that had turned into one of the foremost sanctuaries in the world for saving very endangered species. Because Leo wanted his legacy to go on, well after he was gone, he’d turned it into a teaching zoo of sorts, so it could sustain itself in the future with visitors’ fees and donations.
Even though it was a long trip for some people, those exclusive tickets to see such an array of endangered species were highly coveted.
“Wow,” Nicole said with awe dripping from her voice. “You must be incredibly proud of everything you’ve accomplished, Leo. Will I be able to get tickets once you launch your facility in the US?”
He shot her a mischievous grin that I was dying to punch off his pretty face. “You won’t need tickets,” he said adamantly. “You’ll come when I’m there, and I’ll personally show you around.”
“I’d love to bring my friend, Macy,” Nicole mused. “She’s an exotic and large animal vet. Conservation is in her blood. She’d love to tour a place like that.”
“Bring all of your friends,” Leo said magnanimously. “Any friend of yours will be a friend of mine.”
I rolled my eyes. Leo wasn’t exactly social. Yeah, he could talk to donors when he needed to do it, but he liked socializing about as much as I did. Most of the time, he got along much better with animals than humans.
“So how long will you be gone?” Nicole questioned as she spread marmalade on her toast.
Leo shrugged. “As long as it takes. We thought we’d lost that species, so it will be worth every bit of red tape we need to cut through to try to recover that population.”
“Be careful,” Nicole warned. “Isn’t that kind of a dangerous area?”
Jesus Christ! If I had to live through one more second of Nicole turning her gentle concern toward my little brother, I was going to lose it.
Leo looked at me with a covert glance, and grinned like a damn idiot.
The tosser was enjoying my discomfort way too much.
How he knew that flirting with Nicole would make me into a raving maniac I didn’t know, but he knew.
“It’s not the safest place to be,” he confessed. “But I’ve been through worse. Of course, if you’re going to worry, I’ll make sure to check in with you.”
“Not. Necessary.” I pushed out those two words through clenched teeth. “Nicole and I will be in touch. I’ll keep her posted.”
Wanker!
Leo shrugged. “I thought all this cuddling up to each other was all show. Certainly, Nicole is going to want to get back to her own life in the States, find herself a nice guy.”
We were always given our privacy during our meal, so Leo had dropped all pretense of pretending that Nicole and I were really an item.
“Like hell she will,” I growled.
Fuck! I was done pretending that my life would ever be normal again if Nicole wasn’t in it.
I was done pretending that I didn’t want to shag the woman until we were both panting and spent.
I was done pretending that if Nicole and I spent a week together in sexual bliss, that it would change the obsessive way I cared about her and restore my ass to normal again.
And I was completely done pretending she wasn’t mine.
Nicole Ashworth was irrevocably mine. She’d sealed the deal on that soon after we’d met. She just didn’t know it yet.
Maybe I’d always subconsciously known that, too, but I hadn’t really admitted it to my conscious mind until she’d so tenderly and selflessly taken care of my sorry ass on my jet last week.
Nicole had decided her fate when she’d decided to care about the man—not the billionaire or duke—when I’d had a very rare moment of vulnerability.
“What was that?” Leo inquired politely. Too politely.
“Boys,” my mum said in a warning tone, shooting us both a speaking glance as she said it. “We’re enjoying a meal here.”
I looked back at her with a frown.
Leo had been deliberately antagonizing me, but she obviously didn’t want to acknowledge that. In fact, I was highly suspicious of the small