Mostly because at one time he’d been the big fish. But that had ended with the Baddricks. It had taken a few years before he’d believed that he truly belonged with them, but they became his brothers. And even if he hadn’t been as careful with other people as he should have been, he’d always fought for the Baddricks and protected them when they needed it.
But it had been a long, long time since anyone had needed him like that. Until Zion and Nathalie.
“What kind of job?” There was a piece of rice on Zion’s shirt, which Darius flicked onto the bar top.
He’d come by the idea somewhere between ordering the Chinese food and the delivery person’s dropping it off: If Zion worked for him, he would no longer be a victim of sharp-tongued checkers. Or anyone else, for that matter. No one at Spencer Imports would dare to call him names. He would
be treated with respect, Darius would make sure of that. There would be no late-afternoon customer
rush to confuse him, either. Sure, the tasks would be new to him, but they’d teach him new skills
without the stress of too many people coming all at once. Anyone would have a problem with the
environment he’d been in.
“How about working in my mailroom?” Darius said. “You can deliver mail, pick up packages.”
Zion’s eyes glowed. “You mean like a postman?”
Darius nodded, smiling. “A postman for my employees.”
“Wow. Cool.” Zion bit off half his spring roll and chewed, his eyes wide.
“You can also pick up people’s papers to put through the shredder, and run office errands, and
deliver supplies.” The more he thought about it, the more tasks came to mind that Zion could easily
handle. “What do you think? Would you like to try it?”
Zion nodded eagerly. “I do!”
.
Nathalie’s brother was so exuberant about everything that sometimes it was hard to tell if he
actually wanted to do something or he merely thought he needed to play the yes man. Which was
why Darius asked, “Will you miss your friends at the grocery store?”
“Yes, but that’s okay. I like making new friends.” Zion shoveled more food into his mouth.
“Great. We’ll talk to Nathalie and see what she thinks.”
“Okay, Darius.”
She opened the front door almost as Darius said her name—and he got that special little kick under
his ribs when he saw her. Her lipstick had worn off as though she’d been biting her lips on the way
home, her suit jacket was crumpled in her hand, and she was clutching a grocery bag that looked
ready to topple.
She’d never looked more gorgeous.
Darius moved quickly toward her, grabbing the sack before it fell. And then, without a word of
greeting, he planted his mouth on hers. The kiss was sweet and closemouthed in front of her
brother, but it still made his heart beat faster. Especially when she leaned into him, as though she
was glad that he was there to put his arms around her.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as she drew back. “I forgot we needed milk. The lines at the store were
atrocious.”
“I want to talk to you about that. But later. Right now, you need sustenance.”
He took her jacket, laying it over the back of the sofa. Then he stashed the milk in the fridge and
pulled out the wine he’d been chilling.
“Oh my God.” She stopped dead in the kitchen. “You did the dishes. But how?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve loaded a dishwasher and washed dishes plenty of times,” he said wryly. She
seemed to have the mistaken notion that he’d been brought up privileged. Then again, he hadn’t
exactly shared the truth about his childhood with her, had he? So why would she think any
differently?
“I helped,” her brother piped up.
“That’s great, Zion, thank you,” she said. But she was glancing warily at the dishwasher.
“Don’t worry,” Darius said. “I also know the dry soap goes in the machine and the liquid is for the
hand-washing.”
“I didn’t mean to doubt your dishwashing prowess…it’s just that you’ve already gone to so much
trouble tonight.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about what the
house looked like when I sent you over or that you’d need to do the dishes so that you could have
plates to eat with.”
“I told you not to worry about anything tonight, Nathalie. And I meant it.” He held up the bottle of
Riesling he’d picked up. “I’ll pour a glass of wine and fix you a plate.”
“You don’t have to.” She clearly wasn’t used to having anyone take care of her.
He pointed to the couch and put on his best boss voice. “Sit.”
She shook her head at his tone, but he caught the way her lips were curving up as she relaxed into
one end of the sofa. Slipping off her high heels, she leaned back with a sigh, obviously admiring the
newly tidied room.
They’d also cleaned up in there, sorting Jeremy’s crayons by color into the huge box. Darius had
learned that coloring was homework, likely a hand-eye coordination exercise.
“Can I watch Animal Planet?” Zion dashed across the room and picked up the remote, but stood
motionless, his finger on the button, until Nathalie nodded. Then he plopped down on the carpet in
front of the TV and started flipping channels.
“Not so close, please,” Nathalie chided.
As Zion spider-walked backward, Darius poured her wine. Between them, he and Zion had
unloaded the dishwasher, found where everything went, and stacked all the dirty dishes in the
machine. Which meant that Darius not only knew where her wineglasses were, he also knew that
she had too many cans of baked beans and an empty peanut butter jar, as if she always forgot to
make a grocery list and couldn’t remember what she needed when she got to the store. He’d also
found the bag of white chocolate truffles in the cupboard next to the fridge, probably the only treat she let herself indulge in.
But most of all, he loved that her house was clearly a home, full of warmth and messes and laughter
and love. His own spectacular compound seemed cold by comparison.
“This should ease the day’s tension.” He handed her the glass of wine.
She sipped gratefully, closing her eyes to savor either the flavor or the relaxing effects. “This is just
what I needed. Thank you.” She glanced up. “This is the same wine I had at Martini’s.”
“I remembered you liked it.”
“You’re too good to be true,” she said softly, and something tightened in his gut. The same
tightening that occurred when she’d called him sweet over the phone. Because if she knew the truth
about the things he’d done...
Forcing the thought aside, just as he had so many times before with her, he plated a portion for her
from each carton and finished off with a spring roll covered in sweet-and-sour sauce.
“Aren’t you eating?” she asked when he sat on the couch empty handed.
“Zion wouldn’t eat unless I did, too. And since I wasn’t sure when you’d make it back—”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. In fact, as I recall, I promised that if you did it again—”
Darius took her mouth in a second kiss that was a heck of a lot less sweet and soft than the first of
the night had been. Zion might still be in the same room with them, but he was glued to the TV and
wasn’t paying any attention to them at all.
Forcing himself to draw back before he got completely carried away, Darius said, “I enjoyed your
brother’s company. I always do.”
“Am I allowed to say thank you for getting dinner and picking Zion up?” She gave him a cheeky
smile. “Or do I say thank you too much, as well?”
“I love it when you’re polite,” he said as he curled a lock of her hair around his finger. Then he
lowered his voice and added, “So polite one moment, and then so wild the next.” He was close
enough to appreciate the sound of her breath hitching in her throat at his suggestive words.
He drank from her glass of wine, then stole a cashew off her plate. It was another intimacy he
enjoyed, just like playing with her hair. From the first day they’d met, he’d had a need to touch her
in small ways as well as big. It didn’t always have to be about sex—in fact, these little touches
seemed to heighten their intimacy in a way simple sexual contact didn’t. He’d never been like this
with another woman, never so much as thought about becoming intimate with one of them beyond a
few hours in the bedroom.
But Nathalie was different. She was important to him.
So important that he hoped the wine had mellowed her. She’d already had a harried day, and he
didn’t want to make things worse. But he didn’t feel right trying to seduce her before he’d talked
with her about what had happened at the grocery store.
“There was an issue at the store when I arrived.”
She glanced at Zion, a deep line forming immediately between her brows. “What happened?” she
asked in a low voice.
Darius looked at Zion, too. Thankfully, the leopard cubs reigned over his attention. “He didn’t do
anything. It was busy. Like it always is at the end of the work day,” Darius added to bring home his
point. “He wasn’t bagging fast enough for the checker or the customer, and he didn’t pack the
groceries correctly. A cantaloupe on top of eggs.”
She waited, an expectant and on her pursed lips.
“And,” he said in a voice low enough that only she could hear, “the checker called him an idiot in
front of the customers. Among other insults.”
Her gaze shot to Zion again, her eyes darkened with worry. And a deep sorrow that Darius wished
he could erase permanently. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Your brother is resilient. Compassionate, too. He actually asked me not to have the
woman fired, because she’s got a sick mother.”
Leaning forward, she slid her plate onto the coffee table, and somehow, when she sat back, she
seemed farther away from him. “Why did he think you were going to have the woman fired?”
“I made her apologize. In front of everyone who had just witnessed her acting like such a jerk.” He
shook his head. “I know I’m always telling you not to apologize, but when people do something
they know is wrong, they need to apologize for their actions.”
He was one to talk, wasn’t he, considering he could never say he was sorry for all the things he’d
done in the past. Still, that didn’t mean he would allow Zion to be denigrated.
“Do you know what it’s like in that store at that time of day?” he asked.
She frowned again. “I know it’s busy. I just never thought—”
Belatedly realizing his question might have sounded too harsh, he touched her hair again, drawing
her back in. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m not so sure it’s the best place for him. It’s too
chaotic.”
Her jaw tensed as though she was clenching her teeth. “It gives him purpose. He’s always said he
likes it.” Once again, her gaze shifted to Zion.
This was Zion chance to make a difference for them. “I’ve got a better idea. I talked to my people
and I found him a place in my mailroom.”
Her nostrils twitched. Like a mother rabbit sensing danger to her young. Yet again, she reminded
him of Sally, who had taken better care of him than anyone in the world. Better care than he’d ever
thought anyone would.
“You work in the city,” Nathalie said. “He has school until noon, and the bus drops him off at the
store. I can’t get him all the way up to your office.”
“I have a driver who can pick him up after school. And I can bring him home at the end of the day.”
“I see you’ve thought everything through.”
Yes, he’d considered the proposal from every angle. That’s what he did: analyzed each scenario and
conquered every possible problem that could arise. “I’ll make it good for him, Nathalie. And he told
me he’d like to do it, that he won’t miss his job at the grocery store.”
In a heartbeat, she went as cold as a Chicago night in winter. “You already told him about this?
Without discussing it with me first?”
He felt the stillness settle around them. The TV played on, and so did the leopard cubs, while a
chilly silence dropped over Nathalie and him.
And that was when Darius realized, far too late, that he’d just made a huge tactical mistake with the
woman who had already become the most important person in his life.
“Zion, don’t you have some homework for tomorrow?” Nathalie heard the snap in her voice, but
she wasn’t able to moderate it just yet.
Her brother looked at her over his shoulder. “Uh-huh.”
“Then you’d better go do it.” She heard a sound in her head like rocks grinding. It was her teeth.
“And say thank you to Darius for dinner.”
“Thanks, Darius.”
As Zion turned off the TV and headed for his room, Nathalie continued to feel like the breath had
been knocked out of her. Her brother had been verbally abused at work. And she shouldn’t have had
to hear it from Darius. She should have known, should have been checking in with Zion to make
sure everything was okay at the store every day. But every evening when she picked him up, he
came bounding out full of stories about anything and everything. She’d told herself that must mean
things were okay.
How could she have been so careless?
She stood and grabbed her plate of food, which was growing more unappealing by the second.
“Nathalie,” Darius said, but she stalked out of the room without answering.
Darius had figured out how to fix the situation. How to fix her failure. How to fix the fact that she
was a rotten sister and a terrible guardian. She thought she’d been doing everything for her brother,
but had she really, when all Darius had to do was walk into the grocery store and spot all the
problems in a second?
“Nathalie,” Darius said again, following her into the kitchen.
She almost slammed the plate down on the counter. The immaculate counter. He’d even cleaned up
after her like she couldn’t take care of her house. Like she couldn’t take care of Zion. If she hadn’t
folded the laundry last night, he probably would have done that, too, showing what a mess she was.
And look—he’d even cleaned up Zion’s crayons.
Damn it, she thought as frustration ate her up from the inside, I’m doing the best I can.
But clearly it wasn’t good enough.
“How could you tell Zion without even talking to me first?”
“I wanted to gauge his reaction. If he wasn’t interested, the new position wasn’t something I would
have pursued.”
“You should have gauged my reaction first.”
“I see that now, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” she snapped, because he kept saying the same to her. “Just stop imposing your
will on us.”
“I wasn’t trying to impose my will.”
Darius. His will. Didn’t he get what would happen down the road? “Look, when this car project is
over—” And you’ve moved on to another pet project. “—Zion will be out of a job. He won’t have
anything.”
“The car won’t be finished for months. Besides, the Maserati has nothing to do with his working in my mailroom.”
“So you’ll just keep on sending your driver to pick him up?”
He shrugged, shook his head slightly, like she wasn’t even making sense. “If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do.”