DECEIT (B723) by Hazel Grace (ebook reader for surface pro .TXT) 📕

“Yes.” There is no way of getting around that question. “And I’d do it again. I just regret not breaking one of her legs.”

Bishop tugs me closer, our bodies compressing so tightly that nothing can get between us now. “You know she’s nothing, right? Nothing is going on or ever will go on between us again.”

I shrug, not knowing a thing but what Kyson told me. “I guess it doesn’t matter. We are unconventional and—“

“Normal is boring, Ems. We weren’t born for ordinary. And you weren’t meant to be kept by an asshole like me.”

I don’t say a word because I’m afraid of what he might say next. My heart begins to seize in anticipation that he’s going to sever said organ in two.

I don’t want to get divorced.

I don’t want him to leave me or let me go.

Apparently, I like being tortured with this never-ending feeling of hopelessness and trepidation that Bishop will never be emotionally available to me.

Bishop leans down, lips descending near my ear when he whispers, “Whatever you’re thinking, wife, don’t. I’m a selfish prick.” His lips brush against my forehead tenderly. “Happy Birthday.”

“I don’t know how I feel about my baby sister working with so many guys,” Emmy’s oldest brother, Beckett, says over his glass tumbler of red wine. He actually keeps lifting his pinky finger every time he takes a sip, causing Marty to almost choke the first time from laughing.

This dude is a fucking tool.

Here we are, minding our own business when this asshole decides to come out to the patio and interrogate us like he’s got a clue.

Dark blonde hair that’s immaculately styled, I’ve been sitting here for a solid minute wondering how long he spends on it. Emmy never made too much of a fuss over her hair but, then again, I never really gave her a chance to when I was around.

She was never really out of arms’ length from me if I could help it.

“I like it,” Marty claims, propping his leg on his left knee. “It keeps her safe.”

Beckett narrows his brown eyes at my partner. The gentle breeze coming off the water and tussling his hair as he ping pongs his gaze between the two of us.

He sure as hell doesn’t know what to make of all this. While he didn’t expect four dudes and Blue to come and crash Emmy’s birthday party, I’m out of my element here too.

Emmy’s childhood home is the size of the entire trailer park I grew up in. It’s a ten-bedroom beach house nestled up in the dunes with a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve never stayed somewhere so nice before, and just by sitting here with a glass of expensive whiskey trying to bear a conversation with Emmy’s brother. It's becoming the most tedious mission I’ve ever had to do without throwing him over the balcony.

“Why would she need protection?” he grills, and he couldn’t hide the displeasure in his tone of how commoners like us got into his parents’ house.

We eat boys like this for breakfast.

Marty would make him scream within thirty seconds.

Mills would cause him to cry with just his jokes, and I’d drive him to piss his pants within the same time frame.

Kyson would be the one who’d give the dickhead a good solid two chances before peeling away at his skin.

Marty swirls the liquid in his glass around, clearly unaffected by the brother drilling. “We keep the press out and her life normal.”

“And you—“ He points between Marty and I. ”—are her personal bodyguards?”

“Yep,” Marty claims. “Governor Lockwood makes sure he keeps her particularly safe and sound at all times.”

“And you’re allowed to drink on the job?”

“This motherfucker,” I mutter over my glass, about ready to go book a hotel for the night.

It was bad enough that Emmy’s mother was up my whole entire ass earlier at the party. Asking me how long I’ve known Em, do I work out every day as she gingerly touched my biceps, and if I wanted these banana nut muffins that she baked.

She didn’t look like someone who spent time in the kitchen, and the look on Emmy’s face was murderous when I turned them down twice, and her mom wouldn’t take the hint.

“Em hates formalities.”

“And we hate a lot of questions,” I add in, pinning this Ivy League-looking asshole with my glare.

“I just want to make sure that you’re qualified,” he says calmly, leaning back in his wicker chair. “Emmy doesn’t talk a lot about—”

“Leave them alone, Beck,” Emmy cuts in, drawing my attention to my left. My eyes immediately fall on her, soaking her body in like I subtly do all the time.

Like I do all the fucking time, let’s be real.

She’s changed her clothes because some asshole spilled something on her outfit earlier. He chuckled at his fuck up, asked if he could escort her to her room so she could change, then suffered a severe heart attack when Mills and I flanked his sides.

Now I’m pained to see her wearing a lavender dress that’s cut mid-thigh and shows off her curvy waist. The sleeves or straps—whatever the hell you call them—drape along her biceps, leaving her shoulders bare. Her long locks are now pulled up in a messy bun with small strands teasing the side of her face and neck.

She’s breathtaking.

Add on the white heels she’s strutting in, and my dick is beginning to respond in earnest to her again, forgetting that just hours ago, I had to meet this famous Baron McAllister and not rip his fucking head off.

Rising from my chair that’s padded with blue cushions, I make my way to her like I’ve been baited so many times before.

Her honeyed eyes find me immediately, which does nothing from the inner battle that permanently resides within me when it comes to Emmy.

I’m at constant war with myself to remind her who I am and what I’ve already done to her. The other half of me, the rational side, tells me