But Knight’s attention was on his younger brother.
Nick looked back to Kasha. “I’ll have a steak next time around.”
She got irate again. “But I want you to have one now.”
“Geez,” Anya’s voice came out of nowhere. “She’s her father’s daughter,” she finished her mutter, moving out of the hallway into the living room. She stopped close, her attention on her girl. “Uncle Nick said he had to go.”
Kasha crossed her arms on her chest. “Unka Nick should stay.”
“Put her down, Nick,” Anya ordered and the instant she did, which was the second Nick moved to acquiesce to her demand, Kasha wrapped her arms tight around his neck.
He started quietly laughing.
“Unka Nick is staying!” Kasha declared.
“Yeah, he is,” Knight put in.
Nick looked to his brother.
So did Knight’s woman. “Not you too.”
“Me too,” Knight decreed then looked down at Kat. “Baby girl, can you help Daddy and put out another placemat for Uncle Nick?”
“Yeah, Daddy!” Kat, Knight and Anya’s first, almost eight-years-old, always daddy’s little helper, agreed immediately and jumped to do as asked.
“Knight, he has somewhere to be,” Anya called.
“He can be there a couple hours later. Now he’s having dinner with his family,” Knight returned.
“Maybe he wants to have dinner with his family next weekend,” Anya returned.
Knight’s eyes settled on his woman and his, “Baby,” was a warning.
Anya’s glare stayed glued to her man in a way Nick knew she was telling him he could shove his warning right up his ass.
He forged into the silent breach.
“I’ll stay.”
“Yay!” Kasha screeched.
“Yay!” Kat yelled.
Anya’s head whipped his way. “Don’t give in to him.”
He looked down at his smiling niece then at her mother. “Too late.”
Anya rolled her eyes.
Nick moved to the kitchen and planted Kasha’s booty in a stool at the bar beyond which her father was cooking. “To have dinner with you, gotta make a call,” he told her.
“That’s allowed,” she decreed.
He was again chuckling when he glanced at Knight before he moved out of the space, down the front hall and into Knight’s office.
He pulled out his phone and called Olivia.
The call (and not a text) was a test. A test he suspected would go to voicemail because she’d said exactly five words to him since they’d met so it was not likely she’d answer the phone.
If he had to guess, his voicemail would eventually get him a text that said she wasn’t going to wait for him to have dinner with his family in order to meet up with him later. Alternately, she wouldn’t communicate at all and he’d eventually lie in bed at Hotel Teatro, pissing valuable time away waiting for her only for her not to show up.
What he didn’t expect was her to answer on the third ring.
“Sebring,” she said as greeting, her voice soft just as the five words she’d said to him were, except now she wasn’t whispering.
He liked the sound. Especially having it wrapped around his name.
Fuck.
“Olivia,” he replied. “Listen, I’m having dinner with my family. I’m not gonna get to the hotel until eight. Maybe later.”
“Are you checked in?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
“My turn,” she stated.
He blinked at Knight’s desk.
Her turn?
“I’ll text you the room number,” she went on.
“Right,” he pushed out, trying to hide his surprise and not sure he’d succeeded.
“By your—” she started but abruptly stopped, said no more though she didn’t disconnect.
“By my…?” he trailed off on a prompt.
She didn’t take the prompt for several beats before her soft voice again came at him.
“By your family, I’m assuming you mean Knight and his girls.”
“Yeah.”
He heard an almost indistinct noise.
Relief.
That pissed him off.
Why, he had no clue.
He wasn’t the fucked-up one in this scenario, working for his dad who was a gangster who did seriously jacked shit including ordering the head blown off a female undercover FBI agent at all, much less right in front of the man who loved her.
“Not tied to anyone and fuckin’ you,” he bit off.
“We don’t exactly chat in order to get to know each other,” she replied.
“You hell bent on taking control of my dick the minute you hit the hotel room, that’s not on me,” he reminded her.
There was another hesitation before she suggested, “Maybe we should take a break for a couple of nights.”
“Uh…fuck no,” he denied, after years of waiting to put it in action, not about to let anything delay him further in carrying out his plan. “About now I’m in the mood to tussle with you and see who comes out on top.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You gonna text me a room number?” he asked
“Yes, Sebring,” she answered in that voice that was almost goddamned delicate.
Which was annoying.
Because it was not annoying.
It was beautiful.
And a fucking turn on.
Shit.
“See you in a couple of hours,” he replied.
“Okay,” she said.
She might have said more but he disconnected before he heard it.
He turned to rejoin his family to see Knight leaning against the doorway.