“Can I meet them again sometime? Properly.”
I snorted, walking away from my brother and heading for my boyfriend. Marshall had a meeting he needed to get back to, after all. “Absolutely not.”
“See you on Friday, Finn.”
I didn’t look back. I went straight for Daniel.
“Are you al?—”
I cut him off with a kiss, a hard press of my mouth against his. His body went soft against mine, and he slid one hand around my waist. Daniel opened his mouth, let me taste him, then groaned when I pulled back.
“I’m fine,” I told him, and I was. “I’m more worried about Sophie.”
Daniel held up his phone and gave it a shake. “She’s fine. Just embarrassed.”
“Marshall will be easy on her, I think.”
He laughed. “Your brother really is something else.”
“Have I ever told you the Covington lore?” I gestured toward the door and Daniel nodded. Together, we walked out onto the street. He didn’t work far from Sophie’s office, so I’d driven to his office and we’d walked down together to surprise her. The tacos had been from a place down the street from my building.
“You’re pretty tight-lipped about most things.”
A quick wash of shame rolled over me, and I realized Daniel was right. My internalization of most things was a defense mechanism that I would have to drop if I wanted a moment of peace in life. If I wanted a life with the two of them.
“True,” I agreed. “But of all people, you’ve seen me at my worst.”
He nodded. “You weren’t in a good way.”
“I’m better now.”
“Because of us?”
“For you.” I licked my lips. “I kept my word.”
“I know,” he said, reaching down and taking my hand.
Earlier, he’d kissed my left ring finger, something I’d watched him do with Sophie countless times. I’d committed the press of his lips against the diamond of her ring to memory and while there was no ring around my finger and never would be, I didn’t find an ounce of jealousy inside myself. Only gratitude that they had each other and I had them.
“Anyway. The lore?”
I snorted. “We’re half-brothers, the whole lot of us. Me and Marshall, Hunter, Smith. Oh, also Andrew. Maybe more.”
“Maybe more?”
“Our father was not discerning, at least not as far as we can tell. He was quite the ladies’ man in his middle age and after he sowed all of his seeds, he went around collecting us all.”
“How does…what?”
Daniel’s brow knit together and I didn’t blame him. The implication made no sense and once the pieces clicked together, it was remotely horrifying for someone who hadn’t grown up the way we had.
“He found our mothers, paid them all off to take us under his wing.”
“That’s—”
“It is what it is,” I interrupted him before he could say something unnerving. Willem Covington was the opposite of a good man, but I got five good brothers out of it, maybe more, and that was worth something. Easily worth more than what he’d paid. “He wanted a legacy; instead he ended up with three sons who prefer men and me.”
“You said five?”