“Aunt Meg!” The boy, Kyle, rolled his eyes in obvious embarrassment.
“—and I wouldn’t have brought the Fates. They’re unusual women, and I’m not sure if I like them, but they don’t need this abuse.”
She was beautiful when she was mad. She spoke softly, which people rarely did when they were angry, and the emotion flooded her creamy skin with color that accented the auburn of her hair. Those green eyes flared and held him like he hadn’t been held in a long time.
Normally this kind of anger calmed him down—he liked being the reasonable one in the room—but he wasn’t feeling reasonable.
“Abuse?” he said softly.
“Abuse.” She crossed her arms. “You shout and bluster as if you control the very world. When, in fact, all you’ve done is lock three helpless, naïve women in your office and somehow got out on your own, and then shouted at a little boy you’ve never met before. If that’s not abuse, then you’re bordering on it.”
He stared at her. She was young — younger than she seemed at first glance. Clearly a product of this country and the last thirty years.
“Lady,” he said as gently as he could, considering how angry he still was. “When I was a boy, beatings were common, women were little more than property, and if one of your betters killed your brother, you had no recourse at all. I’ve been a soldier in one of the bloodiest, most senseless conflicts in all of history. I’ve seen more abuse than you can even imagine.”
She raised her chin at him, that fine face filled with skepticism. John had moved away so that he clearly wasn’t part of the discussion. Kyle had moved to the other side of the room, almost as if he couldn’t stand to be between Rob and Megan.
“Locking three—in your words—helpless and naïve women in my office isn’t abuse. It’s reasonable, considering how badly I’d like to slap all three of them. And raising my voice isn’t abuse either. It’s justified when my best friend lets in the three women who hurt me the most because they want a favor!”
Her eyebrows had risen so high in her forehead that she looked comical. But her expression told him she found nothing funny about the moment.
“I don’t care how you were raised,” she said in that horrible reasonable tone. “Your parents were obviously wrong, and whatever country you were in was barbaric. But that doesn’t mean you can treat people here like this. I demand that you unlock the door and let those women out.”
“Or?” Rob asked.
“Or what?” Megan said.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll call the police,” she said.
He laughed. “What will they do? Arrest me for locking women in my office?”
“I’ll tell them that you threatened those women, which you did, and that you raised your voice at my nephew and that I was worried for his safety.”
“Then why not get him out of here?” Rob asked.
“Because I brought those women,” Megan said. “I’m responsible for them. Let them out!”
“All right,” he said. “On one condition.”
She was breathing hard. He tried not to look at her breasts. They were as perfect as she was, moving up and down with each deep, angry breath.
He hadn’t been this attracted to any woman in a long, long time.
“What condition?” she snapped.
“Have dinner with me.” The words came out before he realized what he was going to say. That was the second time he’d done that in this conversation. Whatever had he been thinking?
Of course, he hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.
“You think you can manipulate me into having dinner with you? You’re delusional.”
“You want those women, don’t you?” Rob asked.
Her mouth opened slightly. Then it closed. She looked at young Kyle, whose eyes seemed extra wide behind his thick glasses.
“I don’t even like those women,” she said.
“You don’t like me either,” he said. “So it seems like an even trade to me.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Kyle said. “I mean—”
“Kyle!” Her voice was harsh, although she hadn’t raised it.
The boy closed his mouth, too, and leaned against the wall. But Rob didn’t need to hear any more. The boy was psychic, and she was undefended. She might not like Rob, but she was intrigued by him.
“I’m not sure you’re nice,” Kyle said to him.
Rob looked at the boy.
“I always thought Robin Hood was nice.”
Rob chuckled. “I fought a sheriff and killed his men, all in the name of a cause. I was a soldier after that. They called me a man’s man. And you thought I was nice? Who cleaned up the legends you’ve been reading?”
The boy dropped his chin. “Zoe says you’re nice.”
“Zoe?” Rob only knew one Zoe—at least, only one Zoe who was still alive. “You know Zoe Sinclair?”
“She’s marrying my dad.”
“Zoe’s getting married?” Rob couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t thought of Zoe as the marrying type.
“To my dad,” the boy said again. “She thinks you’re nice too. In fact, she thought it was a good idea for the Fates to see you.”
“Zoe sent them?”
“She found their spinning wheel,” the boy said. “They want you to steal it.”
Rob looked at John, who shrugged sheepishly. “The famous wheel? The one on which they spun life and death? The one they told me about but never showed me?”
“They said it was stolen three thousand years ago,” John said. “But they’re not very good with time.”
“This fantasy convinces you to help these women?” Megan asked. “What has my brother stumbled into here?”
Rob looked at her. She really didn’t know.
“Let me show you,” he said, and snapped his fingers.
Twelve
Rob regretted those words the moment he said them. He didn’t know this woman. It didn’t matter that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen (and then he felt a momentary pang of guilt: Sorry, Marian). It didn’t matter that she left him feeling only 250 years old.
All that mattered was getting the Fates out of his office and getting his life back in order.
“They want you to settle a debt?” asked the World’s Most Beautiful Woman—whose name was, apparently, Megan. (A good, old-fashioned name for a woman of a type that should never have gone out of fashion.)
“No,” he said. “They apparently didn’t realize I had a debt to settle with them.”
“Because they betrayed you.”
“Because they betrayed my wife!”
Megan took a slight step backward, pulling the young boy with her. The boy looked like the movement choked him slightly, then she loosened her grip on him as if she had known that, too.
“You can’t lust after my Aunt Megan if you have a wife.” The boy looked like a fierce warrior himself, albeit of the modern kind—most of his battles probably happened on computer rather than on the battlefield.
“I don’t lust after…” Rob let his voice trail off when he saw Megan’s face. She had the kind of face that carried every emotion she felt, and at the moment, she felt disappointment. “I mean, I don’t have a wife. Anymore. She died.”
“Oh,” the boy said, and he bowed his head. “I didn’t know.”
The last three words he said with surprise. Apparently, he had never met anyone who could block a psychic, even though it was easy, particularly with a young one.
Although maybe not as easy as it seemed. The boy had, after all, caught Rob’s attraction to that woman across the room.
“They betrayed your wife?” Megan asked with that sexy, throaty voice of hers.
His gaze met hers. She had such stunning green eyes—the color was as deep as a perfect emerald—but more than that, he could see deep inside her, as if he could see her very soul.
He wanted to break eye contact, but couldn’t. He also couldn’t lie to her. H
e wanted her to know.
So he settled on, “It’s a long story.”
She gave him a small smile, as if she had heard that before, and knew it for the evasion it was.
The door rattled again.
“We have to do something about them,” John said. “You can’t just leave them in there, Rob.”
“Have security escort them off the premises.”
“Rob!” John’s entire face became the picture of shock. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No,” he said, “and I don’t particularly care to.”
“Zeus is making a power play.”
“So?” Rob asked, then mentally kicked himself. He really didn’t want to know.
“He’s trying to get rid of true love.”
“So they say, right? Those lying Fates?”
“They’re not lying.” The boy shook off his aunt. “My dad’s been fighting for them all along. My dad and my Aunt Viv and my Uncle Dex. And now the Fates say they need you. So you should help them.”
“I should, huh?” Rob asked. He’d never been comfortable around children, especially precocious ones.
“Yeah, you should.”
Megan reached for her nephew, but he slipped away from her, walked up to Robin, and mimicked his posture, putting his hands on his hips and standing with his legs slightly apart.
“I never took Robin Hood for a coward,” the boy said.
John gasped.
Megan said, “Kyle!” apparently in an attempt to admonish the boy.
But Rob just narrowed his eyes, feeling the anger flare. The boy wanted him to get angry. The boy was psychic and knew how to make him angry — so Rob’s shields weren’t working as well as he thought.
Still, he loathed it when someone called him a coward, particularly someone who didn’t know his history.
Although this little boy had just called him Robin Hood. So the boy did know, and the boy still used the word.
“I’m not a coward,” Rob said.
“You are too,” the boy said.
“Because I won’t help three women who let my wife die? You have a lot of living to do, boy, before you understand that.” Rob crossed his arms, and rocked back on his heels. “In fact, I hope you never do understand it.”
“They were just following the rules!” the boy said.
“Yeah, I’ve followed rules,” Rob said. “Just because the rules exist doesn’t make them right.”
“The Fates hurt your wife?” Megan asked.
“Eight hundred years ago, Aunt Meg,” the boy said with deep sarcasm.
The anger Rob had only barely controlled flared again. What did that child know about pain, anyway?
“So you’ve told everyone that you’re Robin Hood?” Megan asked.
“I haven’t told anyone,” Rob said. “You people have been calling me that.”
“Please.” Megan shook her head slightly. “Give me a little respect. This is Chapeau Enterprises, and ‘chapeau’ means hood or hat in French. Your friend is named Little John. I wouldn’t be surprised if you called your secretary Maid Marian—”
“That’s enough!” Rob was shouting before he realized he had opened his mouth. He couldn’t take this lack of respect any more. “Get them out of here, John, or I will.”
“They came with the Fates,” John said, unfazed by Rob’s anger. John had seen it too many times before. “If you let the Fates out of your office, I’m sure everyone will leave happily.”
They wouldn’t, of course. The Fates wanted something from him, and the woman, with her blazing green eyes, hadn’t stepped back at all. She seemed as angry as he felt.
“You have no right to yell at me or Kyle,” she said. “You don’t know us. We’re not here to bother you. I drove the Fates here to discuss their contract dispute with you. I was only doing it as a favor to Kyle. I hadn’t expected to walk into a place filled with angry people and a lot of blame. Had that been the case, I wouldn’t have brought along a sensitive eleven-year-old—”
“Aunt Meg!” The boy, Kyle, rolled his eyes in obvious embarrassment.
“—and I wouldn’t have brought the Fates. They’re unusual women, and I’m not sure if I like them, but they don’t need this abuse.”
She was beautiful when she was mad. She spoke softly, which people rarely did when they were angry, and the emotion flooded her creamy skin with color that accented the auburn of her hair. Those green eyes flared and held him like he hadn’t been held in a long time.
Normally this kind of anger calmed him down—he liked being the reasonable one in the room—but he wasn’t feeling reasonable.
“Abuse?” he said softly.
“Abuse.” She crossed her arms. “You shout and bluster as if you control the very world. When, in fact, all you’ve done is lock three helpless, naïve women in your office and somehow got out on your own, and then shouted at a little boy you’ve never met before. If that’s not abuse, then you’re bordering on it.”
He stared at her. She was young — younger than she seemed at first glance. Clearly a product of this country and the last thirty years.
“Lady,” he said as gently as he could, considering how angry he still was. “When I was a boy, beatings were common, women were little more than property, and if one of your betters killed your brother, you had no recourse at all. I’ve been a soldier in one of the bloodiest, most senseless conflicts in all of history. I’ve seen more abuse than you can even imagine.”
She raised her chin at him, that fine face filled with skepticism. John had moved away so that he clearly wasn’t part of the discussion. Kyle had moved to the other side of the room, almost as if he couldn’t stand to be between Rob and Megan.
“Locking three—in your words—helpless and naïve women in my office isn’t abuse. It’s reasonable, considering how badly I’d like to slap all three of them. And raising my voice isn’t abuse either. It’s justified when my best friend lets in the three women who hurt me the most because they want a favor!”
Her eyebrows had risen so high in her forehead that she looked comical. But her expression told him she found nothing funny about the moment.
“I don’t care how you were raised,” she said in that horrible reasonable tone. “Your parents were obviously wrong, and whatever country you were in was barbaric. But that doesn’t mean you can treat people here like this. I demand that you unlock the door and let those women out.”
“Or?” Rob asked.
“Or what?” Megan said.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll call the police,” she said.
He laughed. “What will they do? Arrest me for locking women in my office?”
“I’ll tell them that you threatened those women, which you did, and that you raised your voice at my nephew and that I was worried for his safety.”
“Then why not get him out of here?” Rob asked.
“Because I brought those women,” Megan said. “I’m responsible for them. Let them out!”
“All right,” he said. “On one condition.”
She was breathing hard. He tried not to look at her breasts. They were as perfect as she was, moving up and down with each deep, angry breath.
He hadn’t been this attracted to any woman in a long, long time.
“What condition?” she snapped.
“Have dinner with me.” The words came out before he realized what he was going to say. That was the second time he’d done that in this conversation. Whatever had he been thinking?
Of course, he hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.
“You think you can manipulate me into having dinner with you? You’re delusional.”
“You want those women, don’t you?” Rob asked.
Her mouth opened slightly. Then it closed. She looked at young Kyle, whose eyes seemed extra wide behind his thick glasses.
“I don’t even like those women,” she said.
“You don’t like me either,” he said. “So it seems
like an even trade to me.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Kyle said. “I mean—”
“Kyle!” Her voice was harsh, although she hadn’t raised it.
The boy closed his mouth, too, and leaned against the wall. But Rob didn’t need to hear any more. The boy was psychic, and she was undefended. She might not like Rob, but she was intrigued by him.
“I’m not sure you’re nice,” Kyle said to him.
Rob looked at the boy.
“I always thought Robin Hood was nice.”
Rob chuckled. “I fought a sheriff and killed his men, all in the name of a cause. I was a soldier after that. They called me a man’s man. And you thought I was nice? Who cleaned up the legends you’ve been reading?”
The boy dropped his chin. “Zoe says you’re nice.”
“Zoe?” Rob only knew one Zoe—at least, only one Zoe who was still alive. “You know Zoe Sinclair?”
“She’s marrying my dad.”
“Zoe’s getting married?” Rob couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t thought of Zoe as the marrying type.
“To my dad,” the boy said again. “She thinks you’re nice too. In fact, she thought it was a good idea for the Fates to see you.”
“Zoe sent them?”
“She found their spinning wheel,” the boy said. “They want you to steal it.”
Rob looked at John, who shrugged sheepishly. “The famous wheel? The one on which they spun life and death? The one they told me about but never showed me?”
“They said it was stolen three thousand years ago,” John said. “But they’re not very good with time.”
“This fantasy convinces you to help these women?” Megan asked. “What has my brother stumbled into here?”
Rob looked at her. She really didn’t know.
“Let me show you,” he said, and snapped his fingers.
Thirteen
She wasn’t standing in the reception area of an office building any more. Instead, she wobbled slightly on stone-covered grass. The air smelled of the sea. Before her, cliffs rose, their walls blindingly white in the hot sun.
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