Hers To Keep: THE QUINTESSENCE COLLECTION I

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Andrei rolled his eyes. “Same difference.”

  “Guys, come on. I’m fine.” And she was. Always had been when they touched her.

  Kurt dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  She turned into him before he left, and he let her hug him, before he wrapped his arms around her.

  Sighing in his embrace, she murmured against his shirt, “Why do you always smell good? All of you?”

  Kurt snorted. “I wouldn’t complain about that if I were you.”

  “What should we smell of?” Sawyer asked, aggressive as usual. She didn’t think he even meant to be, but it was just his tone and his accent.

  Like how the Spanish could sound as though they were having a rip-roaring row, and yet, were actually discussing something innocuous—like who forgot to take out the trash.

  “I don’t know. You just smell perfect.”

  “Perfect’s an adjective I can accept,” Kurt teased.

  “It’s probably a pheromone thing,” Devon said as he came down the stairs. For a man who managed to trip head-first into a conversation, he was surprisingly stealthy when he wandered around the house.

  The men weren’t surprised by his presence—probably because they were used to Devon just popping up. But she was. Surprised, that is.

  Grateful her father was a lot more cumbersome on his feet—he was a desk sergeant, rarely saw duty out on the streets where stealth was a requirement—she murmured, “I suppose it could be. For some of you. But all of you?”

  He headed for her, then to Kurt, argued, “I want some love too. Move out of the way.”

  Her lips twitched, and with one last squeeze of her arms, she released Kurt and shuffled into Devon’s embrace. “You’re such a brat sometimes.”

  He grinned; she felt the movement of his lips against her cheek. “You have to be in this house. I’d never get any sugar.” His nose burrowed into her throat and he hummed under his breath. “You smell good too. Not pheromones, mind. Although, I suppose in a way it is. You smell like sex and mine.” He sighed with satisfaction. “Delicious.”

  She tensed in his arms. “I smell like sex?”

  “Ignore him,” Kurt ordered. “You don’t.” He elbowed Devon in the side. “Tell her it’s just your super nose.”

  “Since when did you have a super nose?” she demanded with a scowl.

  “Since the Scuba Diving Incident of ’97.”

  She pulled back to stare at him. “The Scuba Diving Incident of ’97?”

  He grimaced. “Don’t ask. Let’s just say, an ear infection that led to partial hearing loss in my left ear encouraged me never to go into the sea again.”

  “He means that too,” Andrei remarked as he took a seat at the table. “He won’t go near the ocean. Even if it’s a city he has to visit for work.”

  “So, if I wanted to go to Cornwall, you wouldn’t go?”

  “Do you want to go to Cornwall?” he asked, sounding like she was asking to visit Pluto on a day trip.

  She couldn’t hide her smile. “I might do. One day. I’ve never been before, and I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

  He heaved out a breath. “With certain encouragement, I’m sure I could be swayed.”

  Silence fell in the kitchen, and she peered about, demanding, “What?”

  Sawyer snorted. “You really are a miracle worker and you don’t even know it.”

  “How’s that?” she asked, reaching up to kiss Devon, before tugging free of his arms and getting back to dinner prep.

  “For twenty years, we haven’t been able to get him near a coastline, Sascha. He just said if you bribe him with sex, he’ll go. That never worked before.”

  Trust Sawyer to come up with phrasing like that.

  She rolled her eyes as she stirred the sauce, then moved over to the chopping board and finely sliced some basil leaves she’d picked that morning from the small herb garden she had out in the yard.

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “No, it’s true,” Devon said brightly as he took a seat at the table too. Only the two heads of the table, where she and Sean were seated, as well as the one to her right—her father’s place—were empty now.

  “It is?” She peered at him. “How come?”

  He grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Her eyes flashed. “I thought we were supposed to be honest with one another.”

  “We are. But I’m under strict instructions not to discuss anything inflammatory when your father’s around, and he’s upstairs.”

  She looked at the ceiling, the move second nature even though it was stupid because it wasn’t like she could even see any damn thing.

  The faint steps had her grumbling, “Thought you’d lost hearing in one ear.”

  “Yep, but the other’s stronger to compensate, and now I can smell like a perfume maker.”

  “Bully for you,” she retorted. Pointing the spatula at him, she murmured, “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten this conversation.”

  “I look forward to having it at a later date.”

  His smugness had her rolling her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “But you love me for it.”

  Their gazes clashed at that. His mocking but earnest nonetheless, hers stunned that he’d breached that particular lover’s etiquette when her father was walking down the fucking steps to the kitchen.

  Her nostrils flared in outrage, and she glowered at him.

  They’d not spoken of love. Not really. For him to do it that way made her want to spank him with a spoon too.

  “That smells great, Sascha,” her father, Henry, murmured as he rounded the corner. His smile wavered as he saw her bosses sitting at the table. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize we’d all be eating together.”

  Sascha told him, “We always eat down here.”

  “You as well?” Henry asked, his brows high in surprise.

  “We run a very informal household,” Andrei told him, sounding anything but informal.

  Henry just blinked. “Oh.”

  Sascha had to hide a smile because her father didn’t like Russians. It was a ridiculous dislike perpetuated by recent events. He could be surprisingly xenophobic when it boiled down to it. A trait she didn’t share… considering she was fucking a German, three Brits, and a Russian. Shit, maybe she was running her own, very small version of NATO here.

  Although, her version of problem solving was undoubtedly very different to NATO’s…

  Lips curling in a smile, she asked, “You get everything unpacked, dad?” Better to change the subject than to focus on the true oddity of their household.

  He would notice more with time. Time was not her friend in this instance.

  “Yes, thanks, honey. I had a quick nap and showered up.”

  “You shouldn’t have napped,” Devon told him, reaching forward to grab a slice of crusty bread from the wooden board that ran down the center of the table. It was thin, but full—the guys ate so much bread, it was a wonder they didn’t all turn into white-sliced loaves.

  As he buttered it, he went on, “Your body’s natural circadian rhythms have been altered by the flight. Following the time zone you’ve travelled to is the smarter option if you don’t want to be tired throughout the duration of your holiday.”

  Her father blinked, and she grinned. “He’s always like that. Don’t mind him.”

  Kurt cocked a brow as he sipped at the fruity Riesling she’d paired with her dad’s favorite pasta dish—Spaghetti Carbonara.

  Not that Henry would drink the wine. She’d made sure to grab some beers from the local store a few roads away to satisfy her father’s more baser appetites.

  Henry wasn’t exactly a Guinness drinker. Which was all they had in the house for Sawyer and Kurt’s benefit.

  “Since when do you know what jet lag does to the body?” Kurt demanded. “You’ve barely travelled anywhere.”

  Devon shrugged. “I read.”

  “Reading isn
’t the same as doing,” Andrei pointed out. “Although, he is right.”

  “I know he is,” Kurt argued. “I’m just saying, he isn’t an expert.

  Sawyer grumbled, “That’s a first. Something Devon isn’t an expert in.”

  “After the Great Snorkeling Incident of ‘97, I’d say that was a given,” she inserted teasingly, making the men laugh and her father look over them with curiosity.

  “It wasn’t snorkeling, Sascha. It was scuba diving,” Devon corrected with a sniff.

  She stuck out her tongue then ordered, “Devon, call Sean. Dinner’s ready.”

  “No need. I’m here.”

  Sean came down the stairs and rounded the corner looking like he’d just walked in off a modelling set. For once, he was in informal wear. A tee-shirt with ‘The Smiths’ logo on it, and a pair of jeans. He was, as usually was the case, barefoot.

  His hair was tousled, the messy waves somehow looking styled to perfection as he headed straight to the kitchen counter where she was working and leaned over for a kiss.

  She froze. As did he. And the rest of the diners at the table.

  For a second, nobody said anything, and she saw Sean close his eyes in regret, then look at her in apology. “I forgot,” he mouthed.

  She grimaced, then cleared her throat. With her arm still in a cast, she relied on them to do a lot of the lifting, so saying, she murmured, “Grab the dishes, Sean.”

  Knowing her cheeks were pink, she moved toward the table and kept her eyes averted from her father’s.

  As was usually the case, she had a stack of dishes on her setting, and Sean had placed the bowl of Spaghetti Carbonara, complete with raw egg yolk stirred into the deliciously gloopy mix, and enough Parmesano Reggiano to cause a stink, to her left.

  Serving up portions, she wished like hell one of the men would speak to cover up Sean’s blunder, but they didn’t. Not even her father did.

  And she didn’t dare look at him.

  Her eyes caught Sean’s as she handed the first dish to Devon, who started passing the dishes down the table. He looked filled with regret, his remorse evident. She gave a tiny headshake, smiling at him a little to tell him she forgave him.

  It had been a big thing to ask of them all. Hiding their intimacy was inordinately difficult when they had a tendency of being rather touchy feely.

  Truth was, she was surprised she hadn’t caved in first.

  She loved their affectionate ways. Loved how they greeted her with hugs and kisses when they happened upon her in any room of the house—like they hadn’t seen her in a lifetime and needed to reconnect.

  It wasn’t a habit she wanted to break. No, sirree.

  Andrei, thank God, cleared his throat and murmured, “I meant to say. Katrin’s situation has been dealt with, Kurt.”

  Kurt jolted in surprise, almost knocking his wine glass out of his hand. “It is? That was fast!”

  Andrei shrugged as he twirled his fork around the spaghetti. “It wasn’t too difficult to solve. Not that her bank balance has been restored… Her financial advisor is out of touch because he’s living in the Cayman Islands. Well, he was. Now he’s just under arrest there.”

  “What about her money?” Sascha asked as she took a seat, then, realizing her father was in the dark, murmured, “Katrin is Kurt’s ex-wife, dad. She came to the house a few weeks ago asking for help.”

  Andrei pitched in, “Her hedge fund manager had embezzled close to five hundred million euros of his clients’ money.” He shrugged. “Whether we can recoup the funds is another matter entirely. But I looked into her situation further, and she has about five million tucked away in an old trust fund her maternal grandmother set up for her. She should be okay on that if she economizes.”

  Her father choked on the sip of beer he’d just taken. “Economizes?”

  Sascha grinned. “I know, right? They all live in another stratosphere. But you should have seen her dad. I swear, everything she wore cost at least a thousand dollars.”

  “Probably more,” Kurt said with a grunt. “Economizing isn’t in Katrin’s nature.”

  “No. I know. That’s why I set her up with a hedge fund manager I trust. Half of it has been reinvested, and that will reinstate her wealth in the long term.”

  “What are the chances of the authorities getting the money back?”

  Andrei shrugged. “Not very high. It was a Ponzi scheme.”

  Kurt’s eyes widened. “I told her to run her investments through you.”

  Andrei snorted. “She asked, I denied. I didn’t want to work with her, Kurt. At the time she was your wife, and I was duty bound to help, but Katrin’s a brat. When she came to me, I advised her on who to use. She went with Hans Jorgen when I specifically advised against using him. He was offering far too lucrative returns, and far too consistently.”

  Her father broke in, “What is it you do exactly? Are you all in finance?”

  “No, dad. Just Andrei is in finance.”

  “Well, I run a lot of different side projects. I play the markets because it’s fun, but like Devon and Sawyer, math is my calling.”

  Henry’s eyes widened as he glanced over Devon and Sawyer. “You’re into math?”

  She giggled. “That’s an understatement, dad. They’re like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.”

  “Technically, they’re even smarter than that,” Kurt said with a chuckle. “Devon is a prodigy.”

  “I thought only kids were prodigies.”

  Sawyer shrugged. “Devon might as well be a kid. He certainly has the self-control of one.”

  The man in question snorted. “You’re only saying that because I beat you at chess this afternoon.”

  “With a reckless move that made no sense.”

  Devon just grinned. Smugly. “Worked though, didn’t it?”

  She cleared her throat, sidestepping the argument she knew was about to happen by inserting, “You remember Black Blood? That book that made a splash last year?”

  For the first time, she met her father’s glance. He nodded. “I remember. Read it too. Damn good book.”

  “Kurt wrote it.”

  Her father’s mouth dropped open as he turned to stare at Kurt. “You wrote it? You’re Kurt Yeller?”

  “For my sins,” Kurt toasted him.

  “Jesus. That’s one of my favorite books.” He shook his head, disbelief painted onto his features. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  She snorted. “And miss out on you being star struck?”

  Henry grunted. “Disrespectful as always, girlie.”

  Sascha just grinned and forked up some of her meal, but he shook his head at her irreverent smile.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kurt. I’d have known if Sascha had introduced me with your full names.”

  Kurt shrugged. “No reason to stand on formality here. This is our home. Sascha’s too.”

  “I can see that,” Henry pointed out softly, and his gaze turned into a laser-like beam as he skewered Sean on it. “And you? What is it you do?”

  Sean’s fork scraped against the china as he murmured, “I’m a criminologist.”

  That had her father’s interest snagged—how couldn’t it be when he was a cop? He turned to Sascha, a look in his eyes. She had to hide a smile. “A good one.”

  Sean frowned, confused by the byplay between father and daughter.

  “Dad doesn’t reckon much to criminologists.”

  “Not in the States anyway. They’re usually FBI sanctioned, and they come in and muscle in on local cases that our department should be handling, not the Feds.”

  Sean nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen how the system works in the States. Been invited over there a time or two for conventions.”

  “Did you go?” she asked, surprised as he’d never mentioned that before.

  “No. I don’t like America.”

  The statement had her freezing in place, dreading what her patriotic father would have to say to that, then Devon broke the ice by snortin
g. “And I thought I was the one who suffered with ‘Foot in Mouth’ syndrome.”

  Sean grimaced. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. The people are great, but I don’t approve of your gun laws, which I’m aware won’t make me very popular over there. It’s easier for me to stay away than it is to get involved. It’s far too easy to make a bad name for yourself in the community I work in, and if that happens, it will destroy the work I can do over here.”

  Her father pondered that, then nodded. “I can respect a man who stands up for his principles. Better that than a hypocrite.”

  Though she knew her father had to be suspicious over their relationship after the way Sean had almost kissed her, she also had to reason that her dad was still aware Sean was her boss.

  Whether he was being tactful because of that, she wasn’t sure.

  Kurt cleared his throat. “Europe is a lot more liberal. Is this your first time over here, Henry?”

  “Pretty much. Sascha’s mother never wanted to leave the States. Said there was too much to see over there, and by the time I married again, I wasn’t much interested in travel.”

  She frowned. “That’s sad, dad. There’s so much of the world to see.”

  “I see a lot of it from behind my desk, Sascha. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but that’s all the bad stuff. What about the good?”

  He shrugged. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Only because of the divorce.”

  “No, because I wanted to see you, and you haven’t been back in two years. I know you just started this new job, so I guessed you wouldn’t be making your way home any time soon.”

  Because he’d deduced correctly, she conceded that with a grimace. Truthfully though, work hadn’t been the only reason why she’d avoided returning home.

  If she hadn’t stayed with her father, that would have caused a row, and the last thing she wanted was to share a roof with Linda again.

  Almost like her father cottoned on to that, he murmured, “Plus, until recently, you didn’t have much reason to come home, did you?”

  She winced. “You taught me to be adult about situations that were out of my control, dad.”

  “And I agreed and understood, even though it saddened me my daughter couldn’t come and visit because she knew she’d end up arguing with her stepmother.” He reached over and grabbed her hand. As he squeezed it, he murmured, “I’m sorry about that, baby.”