Ronnie
“I could get used to this,” I said with a sigh. Sun glittered off the blue water of the pool, and the sound of waves drifted in from one direction, and faint music from the other. My hair was piled on top of my head and I wore a gauzy cover-up over my bikini.
“We thought you might like a week off before the next shoot begins,” Tanner said. He had on board shorts and his powerful chest had somehow turned a deeper shade of tan in the short time since we’d arrived at this Mexican resort yesterday.
“This pineapple drink is amazing.” Ford said. It was his third one. Apparently, his lifelong habit of avoiding most sources of sugar didn’t apply south of the border.
“Want me to rub more sunblock on your back?” Aiden offered. I’d made the mistake of taking him up on that an hour or two ago, and he’d rubbed a lot more things than just my back. We were lucky they hadn’t kicked us out of the resort, but it had sure felt good.
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
Tanner defended his brother. “He’s just asking because he cares about your health and well-being.” He’d had a few drinks, too, even though it was only early afternoon. We all needed this vacation. “He’s a good guy.”
I rolled my eyes as I looked at the handsome movie star. “He’s a…” I completed my sentence with fluent and inventive Spanish.
“That sounded like an insult,” Aiden said. Ford, who only understood a little Spanish, smirked. “Was that an insult? Let’s ask that guy over there.”
To my horror, Aiden got to his feet. I grabbed his arm. “You can’t just go up to random people and ask them to translate for you!”
Even relaxed, vacation-mode Aiden was still super strong. He shook off my hand. “Why not? He looks like he speaks Spanish.”
I followed the direction of his gaze and my jaw dropped. Then I was on my feet rushing at the man. “Tonio!”
My brother caught me and spun me around. For a moment, no words came as I clung to him. I loved my new life with my guys, but God, I’d missed him. Video chats just weren’t the same. “What are you doing here?” I asked when I finally found my voice.
“I came to see how Hollywood was treating you. Or, Mexico, at the moment.”
“Isn’t it amazing here?” I gushed.
“Five-star resorts often are.”
“No, I mean the country itself. It feels… I don’t know. Like something in my blood recognizes this place. Okay, not the resort exactly, but the town.” My men had been sensitive enough to know how much this destination meant to me.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“When did you get here?”
“We flew in late last night.”
“Last night?” I echoed. “Wait, we?”
Tonio grinned and gestured to a table a little way away. My jaw dropped. Emma and Maddie were sipping drinks with umbrellas in them next to a large man with hair and eyes even darker than the twins’.
This time, I didn’t run. Instead, I walked toward them as if in a trance. They stood when I neared and gave me huge hugs. Maddie introduced me to Brock. I’d seen pictures of her men, but up close, Brock was the personification of tall, dark, and fearsome. But he had a kind smile and he couldn’t take his eyes off my friend.
After I’d hugged everyone at least twice, I grabbed Emma’s and Maddie’s hands. “Come on, you have to meet my guys.”
“We did,” Emma said. “Last night when we got here. Or at least two-thirds of them.”
“You did? Where was I?”
Maddie gave a wicked grin. “They said you were in your suite with Tanner, so we didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Or to know about it,” Tonio added. “At any rate, I met the other two men who’ve been corrupting my innocent sister.”
I laughed. Tonio had always been a bit overprotective—good thing that was Emma’s problem now, not mine. “Like you’re one to talk,” I scolded, since he shared Emma with three other men. But I couldn’t help smiling. It was so damn good to see him. “Did you really meet Aiden and Ford?”
Emma nodded. “At a private room off the bar. You should’ve seen it—you could barely breathe because of all the testosterone in the air.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Brock said. He had a deep rumbly voice, and Maddie beamed as she looked up at him.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was just your average pissing match.”
Tonio grinned. “We thought it might be better to work out our differences before we saw you.” He struck a combative pose. “I didn’t want to have to fight for your honor—especially since your crew has had formal training.”
I laughed. “Come over and meet Tanner.” Except when I looked, my men weren’t where they’d been before.
Emma pointed. “They’re in that cabana over there. It’s reserved so that we can have lunch together.”
Lunch, outside on a beautiful sunny day with the people I cared most about in the world, sounded fantastic. My affection for them even extended to Brock, and I didn’t even know him. But he made my friend happy. That was good enough for me.
Brock and Tonio exchanged conversation as they headed over to the cabana, and I looked from Emma to Maddie. “How bad was it when they met last night?”
“Not too bad,” Emma said. “I lectured Tonio the whole way here that it would be pretty hypocritical of him to object to your living with three men given our situation.”
Maddie slanted a look over at me. “You should’ve seen Aiden and Brock when they were arguing over who was going to get the check. If we thought the room reeked of testosterone before, it was nothing compared to that.”
I laughed. That sounded like something Aiden would be stubborn about. “Where are the rest of your guys?” I asked Emma.
Her face fell. “They couldn’t come. With Tonio gone, they had to keep the business up and running.”
Tonio appeared at her side, as if summoned by his name. “And since I brought the brain trust here with me, it was extra important that they man the fort.” He smiled down at Emma and gave her a quick kiss.
“And your other men?” I asked Maddie.
“Jessie’s got a tech press conference. He’s showing off his company’s new products.”
“Is he going to stand on an empty stage wearing a black turtleneck?”
Maddie shuddered. “No, I’ve trained him better than that. And Kincade was going to be here, but some pipes burst and there was major flooding in his Vegas hotel. He told me it looked like the third act of Titanic.”
“Maybe next time, we can all get together,” I said.
“We’d have to rent a bigger cabana,” Tonio remarked. He put his hand on my arm to hold me back when Emma and Maddie joined the others. “How are you really doing?”
The concern in his eyes was apparent. “Good. Very good. It was hard, at first, meeting them… but they’re good men, and they had nothing to do with what Mac did to us.”
Tonio nodded. “I don’t know them, but it would be hard to fault men who think the world of my sister.”
“They do. And I think the world of them.”
“That’s pretty evident,” Tonio said. “And what about Mac? Are things any better with him?”
“Things are… strained. But oddly enough, my training to be a stunt person has given us some common ground. He’s a legend in the field for a reason.”
Tonio shook his head. “I still can’t believe you reached out to him in the first place, but it looks like it’s turned out pretty well for you. Veronica, the bad-ass stunt woman.”
At some point, I needed to broach the idea of him coming to visit—and seeing Mac again. But not now. Instead, I grinned up at him. “Antonio, the bad-ass businessman.”
He gave me a smug smile. “Nope.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re not bad ass?”
“You can’t lay claim to calling me Antonio anymore.” He smirked. “You called me Tonio when you first saw me here.”
“What? No I didn’t.” I hadn’t slipped up in years. The only reason I insisted on using his full first name was because he always insisted on using mine. “I mean, I was surprised, but… did I really call you that?”
If his grin got any wider, he’d end up with permanent facial damage. “Yep. There are witnesses.”
Inwardly, I groaned. “Then you have to call me Ronnie. Just once, to make us even.”
He smiled and his warm brown eyes glinted in the sun. “You’re my little sister and I’ll always love you no matter what… but that’s not going to happen, Veronica.”
He dodged when I tried to hit him, but I had my stunt training to fall back on. He never saw my knee swing up, but he whistled when he saw how close I came to incapacitating him. It was a damn good thing for him that Ford had spent so long teaching me how to make a strike look real but not make contact.
I grinned when Tonio held up his hands and backed away. Then I followed him into the cabana where people I loved were waiting for me.
* * *
“Was it a good trip?” Aiden asked. We were on the private jet back, and I sat next to him and was approaching a nearly catatonic state as he stroked my hair.
“The best.”
“You can have your friends out to visit anytime, you know,” he said softly. “Mi mansion es su mansion.”
Ford chuckled. “And here we thought he didn’t know Spanish.” He and Tanner were playing a card game at the table across the aisle.
I didn’t feel the need for any in-flight entertainment. I was content to look from one amazing man to the next. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that they were mine—but every single day they reminded me how glad they were that I was theirs.
Tanner looked up at me and grinned. “You look pretty damn content. Like a cat being petted.”
“Meow,” was my only comment.
A flight attendant appeared and asked us if we’d like anything else to drink. Ford asked for a beer and then followed her up to the front of the plane. When he reappeared, he had bottles for all of us.
“Oh good,” Aiden said, “You finally got a real job.”
Ford rolled his eyes as he passed out the beverages. “I asked the flight attendant to give us some privacy.”
Aiden’s hand fell from my hair as he jolted to attention. Across the aisle, Tanner accidentally knocked some playing cards to the floor. “How come?” he asked, though from the grin spreading across his face, it was clear he already suspected.
As did I.
Ford grinned at me. “I thought you might like to join the mile-high club.”
Three pairs of eyes were glued to me, waiting for my answer. I took a big swig of the beer Ford had brought me, enjoying making them wait. Finally, I said, “Na, I’m good.”
Disappointment filled the cabin. But so did acceptance.
Then I looked them in the eye, one after the other, unable to keep the smile from spreading across my face. “But I would like to join the three-mile-high club.”
Their grins matched my own as they moved in. As I felt the love–and skill–in their touch, I knew I was the luckiest woman in the entire world. They proved that to me every day.
And were going to prove it again right now.
(c) Stephanie Brother 2022
