Marrying Mari (12 page)

“What?”

He nodded. Glanced at the clock. “You’ve got about twenty minutes.”

“Dammit!” Mari pushed out of bed and bounced across Ethan, who responded with an “oof” as she passed. Gabriel crossed his arms under his head and enjoyed the sight of her naked backside headed for the en suite bathroom. He grinned when she jerked out a drawer and scooped up panties and a bra, T-shirt and jeans and flounced into the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and Ethan winced.

“What the hell?”

Gabriel studied his friend. “I told her it was nearly time for Mrs. W to wake us for breakfast.”

“Uh.” Ethan pulled a pillow over his head.

Hmm. Interesting. Ethan was always up and dressed at this time, which was…

“It’s nearly eight.”

“What?” Ethan sat up and stared at the clock. “Damn.” He yawned.

Gabe grinned.

“Stop grinning.”

“Okay.” But Gabe didn’t. It was rare to see Ethan out of his routine. “It’s Saturday. Our housekeeper arrived, given the sounds downstairs, about an hour ago. The noise has steadily increased. I think deliberately. I give her twenty minutes before she storms the citadel, meaning your bedroom door. Her curiosity is killing her, Ethan.” Gabe lay back against the pillows, watching Ethan shove aside the covers and get out of bed. Stand by the bed and wipe his hands across his face. “We need to talk to Mari. This morning, at breakfast.”

Ethan sighed. “Yes.”

“You’re the one who told his family.”

“I know.” Ethan sighed and crossed to his dresser. He frowned and closed the drawers she had left hanging open. Then glanced at the bathroom door. From behind it came the sounds of the shower. Which meant Mari was naked. Gabe watched Ethan realize that very fact, and respond. Fast. Hard.

“We’ve got to be there by lunch.”

“How long have you been up?” Ethan grumbled.

Gabriel grinned and looked meaningfully at the shower door. “About five minutes longer than you.” He laughed at Ethan’s dark glare. “Yeah. Do you want to move Mari into the yellow room today?”

“Why?”

“Uh, to give her some space? And to get her out of your ultra-neat zone.” Gabriel stood and stretched. He felt good. He ambled toward the bedroom door, pulling on the sweatpants he’d had on last night prior to their lovemaking session. Mrs. W would kill him if she ran into him naked in the hall. She’d give him
that
look.

He safely negotiated the hallway. His room was as large as Ethan’s, but had no skylight. Instead he had the terrace. The terrace ran from his room to the third bedroom suite, which would become Mari’s. Like Ethan, he had a dressing room and huge bath. He also had a big, heavy bed, with a massive carved headboard and footboard in burled maple.

Gabriel stripped off his clothes and turned on the water. His bathroom had a glassed-in shower with multiple showerheads and warm-colored stone tiles. He stood in the center of the stall and let the hot water stream over him. Memories of the night before played through his mind. He hadn’t exaggerated to Ethan. He was in love with Mari, and there were some surprisingly sweet feelings there. But the memory of her naked body kneeling before him, of stroking deep into her silken, wet pussy while watching her take Ethan in her mouth was not sweet. It was raw and exciting and primal, and his body responded. He grasped his erection and stroked, hard and fast, propping himself against the stone walls with his other hand. The warm water pounded on his shoulders and back as Gabriel came, in hot, heavy jets of semen.

He slumped against the wall, breathing heavily.

Bloody hell. The woman was going to kill him. He grinned at the thought and pushed himself away from the wall.

Mari stared at the plate in front of her. A heap of scrambled eggs, bacon, sliced tomatoes. On the side, whole-wheat toast and a bowl of fresh fruit. Coffee. Juice. She looked sideways at Gabriel’s plate. He had French toast, as well. Homemade French toast from thick, chunky slices of bread.

“I usually just have coffee,” she said. “And some kind of protein bar.”

Gabriel shoved a forkful of French toast, dripping with melted butter and syrup, in his mouth. “Yeah. Not Mrs. Watson’s idea of breakfast, so deal with it. Free advice.”

She frowned. It did smell good. Tentatively, she ate a mouthful.

Ten minutes later she laid down her fork and blinked. Her plate was empty, most of the toast was gone, one cup of coffee drunk, one halfway gone. Wow.

Both men were watching her. Gabriel was smiling again. He seemed to do that a lot, she thought, more than she had realized. Ethan looked pleased, but as calm as always.

He put down the paper he had been reading. “Now we talk.”

“Uh, okay.” Mari winced. She sounded downright wary.

Gabriel, sitting on her left, reached out and took her hand. “It’s all good, sugar. Just some things we need to cover. When we brought you back here, you weren’t in any shape to discuss our plan.”

She raised her eyebrows.
Our
plan? Huh. Both men were too damn in charge.

“We’d like to move you in here—today,” Ethan said. “This morning, in fact.” He glanced at Gabriel, then back at her. “Because the three of us are having lunch with my folks today. At their house in the Colony.”

“Oh,
no!
” Mari said, “Oh, no! I look like hell, and you didn’t give me any warning—”

Ethan smiled. “Yes, today. And you look beautiful.”

“Gorgeous,” Gabe seconded.

She frowned at both of them and tried to pull her hand from Gabriel’s hold. “Don’t even try to sweet talk me. Are you crazy? The moving me in thing, that’s enough for today. Meeting your family? I don’t even—where do you get this idea?”

“I want them to meet you. I told my parents about you.”

“Told them what?” Mari asked.

He ignored her. “They want to meet you too. No pressure, just a barbecue in our backyard. And yes, my parents, my brother Tony, my sister Irene.”

Her mouth dropped open. Her head dropped into her free hand. “Oh, God.”

Gabriel kissed her fingers. “We’ll swing by your apartment and fill a couple of suitcases and boxes with clothes and the other things you’ll need and then head upstate.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “When we come back this afternoon, we’ll move you into the third bedroom. It will be all yours, although I honestly don’t think you’ll be using it for sleeping, sweetheart.” She blushed, and he grinned again. Damn, he liked making her blush.

“I’ve been in bed for three days. I can’t meet your mother looking like this.”

Ethan studied her. “Of course you can.”

“I can’t wear my biking clothes to her house and that’s all I’ve got.”

“It’s a barbecue, you can certainly wear anything that’s casual and clean, and that won’t get you out of it.” Ethan went back to his paper. “Next week, we’ll buy you more clothes.”

“Say again?”

Gabriel sat back. “New clothes.”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes, sugar.”

“I may be considering being your mate, but I am not your—your
mistress.
”

“Stop right there.” Ethan barked.

Gabriel shook his head. “Mari.”

“What? You just offered to buy me clothes, you’re talking about moving me in here, mating. What then?” She pushed back from the table and folded her arms over her chest, shoved her chin in the air and stared at both men.

Ethan leveled a look back at her. “First, don’t ever talk that way about yourself again. If you agree, you’ll be our mate, our wife and the mother of our children. An equal partner in this triad. And yes, we will buy you clothes. Because you just said that everything you own is, quote, biking clothes, and living with us, you’ll need more than that. You’ll come to the restaurant or to Crave with Gabriel or me, or both. Probably several times a week. You’ll attend bank functions with me or, again, us. There will be events at the Colony, casual and formal. We’ll even go to places that aren’t connected to our businesses or to the Colony.”

“You’ll need clothes for all those things. And shoes. And lingerie. Lots of lingerie, I think.” Gabe grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

“I can buy my own lingerie.”

Ethan raised one eyebrow. “Good for you. But we’ll buy the clothes. After all, you’re living here so we can find out if we three fit.” He shrugged. “We might not. In which case, why should you be out what you could consider a trial uniform? If you go back to your life at the end of thirty days, you won’t be using these clothes. We can hang onto them for the next possibility.” Ethan went back to reading his paper for a second time.

Mari stared at him in shock.
The next possibility?

Gabe slanted a look at Ethan and put an expression of consideration on his face. “Good idea. We’ll buy you what you need for the month with us, and no obligation when you leave. If you stay…” He gestured with his hand.

“
If
I stay, I’ll pay you back,” Mari shot in.

“Okay.” Gabe nodded.

“And about your job,” Ethan said.

“What about it?”

Gabriel said, “We’d like you to reconsider it.” He held up a hand. “Hear us out. You just got hurt in a crash, which scared us, me, to death. You can’t imagine how terrified I was, heading down to that hospital.” He pushed up from the table and strode to the windows, staring out over Central Park, seeing nothing but her unconscious body in the hospital bed.

“I’ve never had a crash before. I’m very careful. Gabriel, I’m not giving up my job,” she said. “What if this, between us, doesn’t work out? Then what do I do?”

Ethan nodded. “I agree. During the next thirty days we’d just like you to cut back your hours.” He shot a warning look at Gabriel. “We’ll want to, need to, spend time with you to get to know if we get along.
Outside
the bedroom. Inside seems certain.” His blue eyes gleamed and he lowered the thickly lashed lids. “We will both be taking time off and ask you to do the same. You’re not the only person making changes here. We also thought you might like to re-think med school.”

This time Mari was silent.

Gabe turned and looked at her. “You were taking pre-med classes until this spring. Did you change your mind about becoming a doctor?”

“No.”

“Then why stop taking any classes at all?”

“I want to finish my undergraduate degree. And I still want to go on to med school. My grades are really good. If I do well on the MCATs, I can probably get into a decent program, even going part-time.” She played with her half-empty cup of coffee.

Ethan folded the newspaper and focused completely on Mari. “So why aren’t you taking any classes this semester?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t afford it. If I worked the number of hours to pay for school, I had no time to study. If I studied to keep my grades high, I couldn’t make enough money to pay for classes.”

“What about your mother?” Ethan’s voice was gentle.

Mari shook her head. “No. And I can’t get a student loan with decent rates. Believe me, I’ve tried. I don’t want to talk about this.” She stood and headed for the doorway, but Gabriel blocked her path.

“Tell us what the problem is, little one. Maybe we can help.”

She swung back to face Ethan. “You can’t.”

“How do you know until you tell us?”

“Didn’t your detective give you all the bloody details about my life already?”

Ethan stared down his perfect nose at her, one eyebrow lifted, ignoring her temper.

Behind her, Gabriel murmured in her ear, “Might as well give in.”

She scrubbed her hands over her eyes and snarled a little. The quick flash of anger washed out of her, pushed aside by a combination of irritation and amusement. They were some pair, these men. Gabriel’s arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her back against his solid length.

“Okay, okay. My life story, in two minutes. My father Paolo left my mother twelve years ago. He claimed he wanted a separation, but we found out he had another woman who was already pregnant. Mama divorced him, but they left town before it came through. He’s never paid one dime of alimony or child support. I don’t know where he is, and if your detective knows, don’t tell me. I don’t care. Before he left, Mama was working as a waitress at a coffee shop in our neighborhood to make ends meet. After, she started working nights and weekends cleaning offices to support us both.” She paused. Gabriel led her back to the table.

Ethan poured her a new cup of coffee. And waited.

“After three years, Mama got promoted to manager of the coffee shop, and then two years later she got a job managing a restaurant in midtown. I was sixteen by then, and we decided that I should start paying my own way. Which made sense, since I was already cooking my own meals and cleaning the apartment, because she worked all the time. I got part-time jobs, working before and after school. They were enough to pay for what I needed, plus make contributions to rent and utilities.” She added milk to the cup, stirred it. She felt the two men exchanging looks over her head, but she wasn’t interested in their pity.