Read Her Tender Tyrant for Free Online Page B

rubbed his face again, thinking that he really needed to shave. “Mom invited this woman to study the horses for the next week or so.”
    “And she’s getting in the way of you taking over the world?” Adriana teased.
    Marcus looked out the window and saw Juliette’s jeans-clad butt leaning against the stone wall outside the kitchen. How the hell had she gotten out of the house without him hearing her? “Um, no. Just the opposite. I barely know where she is most of the time.” A fact which really irritated him.
    “And you, being the control freak that you are, want to know where she is?”
    Marcus sighed when Juliette moved behind the outdoor fireplace and he couldn’t see her any longer. “I’m not a control freak,” he argued, but he turned away from the window. He wasn’t a control freak. He let things go. Just like he’d let Juliette go earlier tonight. Not voluntarily, in her case. But still….
    “Of course you are,” she laughed. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I’m sending you pictures of our newest nephew, Grayson. He’s very sweet and huge, coming in at nine pounds, one ounce. Davis is exhausted and thrilled while Kate is beaming with happiness and thankful that she is no longer pregnant with an Alfieri boy.”
    Marcus pressed a button on his computer and smiled at the infant that popped onto his screen. “He’s awesome,” he grumbled. “I can’t wait to get down to Texas to meet him.”
    “Yeah, he’s pretty adorable.”
    “Want another one?” Marcus asked.
    He could hear her shudder all the way across the country. “No way. I have my two little darlings. I know what it is like to carry a baby that big and I told Mitch after Zane was born that there was no way I would go through that again.”
    Marcus laughed – a hearty, rich sound that filled the room. “I’m sure your delicate body was tortured during the whole process.”
    Adriana made a rude sound. “Don’t you ever call me delicate, baby bro. I have proven repeatedly that I can hold my own around you brutes.”
    Marcus laughed. “Fair point,” he replied, thinking back on all the times she’d ingeniously played pranks on him and his brothers after they’d tried something on her. She might not be as big as they were, but she was evil in her retribution.
    “Hey, if you need a break, I can come up there for a while and take care of the horses. I know that you like to work eighteen to twenty hours a day and, without Linda around, you’re probably…”
    “I’m fine,” he interrupted. Now, why did the idea of Adriana taking over his house-sitting responsibilities make him angrier than he had been at the sight of Juliette hiding from him? “No need to cut your vacation short.”
    “It’s no problem. I wouldn’t mind riding Star,” she commented, referring to the black horse with the white spot on its forehead that their mother kept around to ride.
    “Nope. I’ve got it,” he told her. “I’m all set up here anyway so it would cause more of a disruption if you were to interrupt the process.” That was a whopper of a lie if he’d ever told one. Looking around, he thought he might just pull his hair out if he didn’t get some sort of organization going here.
    “Well, take a breather. I know you and, without Linda, you’re swimming in chaos.”
    “Will do,” he said, thinking about perhaps heading down to the stables and going for an evening ride. “Maybe I’ll hop on Brutus and give him some exercise.”
    “Take Star out as well. I know Mom likes to ride her most of the time so she hasn’t been ridden in a few days. Star gets stubborn if she doesn’t go and sprint across the fields regularly.”
    “Just like some other women I know,” he mumbled.
    “What’s that?”
    Marcus focused again on the conversation. “Um…nothing. Yes. I’ll make sure Star goes out for a ride as well. Keep sending me pictures, okay? And tell Zane that the software he built for me is great.”
    Adriana groaned.