Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 12

Jolie was gently pushing Pia on the swing and trying to ignore the fact there were eight different bodyguards stationed around the playground. The two men casually sitting on the bench, Brixton and Malik looked like they had stepped right off the cover page of GQ, with their scarves perfectly matching their coats and gloves, drinking coffee, as if oblivious to the fact the rest of the people in the park were shooting them curious glances.

A trio of moms standing not far from them, near the slides and rock wall were eyeballing the men like they were looking for replacement spouses and one of them had questioned which child belonged to which man. One of the women commented they could be a gay couple and Jolie had to fight the laughter bubble coming up from deep in her belly.

A little boy raced and jumped onto the swing next to Pia’s, demanding his father push him.

“Hi,” the man smiled at Jolie keeping a good distance between them which she appreciated. “I don’t think we’ve seen you at this park before.”

“It’s our first time,” Jolie smiled back benignly as she pushed Pia.

One of the guards stepped closer as if wanting to make sure the man with his probable four-year-old didn’t do anything stupid and Jolie shook her head at him, rolling her eyes. Even she knew this guy was no threat.

One of the trio of moms came closer, “are you the nanny?”

Jolie looked to her confusion. “Excuse me?”

“We’ve been trying to figure out which child belongs to those two gorgeous specimens over there. She’s his little clone,” the woman had a beanie hat on, blonde curls spilling out from under it, her cheeks rosy and bright, nudged her head in the direction of Brixton. “He has to be her father. Is he single?”

Pia perked up immediately and looked to her uncle excitedly. “My daddy?”

Jolie growled at the woman, “you think I’m the nanny? I’m her mother!”

“Oh,” she looked Jolie up and down, taking in the well-worn coat, faded jeans, and knitted cap. “Really? I can’t imagine it. You are far too plain for him.” She made wide eyes and strolled back to her group sneering.

The man pushing the boy on the swing chuckled, “vultures. My first two weeks of bringing PJ here, all three of them tried to get my number. I’m happily married. My wife is a nurse and worked overnight last night. PJ is pretty loud so we came out to let him burn his energy and let her rest. I can’t lie and say I wasn’t considering another park because they’re always here man scaping on Sunday mornings.”

Jolie giggled at his words, “um, man scaping is when a man shaves …” she trailed off at his blush.

“I mean man hunting. Oh my god. When I tell my wife what I said she’s going to mock me forever.”

They were both laughing loudly now.

She looked up as Brixton approached. At first, she wondered if he was irritated, she was talking to a man who was not approved but then he called out with a smile, “Time to go, ladies!”

Pia jumped off the swing rushed him and screamed “daddy” wrapping her arms around his neck.

“No,” Jolie whispered in horror, taking the time to shoot a furious glance at the three women watching the exchange.

Brixton looked to Jolie with a raised eyebrow. She waved off the man at the swing and walked over to him.

“The blonde with the pink hat came over to ask if I was the nanny and if you were single. They determined by looking at Pia you must be her father because you look alike and said so. Stupid bitch.” She shot another look over her shoulder and making sure Pia didn’t see her, flipped off the woman.

Brixton grabbed her hand and put it down laughing, “there are far worse things to be called than daddy by a five-year-old.” He looked to the man, “do you know him?”

“Nope. He said he brings his kid here all the time to let his wife sleep off her overnight shift. They hit on him too. For the record, there was an entire conversation about you and Malik being a couple.”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly now and Jolie’s heart stopped a full second before thundering to a start. His black hair glinted in the sunlight peeking through the thick clouds and his mouth was wide, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he roared at her comment. It was the first time she was looking at him without him being somewhat stern with her and had to admit he was gorgeous. She looked away as he wiped tears from the corner of his eyes.

“Oh, it’s too much. Malik is going to love it.” He kept Pia cuddled to his chest. “For the record, there’s no way any of them mistook you for the nanny. Maybe a surrogate for our gay marriage but not the nanny. She looks like you as much as she does a Cacciola.”

His comment made her giggle up and he smiled at her.

“Aw, look, she smiles,” he winked at her.

“Mommy smiles all the time. She’s very silly.” Pia leaned back in his arms, her mitted hands cupping his cheeks. “I like your smile. Can I call you daddy? Felicity has a daddy and he throws her in the air and catches her and I want a daddy.”

“Baby,” Jolie stroked her hair softly feeling terrible about having to break the little girl’s heart but knowing it was inevitable.

“I don’t see why not,” Brixton said interrupting her. “You are the boss and the princess.”

“And mommy is the queen and you can be the king.”

Jolie stared at him incredulously as he simply allowed her to carry on with her prattling. “Brixton, no.”

“Jolie, yes,” he mocked her. “Also, stop calling me Brixton. Only my stepfather does because he named me and it grates on my nerves. It’s Brix.” When she opened her mouth he pointed his finger at her, “I dare you to argue with me. I dare you.” While his words were smug, his eyes were still light and playful. “Before we left, I said there was no arguing today, didn’t I?”

“How did you get such a pretentious name and have it fit you so well?” she mumbled as she walked alongside him towards the waiting car.

He grinned at her question his easy-going manner in stark contrast to the harshness he’d been treating her with thus far. “My mother was an admin assistant for one of dad’s business associates. He made her his mistress but my mom had no idea he was married. When she found out, she packed up from the apartment he’d set her up in and left. She then married a very nice and very wealthy man who didn’t care she was pregnant with another man’s child. She managed to keep me hidden in white upper-class suburbia for two whole years until one of my dad’s guards saw us out one day. The man took one look at my nose and knew whose kid I was. He reported it to my dad, in spite of my mother begging him not to and the rest was history. You can’t hide a Cacciola nose.” He grinned at her.

“No, you can’t. Good thing it looks cute on a girl.” She said looking at Pia.

“Remind her of this when she’s fifteen and hating it. I wanted a nose job from the ages of fourteen to seventeen.”

Jolie laughed at his words, “I can’t imagine you vainly staring in a mirror contemplating another nose.”

“You didn’t grow up with Malik.” He tossed back. “Malik had his babyface thing going for him and was funny and easy going and I was quiet, barely spoke a word and studious. He would use his laid-back demeanor and would steal my girlfriends.”

“He stole your girlfriends?” It seemed unlikely to her. Malik was a good-looking man but he had nothing on Brix.

“Three times,” he held up three fingers.

“Didn’t it make you mad?”

“Nah., I didn’t care. If they wanted to have the happy meal instead of the fine dining experience of Brixton Beckwith, it was their loss.”

“Fine dining experience?” she scoffed at his words.

He passed Pia to a guard who buckled her into her seat. He looked to Jolie, “you know what they say, right? Big nose, big feet, big –” he mumbled as she shoved her mitted palm over his mouth. He was laughing as he pulled her hand down. “I’m only saying, if a woman wants the little prize that comes with a kid’s meal, Malik’s your man but if a girl wants the grown-up full course meal which will fill her up, she comes home with Brix.”

“I heard that,” Malik grunted as he approached. “Do I even want to know why you’re making happy meal references with my name in it.”

As the door closed Pia inside, Jolie faced him, “Brix says you have a small p***s. Also, the trio over there think you are gay lovers and I’m your nanny.”

“It’s not small. It’s average,” Malik quipped nonplussed by Brix’s comment, looking over his shoulder to the trio of women watching them, “and we’re a polyamorous trio, not a gay couple and a nanny. If they’re going to come up with stories, they should at least make them exciting.”

“I wouldn’t sleep with either one of you, let alone both of you,” Jolie felt her nose was so wrinkled she could smell her own brain. Nasty. She told herself it was disgust making her stomach flip and flop with the thought of the scenario Malik had painted.

“What’s wrong with us?” Malik questioned folding his arms over his chest. “I mean I get Brix, he looks just like your abusive piece of s**t baby daddy, but why me? What did I do?”

She felt put on the spot at his question and his very direct gaze. In for a penny, she supposed. “He’s a mob boss, you’re his enforcer. It’s far too much ego for my fragile mind to take,” she shook her head and jumped into the door the guard held open for her and scooted into the middle beside Pia. She noted the child already had her headphones on and tablet going. These security guys didn’t play around.

Brix scooted in beside her frowning. “I’m the CEO of the biggest real estate conglomerate in the world. Mob boss is a side gig.”

His words, and the teasing behind them surprised her. “Seriously? Side gig?”

“Yeah, it’s more my father’s business than mine. I mean, do I get to inherit it all and rule the world with an iron fist? Sure, but I don’t let the power go to my head.”

“Not the big one anyone, though both of them are huge,” Malik said as he turned around in the passenger seat of the front and joined the conversation. “I’m also a security specialist, not an enforcer.”

“Semantics,” Jolie argued as she felt her eyes widen at his innuendo. “And I don’t even want to know how you know such things.”

“We’re best friends. We do everything together.” Malik wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She looked to Brix in astonishment. “Everything?”

He smirked at her, “almost everything.”

“So then not everything,” her eyes were flicking back and forth between them, curiosity quelling her ability to stop herself from pursuing the topic.

“The thing you’re thinking of,” Malik grinned naughtily, “more than once.”

Brixton chuckled as she gaped at him, reaching out to close her mouth with his finger and thumb. “Enough of this conversation with little ears around. For the record,” he leaned closer to her ear so only she could hear him, “we’ve only ever shared. He’s not comfortable with me putting large things near him and we have a hard and firm rule what happens to one has to happen to the other.”

She sat back against the leather of the seat feeling completely overwhelmed by his admission. Somehow the words of the two men in the car were affecting her far more than she should have been. Yet, she was unable to stop the strange image in her head of the two intensely masculine men, embracing and kissing. She looked out the window past Pia who was happily wearing her headphones and playing on her tablet.

Brix and Malik were talking back and forth about one of the offices in Europe and how they would have to take a trip over soon to sort out discrepancies in the reporting coming from the office manager. The conversation was entirely businesslike and yet Jolie squirmed next to Brix as she couldn’t stop thinking of the two men sharing a lover and being intimate. What the hell was wrong with her?

She had never had any kind of s****l relationship since Valentin. He had, for all intents and purposes, destroyed her for any man and not in a good way. The thought of any man trying to touch her intimately or even kissing her on the mouth often reduced her to a vomiting mess over a toilet. Yet, strangely, her head was filled with damn near pornographic images of the two men in various states as if their naughty admission had unlocked pandoras box. She found herself pinching her own thigh to remove the thought of her squeezed between their two naked bodies from her brain.

Brix’s husky laugh at a comment Malik gave made her shiver and she scooted closer to Pia and pulled her headphones off. She needed a distraction and now. For the first time since before Val, her panties were wet and it had everything to do with their naughty words.

“What are you watching? Can Mommy watch too?”

“It’s a video of girls opening up and playing with new toys,” she said with wide eyes. “Someday I’m going to have all kinds of new toys like these girls and I can open them all and play with them all.”

“Pia, you don’t need to have all kinds of new toys to play with. It’s wasteful. You should take care of and treasure the toys you have and love.”

Pia leaned sideways and looked at Brix, “Daddy, can I have all kinds of new toys?”

Malik raised his eyebrows at her.

“Felicity has a daddy so Pia wants one,” Brix laughed at his friend’s shocked expression.

“Uncle Malik can be my daddy too,” Pia looked at him. “Can you? Then I can have two daddies and Felicity only has one and you can both throw me in the air and catch me.”

“I changed my mind. Can someone please shoot me?” Jolie questioned under her breath.

“Well, sweetheart,” Malik was laughing, “if we’re your daddies and she is your mommy, we would all have to live together. Like a big happy family.” He looked to Jolie naughtily, “all cozy and friendly.”

“Okay!” Pia said excitedly clapping her hands.

“Absolutely not!” Jolie grunted furiously, her cheeks bright red.

“And look,” Brix said with a smug smile, “we are just in time to meet a new friend.” The car pulled to a stop outside a gated community.

“Where are we?” Jolie demanded as the men were suddenly descending on the car and lifting Pia out.

“House hunting,” Brix grinned. “I told you, a Cacciola child is not living in the rental shithole you’ve had her in for the last number of years. She deserves a huge house to run through, a giant back yard, a playroom for all the toys she wants to open and,” he bopped her on the nose playfully, “her own bedroom in a bed she feels safe in. Mommy gets her own room too. Daddy Brix and Daddy Malik will each have their own rooms for when they come to visit, though, we won’t be going anywhere for a long time.” He met her outraged expression with a calm one, “I told you Jolie. I’m not letting either of you out of my sight again. She is of my b***d. She deserves the world and to not live like a pauper. She is going to have it all.”

Without further ado, he exited the vehicle and held his hand out for her to join him.

Jolie considered for the hundredth time how she definitely should have run.