He glared at the babysitter as they passed her, even though she completely ignored them.

"She wasn't paying attention at all," Cole complained. "What if we'd been there to hurt the kids? What if the dog cuts its mouth on that sharp plastic?"

Gideon squeezed his hand. "She's a bodyguard. Has all the faces of family members memorized. And it's her job to remain vigilant, not to dote on the kids. Getting caught up in whatever the boys are doing would be a distraction."

He should have known. Of course the children would not actually be provided with proper supervision, just a bodyguard disguised as a babysitter, who was there only to protect them from external threats. Better than nothing, he supposed.

"Did you have a bodyguard like that when you were a kid?"

Gideon stepped ahead to pull open the patio door and allow Cole through before him. "No."

"No?"

"There were more family members back then," he explained. "And they watched out for us at family gatherings. It was fine to just tell an older sibling to watch the younger ones, too. We weren't…as antagonistic with some of the other organizations back then. We all went to a normal school and played sports and went off to college or culinary school or law school. Well, except Ezra. He just went to Europe for a while instead."

Like mother like son, Cole supposed. He glanced around the finished basement, which had no less than a full bar, pool table, seating area, and what looked like a home theater in the next room. He imagined a time when there were lots of kids and family members to liven up the space, popcorn popping in the now dark, silent popcorn machine, pool balls clacking against one another, laughter filling the space. Too bad everything had been whittled down to just the sharp bones of the family, nothing but a leering skeleton left.

Since Gideon was in a sharing mood, he threw out another question, thirsty for any drop of lore about him. "What kind of school did you go to?"

"For grade school? Ebaugh Academy."

That sounded like the kind of place where the tuition cost more than most people's yearly salary. Cole had certainly never heard of it before. He wondered if it was nearby or if Gideon had been shipped off to a boarding school somewhere. Although, from the sounds of it, the Barta used to be more family oriented, so maybe they would have wanted to keep their kids close.

"And for college, I…"

"There you two are!" Robbie peered down the basement steps just as they began to climb them.

"Went out for a smoke," Gideon lied smoothly.

"Oh. You should have let me know. I'd have come with you." Robbie stepped aside to let them pass. He did not call Cole out for leaving abruptly in the middle of dinner to go have a cigarette. In fact, he gave him a sympathetic look that was devoid of any of the cool assessments the rest of the Bartas looked at him with.

Gideon clapped Robbie's shoulder, "Maybe next time. Have we moved to the parlor yet?"

"Mhmm," Robbie closed the basement door and gestured for them to continue down the hallway they'd emerged into.

"What a relief," Gideon muttered.

Robbie shot him a grin. Cole began to revise his judgment of the strange chef who was in a position not so dissimilar to his own. But then he remembered Gideon's advice and firmly reminded himself that he shouldn't be sympathizing with any of them.

Robbie probably met Rani at culinary school and didn't learn about her family until later, but that didn't mean he would be any less cutthroat than the rest of them. He was still, after all, choosing the stay with Rani in spite of everything, which meant he was firmly on her side and willing at the very least to turn a blind eye to her family's dealings. Commendable, but not the makings of a person Cole should trust to have his or Gideon's best interest at heart.

How exhausting.

Gideon put a hand on Cole's waist to guide him as they walked. It also presented an opportunity for him to run his thumb back and forth over Cole's thin silk shirt, feeling the bumps of the lace beneath. Cole's breath caught in his throat, a shiver building at the base of his spine.

"I'll go have a cognac with the uncles, and you can drink a coffee or something, then we can get out of here," Gideon murmured.

The implication in his words, paired with his hand groping slowly up Cole's side to trace the feel of the lace, drew the shiver all the way to the nape of his neck. He huffed as his entire body twitched. Pleased by this reaction, Gideon pulled away with a smirk.

Back was his swaggering, wolfish confidence. The tiny window that allowed Cole a brief glimpse into his childhood had closed. The change left Cole feeling a little adrift, because this cocky attitude of Gideon's was so attractive to him. Whenever he put on his more outwardly domineering personality that meant he was about to wreck Cole, either by teasing him into a flustered mess, or playing with him in bed until he could hardly walk. But here, it was not playful. It was a defense mechanism. This familiar side of Gideon used in such a different way left Cole with a little bit of whiplash.

Despite Gideon's reservations about revealing this side of himself, the use of his dominance as armor and a weapon outside of the bedroom rather than a vulnerability like in their bed didn't inspire fear or wariness. Instead, Cole felt a resurgence of his desire to drag Gideon back home to their bed where bullying Cole all night long had far less dark and dire impetus than mouthing off at his family did.

His blood started to simmer again. Maybe Gideon was right to keep him away from this side of things. After all, it only served to piss him off tonight. And it wasn't like Cole was the most level-headed person when he got pissed off.

When they reached the parlor, Gideon kissed the top of Cole's forehead and wandered over to the group of men that Cole assumed were 'the uncles'. Like him, they were all wearing suits complete with cuff links and tie clips. Not a single one of them smiled at Gideon when he joined their circle, but they poured a glass of dark spirits from a cut-glass decanter for him. Just like that, he fit right in.

"Coffee's over here," Robbie told Cole.

Cole looked and then made a face when he didn't immediately identify anything that looked like coffee. That got a chuckle out of Robbie who showed him to what turned out to be an antique silver coffee pot.

"That's not a tea set?" Cole asked, looking dubiously at the tray. There was a pot, which looked a whole lot like a tall, oversized teapot. Beside it was an itty-bitty pitcher for cream and bowl for sugar. Thick, crisp white mugs congregated around them.

"No, it's coffee," Robbie assured him. "Would you like a cup?"

Now, Cole had adjusted well to the lap of luxury.

He went to a country club on the regular for god's sake, although he would have happily stayed within the confines of Gideon's home gym or gone to the local one like a regular person. Sometimes he gathered up the courage to request a certain meal from their private chef, which Andre enthusiastically doled out each time.

He hadn't thought about whether he had enough money for rent, how long the money he did have would stretch for food, or anything like that. It was liberating, to say the least. Stress he didn't even know he had been experiencing was gradually, day by day, draining away as he got used to his new situation.

But, once in a while, when he started to get comfortable, he was still faced with the hard evidence that he might as well be in an alternate universe.

Wherever expression he was making brought a genuine smile of amusement to Robbie's face. Robbie turned over two of the mugs and poured from the pot into them. The bitter, comforting scent of coffee indeed spilled into the air.

As he poured, he explained, "Don't worry. They just like to put on airs and act fancy. It's just drip that was made in the kitchens and put into the pot for the presentation." He set the pot down and nodded toward the uncles and Gideon who were pouring another round. "Just like they take Rémy and put it in the decanter. Cream or sugar?"

"Um, both," Cole said absently, staring at Gideon's profile.

His face was turned to a particularly alluring angle, and when he tipped his chin up just slightly to sip his drink, it exposed enough of his throat above his collar so Cole could watch it bob as he swallowed. He'd undone a couple of buttons on his shirt, so the collar sat lower. The slight relaxation of the sharp figure he cut in that suit was provocative, to say the least.

"Here you go." Robbie pushed a mug into Cole's hand.

Cole blinked, looked down at it, and then dragged his thoughts back from the besotted, horny journey on which they'd embarked.

"As a chef," he said to Robbie, "I'd have thought you would care about presentation."

"Oh, I do. But I also care about the material being presented. The least they could have done was something better than a Mr. Coffee," he said lightly, blowing the steam off his own mug. He took a sip and his brows furrowed in dissatisfaction. Cole hummed and took a sip of his own. It was actually pretty good coffee, he thought. Not as wonderful as Andre's expressos and lattes, but, well…

His thoughts drifted to the previous night. To Logan, who'd always presented his shit on a silver platter. Acted like a good old boy with a heart of gold, as if he was a gift to the world and his attention a blessing to those he graced with it, even though they tended to be guileless, easy to prey upon, youth. At least the Bartas were up front about their shit, as infuriating as they might be. Except their cheap coffee, he supposed.

"You are an artist, aren't you?"

Cole hummed a yes, then lowered the mug from his lips. "Not much of one. I just dabble around with painting a bit."

Robbie tilted his head from side to side, expression contrary. "I find that people who dabble are usually the ones with a keener artistic sense."

With a smile Cole disagreed, for the sake of the conversation, "A sense of artistry is something honed over time. Dedicated practice is the best way to develop it. Or so they told me in the couple of art classes I took back in the day. You need to practice to get an eye for cooking the perfect steak, don't you?"

"It's all about listening, not looking at the steak," Robbie corrected, which was so totally something a chef would say. What did it even mean? Cole asked and spent the next few minutes receiving a lesson about how to cook steak.

Finally, Gideon broke away from the uncles and came straight toward Cole, only to be waylaid by his mother halfway across the room. Cole winced in sympathy. From what he understood, Gideon and his mother were on excellent terms so long as she was in Europe and he was in America. The fact that she hadn't come back to sort things out with James about the marriage had left him feeling a bit estranged from her, and perhaps less welcoming of her presence on this continent than he might have otherwise been.

 "You should come over some time for dinner," Robbie offered, drawing his attention back.

Cole smirked at him, "You just missed the perfect plug for your restaurant."

For a moment Robbie looked taken aback, but then he smiled. "Steak isn't on the menu, sorry."

"Oh, well, maybe we'll take you up on it. I’ll have to ask Gideon," Cole said, glancing toward his husband again. Normally he wasn't the type to run every little thing by Gideon, but this was his family, after all. So, accepting an invitation on his behalf wasn't a good idea. No matter how well he seemed to get on with Rani. "In the meantime, it looks like I should go rescue him."

Robbie followed his eyes toward where Gideon leaned down to speak to his mother in hushed, borderline strained conversation. He clicked his tongue in understanding and plucked Cole's coffee mug out of his hand, "Good luck. She's quite a character. Been helping with the restaurant opening…getting some contacts to rush the liquor license and such. Not sure if her help is worth it, though."

Cole made a face, then cleared his expression, squared his shoulders, and headed across the room.