He’d given Alonzo respect by asking his opinion instead of the opinion of the council or just arbitrarily deciding because Evangeline was his first cousin and he could make decisions for her.

“She wouldn’t want anyone running her bakery, Joshua. She’s very proprietorial over her business. I’ve tried to get her help and she didn’t want anyone else in there yet. She said she wasn’t ready. I did manage to get her to agree to a cleaning crew . . .”

Timur coughed. Alonzo sent him a “shut up or die” look. Timur coughed again and muttered something in Russian that sounded suspiciously like bullshit.

Sevastyan and Gorya turned their heads to keep grins from showing. Alonzo didn’t know whether to drag Timur to him in a bear hug that was a little too enthusiastic and maybe broke all his ribs and cut off his air or ignore him.

“The financial help will come from me. I plan to put a ring on her finger as soon as possible. My money will be her money.”

“She might not go for that,” Drake warned. “The money, not the ring. Saria tells me Evangeline is very independent.”

Alonzo shrugged. Evangeline could be as independent as she wanted to believe she was, but she was going to be his wife. He took care of his wife. She wanted the bakery, then she would have the bakery, but he wouldn’t argue about whose money paid for what.

He lifted his gaze to Timur, the one man in the room who knew him best, knew he would do what he deemed best for Evangeline. They’d talk it out because he knew he was supposed to do that. He saw Jake trying to do that with his woman. He’d seen Elijah doing the same with Siena. The thing was, neither seemed particularly successful at it. The more they talked, the more the woman won the argument. Emma got pregnant and nearly died. Siena was pregnant with triplets, and all of them knew that was risky. No, talking didn’t do much for the man other than lose him the battle.

What was there to say? Evangeline didn’t like his protection, too fucking bad, she was getting it. She wanted to keep the bakery and needed money, it was going to be his money, not her cousin’s. He was compromising by letting her put herself in danger every damn day going to that bakery.

You like the bakery.

Shut the fuck up. You got us into this by being so bad tempered.

His male yawned. I’m not the one with the bad temper now.

Evangeline’s female was having a bad effect on his male. Alonzo preferred the claws and teeth to his smart-ass comments. He was so over talking. He wanted to go back to the waiting room. He actually wanted to go into the operating room and stand guard over her. He stood abruptly.