My gut clenches. One clean drop like a roller coaster, making the tough drop with humans in its bowels. She’ll be here in a few minutes.
Knox is standing by the window, a reflective stoop to the drop of his shoulders. I pace my way across the length of the house, grateful it’s just the both of us here.
My heart thunders like a stallion in my chest, and I tighten my jaw. This isn’t the first time Mel will be spending the night here.
But this feels different. This time, there will be no leaving and no running away when things get tough. I wonder if she knows what that means.
Knox walks over to me, dressed as always a little better than a juvenile.
‘You can stop pacing. It’s not a good look.’
‘Why the fuck are you here, Knox?’
‘Mel needs a certain level of familiarity. I’m here to provide that.’
I glower at him, turning away so he doesn’t see the way my guts twist, and I grimace. If he’s going to be some sort of familiarity, then what the fuck does that make me? And I don’t argue because I know he is right too. ‘More accurately, what you mean is Father made you come.’
‘No. I chose to.’ He watches me like a hawk, his lips tasting words he doesn’t let slip out of his mouth.
I ignore him. ‘How much longer?’
Ryder takes a look at his watch, where he’s standing at the door. ‘About five? They should be here soon.’
I stride out of the house, Ryder ahead of me. He has the door open by the time I make it to the front door. I fold my arms across my stomach and note that Father has sent a few more men over than necessary.
She’s just moving into the house. There is no harm coming to us. But then, father had always been oddly protective of her even after she had left.
My stomach twists.
I twist my head to Knox. ‘What’s with the men? Why are they here?’
He looks away and mumbles his way through a reply. ‘Father had them arrive with me. I have no idea.’
He definitely knows what’s going on. I take a step towards him, already deciding I’ll get the truth from him some way, when the large gate rolls open, and her car comes crawling up the driveway. Another car follows behind hers.
My heart stills. ‘You’re lying to me, Knox. And you know I have a hatred for liars.’
Knox stares back at me evenly, but there’s fear and an emotion akin to anger in his eyes. ‘What would you have me say? It isn’t my truth to speak.’
Before I can decode the cryptic words, the car pulls to a stop. Romero pushes open the front door and steps out. He nods, a brief jerk of his head, before he pulls her door open and steps back.
My hands curl into hard fists when her leg drops first to the ground. She’s wearing flats. It’s not anything sexy, but it has a zing sparking my nerve endings and has me stepping towards her.
I stop with another step when her head comes peeking out of the car. She lifts her face first to the house in front of her and swallows. Then her eyes find mine, and fear flits across them.
It’s gone in a second, but I can see it. I wait and let her come to me, as it should be, as it has always been.
I ignore the hard thud of my heart and wait. I’m still waiting when she bends into the car and comes out with a child in her arms.
I think nothing of it. I have no idea why she has a sleeping child in her arms, but knowing Mel, it could quite literally belong to anyone. It piques my interest, but it is not the center of my attention.
She is.
She’s trembling, her shoulders hunched in on herself. In her eyes, a spark ignites, vivid and captivating, akin to the vibrant leaves of an untouched woodland.
But when she steps into my orbit, my eye drops to the sleeping child in her arms, and I freeze.
Breathe stolen away.
The fury inside me shimmers with volcanic force, ready to erupt.
There is nothing moving. Not a muscle, not a hair. Even the trees seem to obey the rage in the air.
My anger is rising, and as much as I want to control it, it’s boiling, and could rage like wild fire at this pace. ‘What the fuck, Mel?’
The boy looks about five years old or six. His arms are curled on his stomach, one finger linked protectively to Mel’s index finger. His hair is chestnut, an almost exact shade of mine. I have no doubt he is mine. None at all.
‘He’s sleeping? Can I at least put him down? Then we can talk?’
What is there to talk about? What is there to say? And how is she going to explain this away?
Knox steps forth, slipping his hand around her shoulders and taking the baby from her. There is a dare in his eyes, and I am not a monster.
I take a step back, frustration beating at me.
Was this why she’d disappeared?
Why I hadn’t been able to find her after she’d left my eyes, taking with her my light. How, in fact, was it possible that she had hidden him from me this entire time?
I stalk my way up the stairs to my study, allowing the door to bang its way closed after me. I’m shaking.
There’s a line of sweat breaking on my forehead, my hands fisted at my sides, and a red haze over my eyes.
I want to punch something, a wall, a man, anything to relieve this rage. At this point, even Knox will do.
I watch the men gathered outside. There’s a tenseness to my shoulder as they bunch together. It makes sense now why Father had the guards stationed.
Not that any of them would’ve been able to stop me if I’d decided to wring her little neck for lying to me this entire time. And most of my anger is directed at myself.
Because despite everything, I could feel, even as I scowled at her, the surge of heat, powerful as a wildfire spreading through dry grass.
I still want her. There is a big tent in my pants that isn’t leaving. She deserves to be disciplined for making me this person, this being with no control when it came to her. I will certainly think of something.
The door behind me creaks open with a faint premonition, and I turn towards it, the words already scalding on my tongue.
It’s Knox. And I realize he hadn’t been surprised. And he hadn’t really been here for her. The betrayer!
‘How long have you known?’
He’d always been the closest to her. But I’ve also always believed he and I were close too. It doesn’t sit well that he seems to have chosen her in some way over me.
His lips twist. ‘A while.’
He pours a shot of whiskey at the low bar beside my desk, bringing me a glass of it.
‘You didn’t think maybe I deserve to know? That he was my son? That I even had a son?’
‘It’s complicated, Xander. Do I apologize?’
I want to roar, sweep the books off the table to the floor, and watch as they flutter away. Maybe they will take with them this burn in my chest, this fire that makes me want to hurt my own brother.
Instead, I sweep the drink from his grasp when he holds it out to me. I knock it back in one smooth swallow. ‘What the fuck is your apology to me, Knox?’
The burn of the drink helps, but it doesn’t erode the bitter taste in my throat. I wonder why I had thought it would.
A tentative knock comes at the door, and I swing my head at it. I bite down hard on the flesh inside my mouth, teeth gnashing. ‘Get out. Let her in and lock the door behind you.’
Knox stays put, a defiant glower on his face. ‘You can’t hurt her.’
I let a sickly, sweet smile trickle like water off my face. ‘You mean like you hurt me? What? You won’t help me hide the body?’ I point a hand at the door and roar with anger, finally finding some outlet for the void in my head. ‘Get out!’
He doesn’t move for a second. Then he swivels stiffly like a puppet on a string and lopes out of the room.
A sweep of air later, and Mel walks in. Her shoulders are high now, and there’s as much fire as an apology in her jade-green eyes.
She licks her lips and sends tongues of fire lapping at the edges of my consciousness. I refuse to let it control me. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘About what Sole?’ I’ve always called her my sunshine, but today, she’s pushing shards of darkness, crowding anger and rage into my chest. The things she has always rid me of. I revel in it.
‘About Lucian.’
She’d named him. My son. With no input from me. But the name Lucian has always been ours. She had always loved it. Her mother’s father had been named Lucas.
And we had decided Lucian was a better variation for us, for our child, when we had one. The feeling was rising again, the rage, only this time, it was piercing, like salt on open wounds.
‘You named him Lucian?’
‘I did.’ She inhaled a shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? You’re fucking sorry, Mel? What the fuck does that even mean? Does he know me? I’ve missed years of his life. How the fuck old is he?’
She’s shaking, tears swimming in her large eyes, sparking outrage in mine. She had no right to make me feel guilty for raging about her betrayal because keeping my son from me is one. But when have I ever reacted as I should to her?
‘Five years.’
A startling truth finally pierces the veil of anger, clouding my consciousness. ‘You’d been pregnant when you left? That’s why you disappeared, wasn’t it?’
She nods, and I fall into the chair behind my desk. She bites her lips and takes a step towards me. My eyes flash, a snark curling my lips.
‘You don’t get to take a step closer to me, or I swear to God, Mel…’ I stop and let her complete that sentence as she will.
She shivers, and a line of sweat makes its way across her neck, disappearing into the swell of her heaving cleavage, and I groan.
Stupid. That’s what I am.
‘Can we talk? Please? I didn’t know what to do. You were just beginning to take a more active role in the business; your attention couldn’t be divided. Not with a son on the way. It was never the right time.’ She pleaded, her voice catching in her throat.
I clench my fists under the desk. ‘And if this had never happened. If our parents hadn’t forced us together. Would you have ever found the right time? Would I have been good enough to know my son?’
She jerks her head up, and her eyes track mine. ‘It was never that. I wanted to protect him, just for a little longer. I wanted him to have a childhood. There was none for him here.’
My heart seizes. ‘Did he?’
She nods, her hands balled into fists at her sides. ‘With father’s help.’
Of course. It made sense. Sedric knew. He’d kept his grandchild a heavily guarded secret. I wonder how they’d done it, how it had been possible. And then I think of my inability to track her after she’d left the country with Gianna.
It would’ve been easy enough to keep her stowed away in some little countryside far away from me and the dangers of my existence.
I snap up in my chair. ‘I want him. He’s my son. My heir.’
Her eyes tighten. ‘That’s rather fortunate, Xander. We’re to be married. I’m sure you’ll have enough time to be with him. But he is our son, and you do not get to hold him over me.’
Oh, is he now?
I feel fury unfurl in my chest, and I fight a losing battle to leash it. ‘And you just had that epiphany now? Not six years ago when you stole my son from me?’
Her face creases and crumbles, and I bite back the urge to go to her, to pull her into my arms and tell her it’ll be fine.
She doesn’t deserve it.
