The Mighty Anchor: Rogue Academy, Book Three

by Aarons, Carrie

  Maybe she regrets that she didn’t take that route.

  After a few minutes of rough-housing and toddler babbling inside, both boys insist we go out to the private beach behind the house. With its soaring views and private ocean-side serenity, it’s no wonder Vance’s parents picked this home.

  “Don’t you splash me!” Vance teases Mason, flicking tiny dots of seafoam at him as they balance on the rocks.

  “Splash! Bubbles!” Mason shrieks, his little nose red.

  He’s so happy, I don’t have the heart to be mean Mum and enforce the rules before he catches cold.

  “Run! Fast!” Mason races around the shore, taunting at the water.

  Vance has to double over at one point he’s laughing so hard, because Mason keeps sticking his fingers in the water and then his faces screws up from the salt he’s licking off his hands.

  I’m participating, but more as a referee for possibly dangerous situations. That’s my job as a mum, to keep my child from harm. I’m just not sure yet if his real father wanting to be in his life is one of those.

  Around mid-afternoon, I see the telltales signs of exhaustion in Mason’s eyes.

  “He should have a nap,” I tell Vance as he removes my son’s socks and shoes.

  Mason is sipping a small amount of hot chocolate from a mug, with Vance’s help, and I’m amazed by how well he can multitask with the toddler. He’s a natural parent, and I’m not sure why I thought he wouldn’t be.

  “There is a guest room on this floor.”

  My heart is a puddle in my chest cavity watching Vance carry Mason. My son’s head is tucked into his father’s neck, their dark hair meshing. I want to mold into that embrace, to be one unit, together with them.

  Does Mason know who this man is? He’s usually friendly toward those he hasn’t met, he’s not a shy child, but the way he connects with Vance is different. He barely knows him and you can see the twinkle of recognition between them.

  When Vance signals to the door where my boy can nap, he transfers Mason to my arms and I take him inside. It only takes a few minutes of rocking and humming before his eyes droop closed, and I tiptoe out quietly.

  “He’s sleeping.” I come out of the room, careful not to shut the door in case Mason wakes up in search of me.

  “Easily knackered, yeah?” Vance smiles, peaking through the open crack at our snoozing boy.

  He stands there for a while, a gentle giant watching his son sleep peacefully. I realize that he has never had the pleasure of watching Mason drift off into a dream state, of watching this tiny human we created soothe himself to sleep.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I nudge in next to him, admiring my son.

  “What’s that?” Vance doesn’t turn to look at me but keeps his eyes trained on Mason.

  “Watching him dream. I often wonder what’s going on in that precious brain.” Smiling slightly, I pull Vance away by the elbow. “Let him nap.”

  He follows reluctantly. “I never get to see him do that.”

  One of those pangs of guilt, the ones becoming too frequent, pinches at my heart as Vance and I make our way out to the living room.

  “I know. We should talk about that.”

  Vance is quiet, shocker. He blinks twice, waiting for me to go on.

  “I want you to be in his life. It’s clear you want to care for him, to be around him and help nurture him. I can’t deny you, or him, that any longer. It’s not going to be easy, there are many people who will not like the idea of this. And I also don’t want Mason paraded to the press because of who you are. So, while it will be an adjustment for our families, I do not want to keep you from knowing our son.”

  I thought long and hard about this. Yesterday, in my alone time, I put my feelings aside and looked at it objectively. The man who helped create my child wants to love him and be a part of his life. Vance has never been cruel, always been responsible, has a stable job and his head on straight. Why should I turn away a person in this world who wishes to care for Mason?

  “He is too important to me to ever let anything get out to the tabloids. I have people for that. It will be handled,” he assures me.

  “Thank you. And … I’m sorry, Vance. I never meant for this to spin so out of control. I should have told you from the start. I’m sincerely sorry that I was so daft.”

  A beat passes, and my cheeks redden. Is he just going to stand there and stare at me?

  “And what about us?” Vance asks, apparently not satisfied with all I just compromised.

  As if my apology means shite to him.

  “I’m engaged, Vance. To marry another man. Stop this.” My voice is stone cold.

  “You kissed me. That means something.” He pushes at the wound, scraping it with his fingernail.

  I can feel my blood heat. “That was a mistake. One I’ll be locking in a vault and never thinking about again. I want you to be in my son’s life, your son’s life, and that’s all this is.”

  “If that’s what you need to keep telling yourself.” His voice is almost smug.

  The hairpin in the grenade that is my temper dislodges.

  “To the rest of the world, you’re the good bloke. Their mate, their reliable, dependable guy. You like to see yourself in that lens, when the one I see you through is that of the man who walked out and never looked back. You chose to leave, Vance. For the first time in your life, you didn’t stick it out. You quit, bloody gave up on us because it was hard! To me, you’re not the anchor you pride yourself on being. You’re my hurricane, the storm that blows through and decimates my entire landscape. You cast me as the villain, the bird who didn’t tell you about your son. But to me, you’re to blame. You abandoned me long before I decided to get even. Neither of us is right, but stop making me the evil one here.”

  I can barely breathe by the time I come up for air, adrenaline singeing my veins.

  Vance stares me down, both of us two wrongs that I’m not sure will ever be able to make this right.

  He’s winded, his chest heaving with each intake of air, and the crackle of us snaps in the air.

  “Can I kiss you? Again?”

  At least he asked this time. It’s inevitable, this thing between us. Even if we’re burning the world around us to ashes, we’ll always come back to it.

  I know better and should say no. In my bones, though, I know I won’t. I’m a hypocrite, an utter fool. Two seconds ago, I was insisting that we mean nothing to each other outside the realm of our child, and now I am all but pressed up against him.

  I can only nod my consent, too much of a coward to agree out loud, and then he’s on me.

  16

  Lara

  His hands thread through my hair, our bodies meeting in the most glorious of ways as Vance pushes me against the wall.

  The weight of him, the musky, rugged scent of those large limbs, it consumes me. My mouth latches to his, the friction of our lips causing a spark. Neither of us jump back, we ride through the moment of pain, our lips digging into the others even deeper.

  Our tongues meet, doing the hedonistic dance that feels so much naughtier than snogging. From the first moment he kissed me, on the shores of our hometown, there has been something electric between us. I’ve never felt it with anyone else, not the boys I kissed or allowed to feel under my pushup bra when I was a teenager.

  Not even Louis.

  The sheer energy between Vance and I is a once in a lifetime kind of chemistry. One that I’ve missed every single day we’ve been apart, even if I have promised myself to another man.

  Vance is vicious as he uses his mouth on mine and his hands on my neck to coax moans from deep within my body. Every cell buzzes with excitement, and I can’t help but grind my hips against his. The rigid length of him presses right back, and I know intimately just how large that hidden steel is. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end thinking about Vance laying me down on a bed.

  I can’t help myself, I sneak a hand under his long-sleeve therma
l, my fingertips connecting with scorching, rock-hard abs. The feel of his bare skin has my head spinning, and my knees buckle.

  We’re alone in this house, our son is sound asleep in the next room and there is no one in sight. This isn’t a pub hallway, there are no spectators around. If I want this to happen, for him to take me into his bedroom and remind me of how spectacular we are together, there is no more dangerous place than right here. I’m vulnerable, all alone with him. My walls are down, my sensibilities out the window.

  “Take it off,” Vance growls, edging his fingers under the hem of my sweater.

  All at once, reality slams back into me, just like it did in the pub. What am I doing? This is wrong, so bloody wrong.

  “Stop, stop!” I push him back, and our hands dislodge from under each other’s shirts. “Bloody hell … fuck.”

  What the hell am I doing? My mind races, tears pricking at the backs of my eyes.

  “Lara, don’t you feel this?” Vance grabs at his shirt, fisting the material as if he’s trying to clutch his heart. “You can’t tell me this is how it feels with him. I bloody love you, every inch of you!”

  My lungs seize, contracting at a rapid rate. It feels like I might be having a panic attack, every motion of my limbs fraught with severe anxiety and fear of everything I just did, and what it might mean for all that I’ve built.

  I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I cheated on Louis, for the second time. That I went against the promise I made him, that I’m threatening the good thing we have going.

  It’s telling, in a way, that Louis is my second thought. Because my first ones? They’re all about Vance.

  How incredible his lips felt on mine. How out of control but powerful being intimate with him makes me feel. How intense our connection is. How I never want to stop experiencing that.

  How I could do it for the rest of my life.

  “You’re only saying this now because I’m off-limits, Vance. Because you can’t have unfettered access to me, like you used to. All those years ago, do you remember how much you led me on? I was in a permanent tizzy because of your hot and cold personality. You only want me now because the chase is forbidden.”

  “I’ve wanted you since the day I laid eyes on you when I was ten. I’ve wanted you always because when I see you, I can barely breathe. The only reason I left you was because we were doing more harm than good to each other.”

  “As if that’s not what we’re doing now?” I counter, my voice reed thin.

  “Only because you’re resisting it. I never stopped wanting you, that was never the problem. Blimey, I’ve thought about you more in the last two years than I thought about my career. And you know me, deeply know me, so you know that’s saying something. Don’t marry him, Lara. I’ll be the chump, the bastard who asks you to act solely for his selfish gains. Because if you don’t, we’ll both be miserable the rest of our lives.”

  Now, I start to cry, really letting the tears that I’ve kept at bay flow down over my cheeks. They feel good, a release in a sense when I’m forced to hold everything else inside.

  “You blew back into town like some kind of hurricane on a mission. Like those awful storms that wreck the shoreline and damage entire houses. You toppled mine. It only took you less than two weeks to dismantle my universe.”

  “It must have not been a very stable universe.”

  The sentence itself seems arrogant, but Vance does not deliver it in a cocky manner. It’s more melancholy, as if he’s sad for me. Sad for what he is doing, but not sorry for it.

  “I don’t even know which way is up,” I say this more to myself than I say it to him, raking my hands through my hair.

  Vance turns his back to me, and I feel the restless upset rolling off of him.

  “I’m here for five more days. You have a lot of decisions to make, Lara. I can’t make them for you, and you already know my answer on each one. I just … I hope you know that if you choose us, you and me, I will never let you down again.”

  Out of all the things he could say, any way he could campaign for himself, that simple message is not what I was expecting.

  But Vance is a man of his word, and it stings to know it could only be that easy for him.

  For me, this is going to be the toughest five days of my life … and I have been through a lot of shite in my past, so that’s saying something.

  17

  Lara

  Two days of school pass and I barely notice with all the things I have rattling around in my brain.

  I go through the motions, grading papers, teaching classes, dealing with student’s problems, and attending meetings with my coworkers. Stef and I eat lunch together, and I listen as she gripes about her noisy neighbor and the awful date she went on over the weekend.

  After school, it’s all eyes on Mason, and I focus all of my energy on showing him all the love I can.

  And then he goes to sleep, and I’m stuck in the prison I’ve constructed for myself. The one where I go over and over all the decisions in my head and try to keep a smile on my face in front of Louis. The one where I know the right thing I must do, but lie down in bed next to a man that I have not been faithful to.

  Stef walks into my classroom at the end of the day, her hands on her hips as if she means business. “It’s been days, and I have not come in here with my temper and demanded answers. Be proud of me.”

  I snort. “Then why does it look like you’re about to do just that?”

  She sighs heavily, collapsing into one of the front desks in my classroom. “Perhaps I am. You know you can’t leave me in this perpetual state of guessing. It’s not good for my heart. I’m just not strong enough.”

  Rolling my eyes, I set down the red marker I was using to grade essays. “As if your life is being affected by my personal business.”

  “When it has to do with the three hottest footballers in all of England, yes, it is affecting me.” She points a hot pink fingernail at me.

  Count on Stef to paint her nails neon as winter touches down.

  “What do you want to know?” I sigh.

  If she’s going to force me to talk about it, she can be the one to ask for the information she wants. I’m too mentally exhausted to go through the entire history of Vance and me.

  Her eyes narrow. “You’re an arse. Making me do all the work. Fine. How do you know those guys?”

  “I don’t really. Not anymore. But Vance Morley grew up in Brighton, so you could say I know them through him.”

  “I forgot he grew up here. That, Stef pauses, makes a little more sense. But, it doesn’t sound like you knew Jude Davies or Kingston Phillips.” It’s like she’s trying to piece together a puzzle.

  I’m too stubborn to just put them all together for her. “I didn’t."

  Stef shoots daggers at me. “You’re not making this easy. Why was Vance Morley eye-shagging you the entire time?”

  That makes me almost choke on my own breath. “He wasn’t. Trust me.”

  Actually, he probably was. I just can’t handle thinking about that right now. In my head, I’m trying to decide whether or not to call off an engagement to a man who has only been kind and supportive to me. Thinking about shagging Vance will only confuse me more than I already am.

  “Um, yes, he was. I was afraid that giant Adonis was going to launch himself across the table and try to put his knob in you with all of us still sitting there.”

  Blimey, talk about not trying to think about Vance naked and randy. Thanks for nothing, Stef.

  “He’s Mason’s father,” I blurt out, and then slap a hand over my mouth the moment I realize what I’ve done.

  Well, that escalated quickly.

  I’ve not even told my own mother that vital fact, and here I am, telling Stef with my classroom door wide open. Not that I’m fearful of what she might do with the information, she’s the closest friend I have. She would never do anything to jeopardize Mason or me in any way.

  It’s just shocking that I act
ually came clean about my son’s father, almost without even thinking about doing so.

  “I had a feeling.” Her eyes hold mine in a significant look.

  I think she knows how hard it was for me to confess that. Or maybe she realizes how difficult it’s been to keep it hidden.

  “You can’t tell anyone that,” I whisper through the fingers covering my lips.

  Stef rises from the desk, walks to where I sit and covers my hand with hers. “You know I would never do that. Was that why he came looking for you? Why were his goons with him?”

  I shrug, but I think I know why after all the reflection I’ve been doing. “It’s a very long story, one I don’t have time or enough alcohol in my system for right now. But, Vance and I were together a long time ago, and he never let me meet them. I think this was some kind of olive branch.”

  “What happened between you two near the toilets? You ran out of that pub and to your car like you’d been slapped. Wait, he didn’t put hands on you, did he? That hijo de puta, I’ll kick him into next month.”

  A chuckle comes from my lips, because I would like to see that. But then my mood sombers.

  “No. Well … he did, in an all too good way. Not good in our situation, but—”

  “You two kissed, didn’t you?” Stef puts me out of the misery of trying to explain my adultery.

  I nod, confirming the worst of it. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I would—I’ve never been that person. I would never do that to Louis. But … I did.”

  My voice is tinged with tears, with pain, and Stef gets up to close the door.

  “What are you going to do?” she asks, her voice close, though I can’t see her with my head buried in my hands.

  “I can’t figure it out. I do like my life, what I have with Louis, our bond with Mason. But—”

  “It’s always the but that gets you. I know I’m not objective, we both know how I feel about your fiancé. But, I have to say, Lara, if you’re even inviting that doubt into the life you claim you like—and you said like, not love—I think you have your answer.”