Bittersweet (Redemption Book 3)

by Jessica Prince

  I knew then that every word out of this woman’s mouth was a lie. She didn’t know her son at all. If she had the first clue who he was, she’d know he didn’t give a single shit about money.

  “I’ve said all I’m willing to say, so if you don’t get off my porch, I’ll be forced to call the cops.”

  On that threat, I dropped my hand, and she didn’t hesitate to slam the door on me. I turned and moved back to my car, cradling my stomach and the life inside of it as the tears started running down my cheeks. Whether she was lying, whether she really knew where Jensen was or not, there was one thing I knew for certain as I climbed into my car and started it up.

  Wherever he was, he’d left me without a word. And he did it knowing it would kill me.

  And another thing I knew for certain as I drove away from that terrible house was that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, we were done for good.

  Shane

  I was dressed in my rattiest sweats, the ones I only wore during my period when everything felt bloaty and crampy. I wasn’t on my period now, but the outfit fit my sullen, mopey mood, so I went with it. My hair was tangled up in a sloppy knot on the top of my head, and I was currently working my way through a gallon container of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

  Brantley was curled up on the couch with me, his eyes focused on the television where Iron Man was currently battling it out with the rest of the Avengers in the middle of Manhattan as he distractedly spooned ice cream into his mouth.

  I was having a pity-party; he was excited we were getting ice cream after dinner.

  After I got back from Jensen’s office, Caroline had stuck around, hovering over me to make sure I wasn’t going to break. Naturally, I’d lied through my teeth when she asked what had happened, but instead of letting it go like she normally would, letting me work through it on my own, she’d pushed, so I gave in.

  We sat out on my teeny front stoop, watching as Brantley raced back and forth on his bike—something he’d now mastered without training wheels thanks to Jensen—and I laid it all out for her. I gave her the full story, every ugly detail.

  She’d gone quiet once I finished, staring off into nothing, and I could only assume she was doing the same thing I’d been doing since I found out the truth, trying to wrap her head around it all.

  Finally, I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Will you please say something?”

  “I just can’t—” She gave her head a shake, like she was clearing out the cobwebs. “That poor boy. That just breaks my heart.”

  My mouth fell open in shock. “Poor boy? What are you talking about? He made these decisions about our future without even talking to me because he didn’t trust I’d stick by him if I knew the truth. He ended us, he walked away when he didn’t have to. I would have stayed.”

  “Would you have?” she asked as she turned back to me.

  “Of course!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t leave the people you love,” I declared passionately. “You don’t abandon them. You stay. When you love someone, you fight for them.” She nodded like she was pleased with my answer. “Why are you grinning like that?”

  “No reason in particular.” With that bewildering answer, she rose to her feet and slipped the strap of her massive fringed purse over her shoulder. “Well, I best be off. Things to do, people to see and all that jazz.”

  And just like that, she left me sitting there feeling more confused than ever.

  I sulked my way through doing a bit of laundry. I pouted as I prepared dinner, and now I was brooding through quality time with my kid. God, I was a mess.

  The screen door creaked loudly, alerting me to a visitor just before the front door opened.

  “Aunt Caro!” Brantley exclaimed, jumping off the sofa and flinging ice cream everywhere as he swung his spoon around and lunged at her like he hadn’t just seen her a few hours earlier.

  “What are you doing here?” I mumbled through a mouthful of ice cream.

  She looked at me in that stern way she’d only used a handful of times while I’d been growing up. “You asked me to babysit this little munchkin tonight because you have that thing,” she replied, arching a brow like she and I were in on a secret while ruffling Brantley’s hair.

  “But . . . that’s not happening anymore. You already knew that.”

  She hit me with a pointed look that made me sink down into the couch. “Well, I think that would be a mistake.”

  And there it was. She hadn’t said anything earlier because she was waiting for just the right time when she could catch me off guard and lay one of her wise, all-knowing, Caroline the Magnificent life lessons on me. And she’d timed it perfectly.

  “Do your old aunt a favor, kiddo,” she said to Brantley. “Go pack a bag for my house. Uncle Scoot got the stuff for us to roast marshmallows so we can make s’mores. We’re gonna stay up really late watching movies and eat tons and tons of sugar.”

  “Yeah!” he shouted, fist-bumping the air before taking off down the hallway. A crash sounded a second later, quickly followed by, “I’m okay!”

  I shoved my spoon into the melty goop and put the container on the coffee table. “What do you mean you think that’s a mistake?”

  Caroline moved to the couch and took a seat on the opposite end. “I think it would be a mistake for you not to go over there and work this out with that man.”

  I let out an affronted harrumph. “Did you not hear a word I said earlier?”

  “Oh, I heard everything loud and clear,” she fired back. “And since you’re in the thick of it, you don’t see the irony of the situation, so I’ll spell it out for you. You spent your entire life not trusting because the people you loved, the people who were supposed to love and protect you left. He spent his entire life not trusting anyone because the people who were supposed to love and protect him took that love and twisted it into somethin’ ugly and wrong.

  “Both of you got the short end of the stick when it came to parents. True, the circumstances were very different, but the outcome was very much the same: neither of you trusted anyone.”

  “That’s not true,” I objected, but even to my own ears it sounded weak, because she wasn’t totally wrong.

  “Okay, I’ll amend that by sayin’ neither of you trusted completely. Did you ever stop to wonder why your relationship was so intense? Why the two of you consumed each other in a way no one your age should even understand, let alone experience? Your relationship was different than anyone else’s from the very beginning. You two held on to each other so tight, half the time I didn’t know where you started and he began. Did you ever ask yourself why that was?”

  “I—That’s not—”

  “It’s because both of you were waiting for the other shoe to drop.” She reached across the empty space between us and took my hand. “You loved each other, honey pie, there’s no doubt about it. You loved each other with every single breath. But you both held on so tight because you were scared the other person would slip through your fingers like sand.”

  My lips parted on an exhale so big all the air expelled from my lungs as the realization that everything she was saying, every single word, was chock-full of truth.

  “You’ve been like that with everyone you let in. Used to worry me to death because I was scared it would break you. When you’re loyal, that loyalty is unwavering because you don’t want to risk ever givin’ that person a reason to leave, and it’s the same when it comes to asking for help. What you never understood was that’s what real families do, blood or not. When one person is down, it’s the job of the rest of us to lift them up. There’s no quota when it comes to needing people.

  “Both of you went into that relationship with your eyes wide open, but you were still blind. The expectation that there would one day be a hurdle you’d stumble over was cemented into the foundation of what you’d built from the start because it was all either of you had known.”

  She leaned in close and l
owered her voice. “Open your eyes, child. That love you two felt for each other, it never went away, not even for a second. The foundation of a relationship is the same as the foundation of a house. If you’re able to find the problem, you can work to fix it. You can build it back to be even stronger than it was before.”

  A tear broke free and made a slow track down my cheek. “I—I think . . .”

  “What, sweetie? What do you think?”

  “I think I need to change,” I spit out frantically, shooting up from the couch and looking down at my sweats that were now sporting ice cream stains. “I can’t go see him like this!”

  “Well then, I suggest you get a move on.”

  I raced out of the living room so fast my feet slipped on the floors and I nearly pulled a Brantley and collided into the wall. My shirt was halfway over my head by the time I cleared the threshold to my bedroom. I whipped off my raggedy sweatpants and bolted for the closet.

  “Momma! I can’t find my Captain America mask!” Brantley yelled as I jerked a pair of jeans off the hanger. “You look under your bed?” I shouted back while hopping on one foot then the other as I worked to get them up my legs.

  “Yeah!”

  “Closet?” I listened as he ran back down the hall, slipping on his socked feet and crashing into the wall.

  “I’m okay!” I heard him shuffle back up, and seconds later, the closet door slammed shut. It was the same thing every day. An item of his went missing and I was the only one in the house who could find it. “Not there!”

  With my pants in place, I ran to my dresser and ripped the top drawer open, searching for the tank top I considered my lucky shirt. Basically, it was just tight and lowcut enough to make my male customers feel a little more generous with their tips, and I was hoping that tonight it would work on softening Jensen so he’d forgive my stupidity. “What about the toy basket in the living room?”

  More running, more sliding, and another crash. How my boy had gone this long in his life without a concussion was beyond me. “Found it!”

  “Swear to God, both of you are gonna scream the roof right down one of these days,” Caroline called back.

  “I’m ready!” my son called out. “Bye, Momma! Love you!” My boy was so excited to go he wasn’t even going to give me a kiss. I couldn’t let that slide. I came skidding out of my bedroom at the same time Brantley came out of his. My boy let out a huff and tugged his little Avengers rolling suitcase after him. The thing was stuffed so full it wouldn’t zip all the way.

  “Good Lord, kid. Did you pack everything you own? You realize you aren’t moving in with Aunt Caro and Uncle Scoot, right?”

  “I couldn’t choose which stuffy to bring, so I just got them all,” he answered seriously. I loved that he still called his stuffed animals stuffies, and I was dreading the day he was too old to use the word he’d made up.

  “Did you remember your toothbrush?” The look on his face told me he didn’t. “Did you at least pack a change of clothes and some underwear?” That was a no as well.

  “I got my jammies,” he said proudly, like that trumped clothes, underwear, and toothbrush.

  I arched a brow and gave him the Mom look. “Less stuffies, more of the stuff you actually need.” He turned around and slunk back into his room like a pirate walking the plank.

  A few minutes later—with the correct stuff in his bag—I picked him up and gave him a big squeeze and a loud smacking kiss, then he and Caroline took off, and I ran back to my room to put on the finishing touches.

  I didn’t want to waste time doing full hair and makeup, so I slapped on the bare minimum, pulled my hair out of its tie, gave it a fluff, and slid my feet into my boots. With one last look in the mirror to make sure I looked okay, I started out of my room only to turn back halfway down the hall and retrace my steps.

  I’d been contemplating doing the same as my son and packing a toothbrush and a change of underwear in my purse on the off chance tonight went as I was hoping, but I’d gone back and forth on the idea. Now that it was go time, I changed my mind once again, deciding it was better to be safe than sorry.

  I grabbed my toothbrush out of the bathroom and rummaged through my underwear drawer for a pair that was sexy enough without going overboard. With that done, I hit the lights and skip-walked to the front door.

  Nerves and excitement coursed through me, making me jittery and giddy at the same time. It felt like I’d just chugged a whole pot of coffee.

  I whipped open my front door and took a step out only to jerk to a halt at the sight of the man standing on my front stoop.

  “Jensen,” I breathed in wonder. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jensen

  I’d fucked around, spending too damn long pacing my office until I damn near wore a hole in the expensive-as-shit but cool-as-hell rug I’d let Laeth talk me into getting when we were setting everything up before opening.

  He and Gage had stayed away the rest of the day, knowing my mood had gone down the drain when Shane walked out.

  I knew I needed to get my miserable ass out of there when Willow, our super shy receptionist, had popped in for all of one second to apologize for letting Shane through without an appointment and I bit her head off.

  Being a jerk to Willow was as cruel and inhumane as punching a cute little dog in the face, so I packed my shit and went home for the rest of the day—making sure to stop at the reception desk and apologize for being an asshole first. We couldn’t afford for Willow to quit. She might have been shy to the point of painfully awkward, but the woman was a godsend when it came to her work.

  She’d graciously accepted and I went home to brood into a bottle of Jack Daniels.

  I’d poured myself two fingers before realizing I was repeating the same mistake I’d made all those years ago. I’d let her go back then without making any attempt to fight for her. Drinking myself into a stupor wasn’t going to make any of my problems go away, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to help me get my girl back.

  Leaving the whiskey untouched, I snatched up my keys, hopped on my bike, and took off for Shane’s place. As I rode, the wind in my face calmed the storm that had been brewing inside me.

  Killing the engine, I swung off my bike and started for the front stoop, taking the rickety steps two at a time. Just as I raised my knuckles to knock, the door swung open and Shane stutter-stepped. “Jensen,” she breathed with wide, surprised eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  She was dressed in a different outfit than the one she’d had on earlier. The jeans she was wearing now were practically painted on, accentuating her full hips and long legs. Her coral tank top hugged her like a second skin, dipping lower at the neckline than what she usually wore to show off her incredible tits and an inch and a half of soft, smooth skin between the hem and the waistband of her jeans. Her long hair was down and wild, her minimal makeup made her eyes pop and her plump lips shimmer. She looked like she was heading out for a night on the town.

  “You going out with your girls or something?” The question came out a lot gruffer than I’d intended, almost harsh.

  “I—what?”

  Looking at her now, her outfit making my dick stand at attention, I knew I was losing steam and needed to reel my shit in fast. “Nothing. Look, it doesn’t matter. Can I come in for a minute, there are some things I need to say to you.”

  “Oh, uh . . .”

  “Please, Shane,” I pleaded. “It’ll only take a minute, and if you want me to leave when I’m done, I will.”

  She hesitated for a beat, still looking a little shell-shocked at my sudden appearance. Finally she shook herself out of it. “Y-yeah. Sure. Come on in,” she mumbled, stepping aside so I could enter.

  “Brantley here?”

  “No, he’s with Caro and Scooter tonight,” she answered while tossing her purse onto the couch and crossing her arms over her chest. It wasn’t a casual stance, it looked more like she was trying to hold herself togethe
r. “So, what do you need to say?”

  There really was no other option than to just rip the Band-Aid off, so that was what I did. “I’m still in love with you,” I announced, drawing a gasp from her. “I’ve been in love with you since I was eighteen, and I never stopped. I came back to this town because I needed to know my son, but also because I need you. I don’t exist without you, Shane. Haven’t since the first moment I saw you. I need you to know that. There’s no amount of apologizing I could do that will make up for what I did to you, what I put you through, but you have to believe me when I tell you I’m so fucking sorry for not trusting you enough to give you the truth. That’s the biggest regret of my life, sunshine. There hasn’t been a day since I walked away from you, and there won’t be one in the future, no matter what happens, where I don’t regret that decision. But I’m not giving up.”

  “Jensen—”

  “I walked away from you without a fight once, and I’ll be damned if I do it again. I know you don’t trust me, but I’m going to bust my ass to earn that back. You can hate me for the rest of your life, but I’ll never stop trying to fix what I broke.”

  Moving in close, I placed my palms on the sides of her neck and bent lower. “I never had a family until you. Grew up living in that goddamn house for eighteen years but never had a family until the day I met you. I wouldn’t take any of it back. Not a single thing I went through livin’ there, because it led me to you. I’d do it all over again if it meant having a chance to know you.” I lowered my forehead to hers and squeezed my eyes closed, my words a pleading whisper as I said, “I know I don’t have the right to ask you to forgive me, but I’m going to anyway, because there is no me without you, Shane. So please, please let me try. Let me try to fix us. Let me try to earn your trust and your forgiveness.”

  “I was going to you.”

  Pulling my head back, my brows pinched in confusion. “What?”