Take her and keep her.
My hands fisted. “He forced himself on you as in—”
The hostility on my tongue was cut off when a shouting voice broke into what I was going to say. “Mommy, Mommy!”
Grace’s face split into a forced smile when a little girl came bounding around the corner and into the kitchen.
The child skidded to a stop when she saw me sitting at the table.
My heart got scrambled in my chest.
Big, blue eyes stared back at me. The same color as her mother’s. Kid exuding nothing but love and hope and excitement.
Bile worked its way around that lump.
This . . . this was what I couldn’t reconcile. The fact this woman I wanted to own, to take, had three children.
Three children she was responsible for.
For their safety and their happiness and their wellbeing.
Foolish.
That’s what this was.
Part of me couldn’t help but hold it against Grace. This recklessness on her part. Bringing these kids into this world and then turning around and dumping them into this mess.
“Hey, mister! Who are you?”
She was holding a big brown drawing pad, two times wider than the width of her entire body, little arms stretched around it. Blonde hair straight as a pin and perfectly trimmed at her shoulders, short bangs framing her curious face.
There was no hesitation when she rushed forward and climbed onto the chair on the other side of me. She set the thick pad in front of her on the table.
Instantly, I had the weight of the two of them bracketing me on either side.
My collar felt too damned tight.
Grace stood and moved around me to the little girl and ran her palm over her head. The child tipped her head back, grinning up at her mother like she was the sun.
Grace glanced at me, so much tenderness in her expression that it nearly knocked me from my seat. “This is my Mal Pal. Mallory Paloma.”
Mallory gave an extravagant wave of her hand in her mother’s direction, like she was some kind of gameshow hostess. “And this is the best mommy in the whole wide world. She loves me to the sun and the stars and back again because she has a super-fast spaceship.”
She threw open the heavy cover of the pad and flipped through a ton of scribbled on pages.
It looked like . . . like some kind of storybook.
Picture after picture of the same characters with words written across them, some in children’s hand and other’s in a scripty font that my gut instantly told me belonged to Grace.
Mallory pointed at the last page with a drawing. “I just colored this one right now. Mommy’s spaceship goes a million miles an hour and uses fairy dust for gas and can find all of us in the night if she is looking for us because it has super-secret seeking powers.”
She ran her index finger over the lines of the picture she’d drawn, completely excited when she looked up at her mother. “I need you to put in all the words, Mommy. Just like I said. Exactly like that. Don’t mess ’em up. See that fairy dust right there?”
On her knees, she leaned toward me, her voice lowering like she was letting me in on a secret. “I don’t know how to spell it because it has way too many letters and my teacher hasn’t taught me yet. But I’m still a writer even if I don’t write the words.”
The last was absolute.
No room for interpretation.
The child was like a bottled soda that had been shaken and opened under the pressure. Everything flooding from her at the speed of light.
I gave her a tight nod. “I’ll remember that.”
“You better.”
I choked back a laugh.
Okay then.
Grace stifled one too, her smile going soft when she angled her head toward me. “Mallory, this is Mr. Jacobs. He’s going to help us talk to your father so that you’ll be able to sleep here most of the time. He needs to ask you a couple of questions.”
I could hear the air rushing down the kid’s throat as her eyes grew round. “You mean we got our hero?!”
She rammed her hands together, threading her fingers and pushing them up under her chin like she was thanking God for an answered prayer.
Then she got serious. “Guess I got a lot of work to do in the story, Mommy.”
Good God. How was I supposed to handle this child? The fact that they were relying on me for something so important? Her presence alone was about to bowl me over, and there she was, tossing ball after ball.
Those big blue eyes were on me. “Mr. Jacobs, what is your hero name? We got to get it right.”
I cleared the roughness from my voice. “Ian, I suppose.”
Her brow twisted up in some kind of abject horror. “Ian? That’s a terrible hero name.”
Of course, it was. Maybe the kid was reading me clearer than I thought.
She tapped her chin and looked at her drawing before she gasped out a thrill. “I got it! How about Ian-Zian the Great?”
“I’m not sure Mr. Jacobs wants to be a part of our story, Mal Pal,” Grace hedged, that knowing gaze bouncing between the two of us, almost apologetic every time it landed on me.
I kind of wanted to shout at her. To tell her to quit calling me that. To tell her this was all going to be too much.
I’d made a mistake, coming here.
Hell, I’d made one that first night. Chasing after a girl when I didn’t play chase.
Mallory looked at her mother like she had lost her mind.
“Why would he not want to be a part of our story? Our story is the funnest, most best adventure in the whole universe.”
Her attention darted to me, voice so matter-of-fact that this time there was no stopping the laugh. “It’s going to be a bestseller.”
“I have no doubt,” I told her.
She shrugged a little shoulder. “Doubts are for worriers.”
This child was something else.
Grace suddenly shrieked. “Gah, Sophie, no!”
She flew around, and I shifted just in time to see a child who wasn’t more than a baby running into the kitchen, three crayons fisted in her chubby hand.
All three tips were being dragged across the wall.
She squealed with laughter as her mother chased her.
“Sophie! No. Coloring is only for paper.”
She swiped the kid off her feet, but not before she’d left squiggly lines of blue, red, and orange on a quarter of the wall about a foot from the ground.
“I cowar.” She was all grins and small teeth.
“Yes, you can color, but only on paper.”
Mallory shook her head. “My little sister is nothin’ but a handful. Ask Grams.”
Grace pried the crayons from the baby’s hand. The child screamed and stretched her arm back out from them. “Give, Sophie! Mine!”
Sighing, Grace tossed the crayons on to the table, where they promptly rolled off and landed on the floor. She bounced the baby on her hip and looked at me. “This is Sophie Marie, who is, in fact, a handful.”
With the last she smacked a kiss to the child’s temple, the kid going from screaming to giggling in a second flat, Grace nuzzling her nose to the child’s fat, rosy cheek.
I just sat there.
Realizing this all had to be a bad dream.
That was it.
I’d drank too much last night, and none of this was real.
Grace was a figment and her kids were a fabricated illusion sent to test my mind.
My will.
Then my eyes were going round, and a shocked shot of air jumped out of my lungs as cold liquid pooled on the front of my pants and soaked through to my dick, which was already having a really terrible day.
My attention jerked to the little girl who had crawled on top of the table to get an apple from the fruit bowl and had knocked over my glass of water in the process.
“Oopsie,” Mal Pal said with another one of those little shrugs and a grin.
Motherfuck.<
br />
It wasn’t an illusion.
It was just hell.
I glared at the kid. She and I were definitely not pals.
“Oh, goodness, Mal, look what you did,” Grace said, blowing out a frustrated sigh that somehow sounded like love.
She set Sophie on her feet—the kid who immediately went for the crayons rolling around on the floor—and grabbed a dish towel to clean up the mess.
Didn’t take but a second for the handful to start scribbling on the old linoleum floor.
Towel in hand, Grace rushed for me, not giving it a thought when she started rubbing the wet spot on my crotch.
Not helping things.
Because it was instant. The way my wayward dick reacted, desperate for the girl to give it a little love and kiss all this bullshit better.
A needy groan rumbled in my chest, and Grace inhaled sharply, like she felt the lust start seeping from my skin and climb to the air.
My jaw hardened, and I grabbed the towel. “I think I can manage, thank you.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Crying sounded like a great idea.
Two seconds more, and I’d be rocking in a corner, sucking my thumb.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” Grace whispered as she tried to hold back the amusement that was clearly playing around her pretty face.
“Ian-Zian the Great and his pee-pee pants.”
Mal Pal.
I sent her a glare.
“What?” the child asked, way too sweet. “You got pee-pee pants.”
Grace barked out a laugh, no longer able to keep it contained.
My teeth gritted, and I buried my face in the towel. Like maybe I could up and disappear into it.
Refuse this craziness I was feeling.
Suffocated and warm and cold.
Made me feel like I was being stretched thin.
Torn apart.
I choked down the emotions and forced myself to grab on to the professionalism I’d perfected. That was the only thing I could do. What I was there for in the first place. “Mallory, since you’re an author and all, would you happen to have a notebook I could borrow?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, oh, yes, I got the best one ever as a present for my birthday and it’s really pretty and since you’re the hero, I’ll give it to you.” She scrambled down with a fist pump into the air and a leap.
Ballerina or unicorn, I couldn’t tell.
Either way, the kid apparently thought she was saving her crazy imaginary world.
She disappeared through the archway, her feet pounding down the hall, and I went back to dabbing the towel on my still hard cock I was half inclined to beat into submission.
Or maybe I could just ask Grace for the favor.
Yeah.
Not going to happen.
Not ever.
And that shit was just sad.
I was still looking down when I felt those eyes on me. That energy zapped between us.
A live wire.
Thrumming through the space.
I was pretty sure it was going to be the biggest problem of all.
Bigger than these damned kids or her damned situation or her damned mouth that I wanted to devour.
Because I couldn’t help but look up. Couldn’t help but get lost in that overpowering gaze and that tender smile. “Thank you, Ian. Thank you so much.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Except show up at my door. That’s the most important thing of all.”
I turned away, scrubbing some more at my pants, unable or unwilling to respond.
Wasn’t sure which.
The only thing I knew was I couldn’t take her gratitude. Didn’t deserve it.
A minute later, Mallory was back with a pink pad and an array of pink pens for me to choose from.
Awesome.
“Here you go, Ian-Zian.”
Grace reached over, tore a piece of paper from it, and gave it to the little girl on the ground who rolled onto her belly and started scribbling on the blank sheet.
“I get paper!” the tiny girl hollered up at me from the floor. She stuck out one of the crayons she gripped in her chubby fist, grinning at me like I wasn’t some kind of stranger and she knew me and she was eager for my approval.
I was pretty sure Grace’s children had declared anarchy.
Didn’t think it could get worse.
Oh, but it could.
Because my lungs locked up tight when a young boy came around the corner.
All scowls and bad attitude and messy, sandy-blond hair.
He reminded me so much of myself at that age that it took about everything I had not to go bolting out the door.
When she saw him, Grace softened and moved to where the kid had come to a stop in the archway. He stood there, taking me in with nothing but hostility.
She touched his cheek, his chin, so soft.
I didn’t want to watch it.
That real kind of love every kid deserved to feel.
To know their mom would be there for them when they woke up, no matter what.
And this kid might have that taken away.
I couldn’t stand—
“Thomas, this is Mr. Jacobs. He’s an attorney who is going to represent our case.” Grace started talking before I had the chance to finish the thought.
There was no missing the way her words had changed for him, no doubt the boy far too aware of the direness of their situation.
The hopelessness.
From out of nowhere, an overwhelming emotion charged through my being.
Determination girding every cell.
Emphatic.
Different from dedication and tenacity.
This felt like . . . purpose.
And that right there scared the living shit out of me.
The kid looked at me as if he were adding me up. Calculating the threat.
Wary, he looked back at his mom. “What if he works for him?”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
Thomas laughed. “Everyone does. Dad gets what Dad wants. Right?”
Scorn. It oozed from his every pore.
“And what is it you want?” I asked, grabbing the notebook, knowing the kid was going to be a challenge, but he was also probably my best source.
My best witness.
Hell, the little girl could probably be swayed by a lollipop and a trip to the local bookstore.
Not this kid.
He lifted his chin. “I want to protect my mom.”
Huh.
Guessed the kid and I were on the same page, after all.
Twenty
Grace
I hovered.
Chewing at my nails and fighting the ball of emotion that had my insides twisted in a knot, every part of me wound up and held in Ian’s hands.
Thomas sat in the chair beside him, antsy, knee bouncing a hundred miles a minute under the table while Ian remained calm and casual, as if our worlds weren’t hanging in the balance.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the intensity radiating from him.
The care.
Even when he didn’t want to admit it.
This beautiful, rough man who I wanted to reach out to and just . . . hug. Let him hold me and pray I could maybe hold a bit of him. But I knew that was impossible.
Our lines had been drawn.
Boundaries made.
“And how do you feel when you have to visit your father’s house?”
Thomas scowled and crossed his arms over his thin chest, which I was sure one day would be massive. My little boy who I knew would become a good, good man. “I hate it. I mean . . . I don’t get why he even wants us over there. He’s always busy and working and we don’t even see him. Eva takes care of us the whole time.”
Ian jotted something on the pink pad. “Who’s Eva?”
“Our nanny.”
Ian glanced at me. I paced a little more, hugging myse
lf, trying not to get too excited, too hopeful, because I knew what Ian had said was true.
This wasn’t going to be an easy win.
But we were going to fight it. Win it. I knew it.
Could feel relief spinning through the air, getting caught up in the power of that energy.
“How does that make you feel . . . that the nanny takes care of you?”
Thomas shrugged. “Like it’s a waste of time. And when we do see our dad, he’s always asking questions. Wanting to know what our mom is doing. Telling us to tell her that we want to go home. And then other times, he says mean things about her. It makes me . . .”
Thomas glanced over at me, his lips collapsing in a grim line. I got the distinct impression he didn’t want to admit it in front of me.
As if he were trying to protect me.
My big, brave, little man.
He turned back to Ian and lowered his voice. “It makes me angry and mad and worried. I don’t like it.”
Ian shifted the pad, his question carefully constructed. “What is it about what he says that makes you worry, Thomas? Can you remember anything specific that he has said?”
Thomas worked his jaw, hesitating, the words cracking when he finally forced them out. “He said she was going to regret it. That she was never going to get away with blackmailing him.”
That word pierced me like an arrow.
It wasn’t what it was supposed to come to. Wasn’t what I wanted. But I had been left without a choice.
I also knew Reed would make good on that threat.
He wanted to make me regret it.
He thought I’d made him look bad.
Put him in this position.
Left him.
He should have known there was no chance I’d stay.
Ian looked down and fidgeted with the pen before he looked back at my son. “Have you ever heard him say anything . . . specific. About how he might make your mom regret the choice she made? Any sort of threat? Anything about hurting her physically?”
Every cell in Thomas’s body froze, and I swore I could see it.
A cold dread that visibly shook down his spine.
In pain, he looked back at me, and I saw the hint of tears brim in his eyes, as if maybe my child thought he was the one who was hurting me.
It’s okay, I mouthed.
All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 21