And then there was Penelope.
“I want you to be a part of my life.”
That was as honest as I could be.
*****
JT stood there at the bells for a bit longer, then asked if I could drive him home. He didn’t speak to me in the car and when I pulled to a stop outside the house he shared with Penelope, he got out without a word. Penelope came to the door and watched as he came up the walk. She said something to him, but I don’t think he answered. I got the impression that JT was the kind of guy who had to work things out in his head before he could talk to anyone about it. He was like me that way.
I lifted a hand to Penelope, but she didn’t respond. She just turned and went back inside.
Back at my house, I paced the living room for a while, feeling like a caged lion. I hated this. I hated the feeling that I’d screwed this whole thing up. I would do anything to take all this back. But, then, I was glad that JT finally knew the truth. I was glad I was finally able to be honest with him.
My cellphone rang and I snatched it out of my pocket, irrationally thinking it might be Penelope. But it was Libby’s voice that filled my ear.
“You never called back and told me what was going on.”
I grunted, the whole day unfolding in my head again. Somehow I just couldn’t get past the mark of tears on Penelope’s face.
“Why did I think I could just charge in here and take my son back?”
“The judge granted the injunction?”
“Yeah. But he’s called another hearing next week. It’s pretty clear that he’s going to set the adoption aside and allow me custody.”
“Then it’s a victory.”
“Yeah, well, JT doesn’t know how to respond to all of this. And his sister—“
“You can’t worry about what you can’t control.”
“But I can control this. Or else, I could have before I stupidly started the ball rolling.”
Libby sighed loud enough that I could clearly hear it over the phone. “Don’t confuse the situation, Harry,” she said. “This is about your son. That’s it.”
I sat heavily on the edge of the couch. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
I laughed. “Not always. Just occasionally.”
She was right. I came here to claim my son. I came here to fix what my parents screwed up so many years ago. JT should never have been given up for adoption. He never should have been raised by these people. I understood they did the best they could, but look at the mess they left behind when they died – the mess their daughter was left to clean up. It wasn’t right.
I was going to fix this even if it meant taking JT away from Penelope. He deserved what his birthright offered him. And I was going to make sure he had everything I lost out on.
Chapter 13
Penelope
JT wouldn’t talk to me. But he also wasn’t sassing me or resisting me when I woke him in the mornings as he had done every morning for the past year. And he showed up at the bakery right after school as he was supposed to. But then he would go to Harrison’s.
I wanted to ask what they talked about. I wanted to know what Harrison told him about our parents, about me. If they were making plans to move to Oregon, I thought I had the right to know.
I lay awake in bed at night, torn between my fear of losing JT and my need to relive the night I shared with Harrison. I hated him. I did. He was the one who was going to take my whole world away from me. But, at the same time, I so desperately ached for his touch.
It was insane. How could I want the man who had hurt me so deeply? How could I remember the way his kiss had tasted when I knew that in just a few days he was going to take my brother and disappear? How could I want him when it was pretty clear he couldn’t care less about me? I was probably just another notch on his bedpost, another one night stand that he enjoyed, but never thought about again.
Three days. That’s how long we had until the next hearing.
I climbed out of bed and went down the hall to JT’s room. He was asleep under a pile of blankets and dirty clothes. His room was always such a disaster. I could never get him to clean it. I don’t how my mother ever did. But I remember it was always pristine when I came home from college for the holidays or the few trips home I made when I moved to New York.
I picked up a few things, wrinkling my nose at the pungent smell of a pair of socks that were stuck under his desk chair. There were more clothes on the floor than he had in the closet. I wonder: did Harrison have a maid who would take care of these issues once they were back in Oregon
I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I dropped the clothes where I stood and walked, rushing to the front door. It was unlocked—even in this day and time, hardly anyone locked their doors in this town—and I burst through and just wandered toward the street. I still couldn’t breathe despite the cool fall air that immediately penetrated the thin sweats and t-shirt I was wearing. I just walked, my mind such a whirlwind of thoughts that I couldn’t really concentrate on one thing. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what I wanted. I just…I just needed to go.
I ended up at the bakery. Maybe I was hoping to find Nick there, but it was still a couple of hours until he would arrive to begin making the donuts that would go flying out the door the moment the storefront opened. The place was dark, the sweet smells of cake and frosting and donuts permeating the air. I was convinced that even a hundred years from now when this building was nothing more than rubble, it would still smell of cakes and butter cream frosting and donuts.
I had a huge pile of paperwork I needed to do. And since I was here…I let myself into the office and stared at the bills from suppliers that were waiting to be paid, the bills to our customers that still needed to go out, the orders that had come in over the last few days and were waiting to be put on the schedule. I really didn’t want to touch any of it, but I was the only one who could.
I’d spent the last four days meeting with lawyers, trying to find one who understood that I wanted to fight this case and that I didn’t want to just lay back while Harrison left the state with my little brother. But once I told them that I was fighting the Harrison Philips, they all backed out as gracefully as they could. Except for one. One simply stated that he would rather cut off his left hand than face the kind of legal super stars a man like Harrison Philips could bring to the table.
I was screwed and I knew it.
Jack—good ole loyal Jack—was more than willing to go up against whoever Harrison brought to court the next time. Jack was like Nick, a boy who grew up in this little town, older than me, but close to my parents because my parents befriended everyone they ever met. And after their deaths, he began to have certain ideas about me, about how I was this single girl with this new, overwhelming burden who needed to be taken care of. I’d probably end up marrying one of them. Someday. But now wasn’t that time.
Now I needed a good lawyer, not a small town boy.
What I needed, I couldn’t put into words.
“Penelope?”
I turned and—wouldn’t you know it?—Harrison was standing just inside the back door of the bakery.
“Are you having me watched now?”
“No, I was—“
“I don’t really care what you’re doing downtown in the middle of the night. I just want you to go.”
“We need to talk. You know we do.”
“I know I need you to leave me the hell alone.”
“Are you going to be angry with me forever?”
“I might be, yes.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him, unable to ignore how incredible he looked in the clothes he was wearing. But, again, he looked good in just about anything. Sweats should be illegal on some men, the way they ignored everything but the good parts, showing off asses that were round and delicious, the kind of ass that made palms itching to touch it. And, despite the slight chill in the air, he was wearing a white muscle ta
nk that showed off more than his muscles. Something low in my stomach tightened as I stared at him, my body betraying me even as anger burned in my chest.
“Can’t we find a way to make this work?”
“What would you like to do, trade him back and forth? I get the weekdays and you get the weekends and every other Christmas?”
A tendon in his jaw jumped a little. “No. But surely there’s a way we can work this out without one of us losing everything.”
“You could back off. He’s going to be eighteen in two and a half years. He could make his own choice then.”
“Then I would lose all of his childhood. Is that really fair?”
“Is it fair to tear him away from his home so soon after he lost his parents?”
“I’m his father!”
Harrison’s voice rose a little and he jammed a finger into his own chest, as though he was trying to convince more than just me. And the look in his eyes, that puppy dog roundness he got when he thought he was being denied something. I could imagine him as a child, turning that look on his parents and getting everything he ever wanted. That look made me want to give him everything.
Except my brother.
I dragged my fingers through my hair, not sure what more there was to say. He took a step forward, but stopped.
“I just…” he began, his voice lower, quieter. “I just want to know my son.”
“You had your chance sixteen years ago.”
He shook his head. “But that’s the thing. I never had a chance.” He took another step forward, but stopped again before he made any real progress. “I didn’t know about him. The people who should have told me didn’t. And the one who should have shared all this with me thought that I had no interest. And that—“
“I don’t want to know,” I said, turning from him. “I don’t want to know your story. I don’t want to care about you or what happened to you. I don’t want—“
“Why?”
He was closer. He was standing behind me, but I didn’t turn. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I couldn’t let my thoughts go to all the places they so desperately wanted to go.
But he wasn’t about to let it go.
Harrison laid his hands on my shoulders, his fingers biting into my flesh. It wasn’t so much the way he touched me, but the fact that he was touching me. There was heat in his touch that woke things inside of me that had only been woken once—the night he lay with me in my bed.
I turned and he opened his mouth to say something more, but I pressed a hand to his mouth.
“Don’t talk,” I said softly.
And then I kissed him.
Men used women all the time. Why couldn’t women use men?
He’d used me the other night. I was only returning the favor. And I so desperately needed to forget. I needed to forget everything that had been happening even if it was only for a few minutes, even if my way of forgetting would only muddy the water that much more. I needed this and I think I had the right to take it.
And he wasn’t fighting it.
He buried his fingers in my tangled hair, tugging me so close to him that there were no secrets between us. I pressed my hands under his shirt, trying to make the difficult choice of going up and running my fingers over those perfect muscles, or going down and smoothing my palms over his hard ass. Or both.
Definitely both.
He tugged at my shirt, forcing me back from him for the long second it took to strip it away. And then he was pushing me backward, trapping me against the edge of my desk, wiping away a carefully stacked pile of papers. I sat back happily, working at the drawstring that kept his pants in place even as he tugged at the waist of my sweats.
I’ve never been naked in my parents’ bakery before. I’d made out here—one too many times—when I was in high school. It was convenient, having a key to a private building when everyone else was making out in the back of their parents’ station wagon. But I’d always ended things before they got to that point of no return. Having a strict curfew and living in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, therefore everyone knew who was with who, was convenient.
I’d had sex on a desk before, but that was a long, complicated story. And it had not been anything like this.
Harrison was beautiful. And he knew exactly what he was doing when he touched me. His hands slid over my thighs as he bent for another kiss, his tongue dancing in my mouth like a ballerina on a New York stage. I ached for him in a way that took my breath away, and it threatened to push me to heights I never even dreamed of.
I tugged at his pants, wrapped my fist around him as he moaned deep in his throat. And then he was inside of me, that tenuous connection creating something I never thought I could be a part of. I was too cynical, too independent to ever be open to the kind of love my parents shared. And I was too stubborn to allow even a good guy, like Nick, to break through my walls. But this…there was such promise in Harrison’s touch that my soul was beginning to think…maybe.
I grabbed his ass and pulled him closer to me, needing this. My mind went blank for the first time in days, weeks even. My heart pounded, my muscles tightened. Harrison held my hips, pulled me close to him, too, and I didn’t want him to let go. I wanted this to last forever. I wanted to live in a world where this was all that mattered. But the good things can never last.
My lower belly began to quiver and my muscles threatened to clench. A moan like nothing I’d ever heard before slipped from between my lips. My vision darkened even as I lifted my arms to his shoulders and wrapped them around his neck. I felt his lips on mine, but my nerves were exploding and they weren’t working the way they should have done. I heard him whisper something against my ear, but I didn’t understand.
And then his heat was burning inside of me and his muscles were quivering, his hold on my hips becoming tenuous.
I’d given him pleasure. The same he’d given me.
That thought was like a second orgasm, making strange things happen in my chest. Tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t stop them even if I’d had forewarning, even if I could control anything about this whole situation.
“Penny?”
He pulled back, his hand reaching to wipe away the first of the tears.
“Don’t,” I said, pushing at his chest. I pushed hard, jerking away from him and grabbing my pants off the floor. “Please go.”
“Penny, I just—“
“Leave before I call the police.”
He was quiet for a long moment, but then I could feel the wind of his movement, the heat of his anger. Then he brushed past me and walked out, slamming the heavy fire door behind him.
I collapsed onto the floor, the sobs coming so quickly that all I could do was give in to them.
Chapter 14
Harrison
“What kind of questions will the judge ask him?”
Finn looked up and offered a shrug that didn’t really make me feel any better.
“He’ll want to know what he thinks about this situation. What he thinks about you, about his sister. And then he will take all that into consideration when he makes his decision.”
I nodded as I paced the surprisingly large hotel room. Finn flew in last night to work with the local lawyer he’d found for me at the hearing in the morning. I’d known Finn for years. We actually went to the same university, but Finn was two years ahead of me. We didn’t meet until ten years ago when I expanded Ashland Furniture into Ashland-Philips and he helped with the requisite paperwork. He’d been my attorney ever since.
“I know this is nerve wracking, Harrison,” Finn said, “but we have a strong case. I don’t think the judge could keep your son from you based on the law. As emotional as adoptions are, they are essentially a contract. And a contract requires agreement from all parties. But you didn’t give your consent.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is pretty simple.”
I wished it was. But even as I stood there in that hotel room, one foo
t back in the life I left behind in Oregon, I couldn’t stop thinking about Penelope and…and what? What happened the other night? Why did she attack me like that and then push me away when she so clearly needed me? Or needed someone?
I understood she was angry with me. Hell, I’d be angry with me in her position. But then to kiss me, to let me touch her, to…I didn’t understand. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And I couldn’t stop wanting her.
It was all so insane. I was on the cusp of getting what I wanted, and now I find myself regretting all of it. I regret coming here, I regret calling her into the classroom to talk about JT. I regret the way things played out, the way JT learned the truth about me. And I desperately regret that we have to face off in court again tomorrow.
Could I have done things differently?
Yes.
Would the results have been different if I had handled the situation better?
I don’t know. Maybe not.
If I had met Penelope under any other circumstances, would things be the same? Would she be the same person she is now? Would I?
I hated this. I prided myself on being a man who knows what’s going on around him. I walk into a business meeting, I know exactly who’s going to argue for the sake of arguing, who’s going to agree with everything I have to say, and who’s going to have some valid points I’d damn well better be prepared to counter. I always had control, always knew what the outcome was going to be before we even got to that point.
I didn’t know how this was going to end and that scared the crap out of me.
“Have you spoken to Julia Rowell?”
DONOVAN: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 26