Of course I do what all hysterical idiots do and jump my ass all over him, clinging like a vine as cold, stark terror takes me over.
“Shh, love, I have you. See? I won’t let anything happen to you. Just relax and let the water surround you,” he soothes, kissing my brow and cheeks till my breathing calms long enough for me to open my scrunched eyes.
I know, closing my eyes in this type of situation is silly, but if I’m gonna die I don’t want to look that crap in the face.
“I’m going to let you go—”
“No!”
If possible I cling harder, almost drowning us both in my bid to climb him like a monkey.
“I’ll have hold of you the whole time. Just lie back. I’ll keep my arms under you the whole time. See? That’s not so bad, is it? Now spread your arms and let your muscles unwind. I have you, love. That’s a good girl.”
As I lie back in the water, his arms supporting me, and let the cool liquid drift around me, I close my eyes and huff out a breath of annoyance.
The dratted man, he went and did it.
I’m in love.
Chapter Twelve
“I am so pleased with the improvement Benjamin has made in only a few short weeks, Miss Munro. He’s almost a completely changed child from the boy who walked into my office that first day.”
I nod my head and beam at Dr Glen, sucking up the praise she’s been heaping on me since I walked through the door twenty minutes ago. As per our talk, she doesn’t share anything too personal with me. She is Ben’s shrink, after all, and respects his privacy, but she’s been keeping us updated about his progress and shares some of the things my brother has given her permission to tell us.
“Yes he has, Doc. His teachers are really pleased with his progress, and there haven’t been any incidents at the new school. I’m just relieved he hasn’t hit anyone so far.”
Her soft brown eyes smile kindly at me before she sits up straighter and gives me the stare I’ve come to know since this all began, the one that says I’m in for another counselling session whether I like to or not.
Which I hadn’t, in the beginning. I’d pointed out that she was Ben’s shrink, not mine, and that I wasn’t into sharing my gross feelings with perfect strangers.
She’d gone all stubborn on me and forged ahead anyway, dragging the shit out of me no matter how hard I tried to deflect. Now I have the gal pal I’d been searching for, and the weirdest part of it is that she’s not so much about giving me advice as she is about making me see what I need to about my emotionally stunted self.
“We need to speak about one of the central issues regarding Benjamin’s behavior toward you.”
Gulp.
“He hates me.”
“No, Ashley dear, he really doesn’t. The fact is, he loves you as the mother he lost, more even, since he’s intelligent enough to recognize the love and sacrifices you’ve made for him. The issue is not you; it’s your continued defense of his father.”
Huh?
“What?”
“Simply put, he feels as if you’re betraying him every time you defend your father and his actions. Telling the boy that Wesley isn’t bad just because he left enforces his belief that you value him more than Ben.”
“But I only say that so that he doesn’t end up hating him. I don’t want him to hate Wesley, or anyone,” I croak.
Shit. Lucian had told me this weeks ago, and instead of listening I’d told him to mind his own business unless he had some fancy Psychology degree I didn’t know about.
Now I’m going to have to apologize and eat freaking crow because it seems the man is once again right.
Drat.
“I know, and under normal circumstances I would laud that sentiment. Hatred should not be encouraged, but in Benjamin’s case it’s having a negative effect.”
“What should I do?”
“Don’t encourage him to badmouth Wesley; just do not rush to his defense when Benjamin says something negative. Right now he needs to feel like you’re in his corner. When he feels secure enough he will open up to you, and then you can explain your feelings to him.”
Seems easy enough, except for the fact that I’m terrified that opening up, letting anybody know my real feelings about the douchebag, will only make them think I’m a loon.
“And as for the other.”
Ah, crap.
“I’m not going there with Lucian. This whole situation is already so strange. We’ve reconnected for all of two seconds, and I’m living with the guy and playing happy family. Risking Ben’s heart in the process. I don’t want him knowing because…”
“You’re afraid it will shatter the happiness you feel now,” she finishes for me, giving me that kind stare.
This chick is worth every penny Lucian is paying her. She’s not only managed to get me out of the bomb shelter that is my psycho head, but she knows my messed up feelings. Maybe better than even I do.
“Damn, I wish you weren’t my shrink. You’re the perfect gal pal,” I mutter, grinning when she winks.
“Well, technically I’m not your shrink, since you’re not paying me. We’re just talking, you and I.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, in that case, how do you feel about drinks Friday night?” I ask, crossing my fingers that the possessive brute will let me out of the house without a hassle.
“First round’s on me, Doc.”
“Call me Mary.”
“Ash.”
And just like that, I am no longer the lone wolf.
***
Luc
I’m feeling great for the first time in a long time. I have a son who is shaping up to be everything I could have ever wanted in a child, my woman is toeing the line beautifully, and I’ve just closed the deal of the year.
Everything’s perfect.
“I want to meet her. We should have a family dinner. Oh, and invite Brody, would you? The arse is playing harder to get than I’d anticipated.”
“Cammy, really, the man can damned well make up his own mind whether or not to claim you,” I mutter, watching my sister pick at her lunch.
We’re in my office, eating lunch, something that has become a routine for us in the last years since I’d dragged her from her mother’s clutches and taken her under my wing.
Before this Cammy had been a withdrawn wreck with no compass other than what her fink mother expected from her. I’d put paid to that and brought her to the States with me, putting her to work immediately and setting her up to find her feet and live her own life.
I’d created a bloody monster.
“I don’t care what he says. He’s mine and we both know it. He’s just being a mug because he’s afraid of commitment. I’ll get him over that,” she cackles confidently, smoothing her midnight black hair with a flick.
“Fine. Just don’t scare him off; he’s the best bloody VP on this side of the pond, and I won’t lose one of my best mates because you’re barmy.”
“Leave him to me. Now, tell me about my soon-to-be sister-in-law. And my nephew.”
I spend the next minutes trying to talk her out of descending on my woman. Ashley is already so skittish that I can’t risk the nightmare that is Cammy scaring her away, and I say so.
“Bollocks. Surely any woman you choose to be yours is made of sterner stuff, Jas. Just ring her and tell her I’ll be over for dinner and that’s that. Oh, and I want a movie night with my nephew.”
Bloody hell.
***
I’d say the dinner went perfectly, because damn, can my filly cook when she wants to, but I spent half my night pinning Brody to his seat with a look because Cammy can’t control herself for a bleeding minute.
The only thing to save those two hair brains was Ashley’s continuous amusement at the debacle that is Cammy’s love plan. Ashley’s smiles had kept me in my chair just for the simple fact that I’d been entranced by her laughter.
“I love her. She’s a total nut.”
I snort at her as she goes through her nightly routine, brushing her hair out and using the thousand pound products I’d bought her. The woman is pure perfection, from the top of her stubborn head down to her pink little toes.
“She’s out of her bloody mind. Now stop talking about her and come here. There’s something I want to give you.”
She quirks a brow and laughs outright, her eyes straying to my erection, barely caged behind my boxer briefs.
“You’re such a mook.”
It’s my turn to grin as I wag a finger at her, biting my lip to stifle the laughter I feel bubbling to the surface. Cheeky baggage.
“Not that, you nympho,” I chide, crooking a finger at her. “Come over here.”
When she reaches me I take her mouth in a deep kiss, distracting her enough to slide the five carat diamond onto her finger. No, I’m not bleeding asking the woman to marry me. I’m no fool.
As with everything about her, I know that asking will only get me in trouble, and that’s not on my agenda.
I’m telling her what’s going to happen, and that’s that.
“There. Get into bed. I need to check on Benjamin.”
I’m halfway down the hall when I hear a feminine shriek. My mouth almost cracks, I smile so wide.
Deal closed.
Chapter Thirteen
As I wait for Lucian to come back, I stare down at the rock—the thing is a huge blue boulder that takes up almost all of my first knuckle—totally shell-shocked.
Oh, God in heaven.
This is…
Get a grip, Ash. You knew the man was either gonna use you like a roll of toilet paper or get you stamped. Haven’t you learned anything in the last few weeks?
Yeah, I have. Lucian, like I’ve said, is a force of nature. He sees something he wants, and hoo boy, does he ever go after it with a single-mindedness that I’m still trying to deal with.
I’ve witnessed his seriousness not only in the way he cares for Ben but also in the way he’s on me like white on rice at all hours. For God’s sake, I went to the store yesterday and caught some suit dogging my steps.
How I know that the guy is a bodyguard and not a stalker is simple: I know Lucian too freaking well. The guy is controlling and just plain crazy, and he’d warned me that he wouldn’t let me run, even if I had second thoughts.
This, though, is just…too fast for comfort.
“What the heck?” I yell as soon as his over confident ass comes back in the door.
I’m still slumped at the edge of the bed where I’d fallen when my knees had given out, so when he kneels at my feet, grinning in that same way I’d seen the crazy Cammy do all night, I know my tickets been punched.
Permanently.
“Don’t start, love,” he warns, running his hands up my thighs and beneath the silk tap pants I’m wearing.
“But…but this is, like, a freaking engagement ring!”
The look he gives me says he’s not sure about my intelligence, and I whack his arm hard, letting him know how much I appreciate his messed up sense of humor.
“I know what it is, you mook, I just don’t know why you think shoving the thing on my finger without so much as a word is acceptable. Jesus, Lucian, this is too much. I’m not ready for this type of commitment.”
That sets off that temper of his, and he shoves to his feet to stand over me, his body one hard slab of immovable muscle. When he plants a hand on my chest and shoves me down before pinning me beneath his body, I know I’ve pissed him off beyond the point of return.
“Ready or not, you will marry me and let me put my name on you and my lad,” he growls, shushing me with a glare. “You should have known the moment you allowed me into your body that I wouldn’t give you up. You made the choice to give yourself to me, and now that I have you I have no intention of letting go. Ever. So wrap your brain around the fact that you’re mine and move the fuck on.”
My first inclination is to blast his ass to hell and back and tell him he’s a crazy bastard for even thinking he has the right to issue orders. I’m a modern woman; he can’t just throw a ring at me and expect to get his way in everything.
Love or no love.
But he doesn’t give me the chance to do anything more than moan when he seals his mouth over mine and kisses me into a writhing heap of instant need.
An hour later my mouth is too busy screaming his name as he powers into me with a determination that leaves me blissed out and too addicted to care about his controlling ways.
“Jesus, you’re perfect,” he groans, falling into me after an orgasm that left my toes curling. “You have to marry me, love.”
The grin I get from him when he pulls his face out of my neck is so evil I shudder and lick my lips nervously.
“Why?”
“Because, my love, I’m pretty sure I just put my son inside you.”
***
The next two weeks are everything I never knew I could want. Lucian is attentive and caring, and short of telling me he loves me, I almost feel like maybe he could.
I’ve made strides with Ben, and he’s gone so far as to tell me a few things about why he turned into Rocky and wailed on the kids at his old school.
So yeah, I feel great, and you know what? I look it. My skin’s not gray from fatigue anymore, thanks to Lucian’s insistence that I sleep in and take a nap like a five-year-old in the afternoons.
My hair is shining because of that expensive shampoo he buys, and I’ve picked up a pound or two, making me look nicely curved instead of like a cracked out model wannabe.
And yes, I am so married. Now, don’t get weird and all girly on my ass about not mentioning the wedding. There wasn’t one. I got hitched at the courthouse four days after he put his ring on my finger.
With him it’s important to know that actions speak louder than words and that despite his ‘kindness’ the last few days—once again, his words, not mine—he really isn’t into wasting time.
Why did I acquiesce and get married? Because the guy is right. We hadn’t used protection once since he’d taken me, and I’m not stupid enough to get knocked up without a ring on my finger.
My mom raised me right.
We haven’t had a honeymoon, though, because Lucian says that leaving Ben right now isn’t a good idea, that we need to make him feel included in everything to assure him that his place as ‘our child’ is rock solid and not to be doubted.
Suits me, since I’m a little afraid of being totally alone and without a buffer to temper all that wildness I’ve glimpsed beneath his surface.
In short, my life seems to be absolutely perfect.
The phone rings just as I’m putting the finishing touches on a cake the Food Network taught me to bake. God, do I ever love that my husband is pretentious enough to have a flat screen TV and cable in the kitchen.
“Hello?”
“Is this Miss Ashley Munro?”
“Nope,” I say, grinning like a loon. “This is Mrs Ashley Jasper. What can I do you for?”
A throat clears tersely, and I lose my grin, dropping the icing bag to the counter beneath me.
“Mrs Jasper, my name is Stewart Ingles. I represent your father, Wesley Munro.”
Warning bells start ringing in my head at the mention of my father’s name. Especially since the guy on the phone sounds like a lawyer and not some chump.
“Um, represent?”
“Yes, Mrs Jasper.”
He goes on to explain how Wesley is shitting a brick about Lucian filing adoption papers to make Ben his—something I didn’t know about, by the way— and by the time he’s done I am so fuming mad I have to force myself to slowly release the phone and not smash it to a million pieces.
That piece of shit thinks he’s gonna come storming back in to take our boy? He’s got another freaking thing coming.
“Lucian.”
“What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately sensing my mood, even though we’re only on the phone.
“I got
a call from a lawyer representing Wesley. He wants our kid, Luc.”
There’ll be time for tears later. For now I need to set my junkyard dog on Wesley’s ass before he gets any further in this madness.
I hear a slew of the most vile cursing, something that is so not Lucian. He never curses in my company because—God, I want to laugh every time I remember it. According to him and Ben, ‘a real man does not abuse his woman with vile language’.
“Don’t worry, love. I’ve got this. Okay. No, Brody, tell that son of a bitch I want the whole team in here NOW! I don’t give a bloody fuck what they have going. I need to get this sorted before that smarmy twat gets his filthy hooks into my son.”
Maybe he doesn’t realize I’m still on the phone or something because he’s yelling at poor Brody and flinging around a few obscenities I didn’t know existed.
“Tell Harry to go get my kid and take him home to Ashley. Then I want you to get Judge Masters on the phone.”
Well, phew, if he has a judge in his pocket I feel much better about things. I know how bad it sounds, but now that I have money—Lucian’s billions—behind me, I won’t hesitate to use it in any way possible to get my way.
“Luc?”
“Love, ah, sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’ll leave you to it and go wait at the door for Ben. See you later, babe.”
“Ash, wait,” he says quietly, making me hold my breath.
His tone is way too quiet and leashed for my liking, especially considering the ruckus he’s just made, so I wait, holding my breath.
“Please don’t stress about this. I’ll handle it.”
“I know. That’s why I love you,” I whisper before ending the call to run to the front door.
Chapter Fourteen
Luc
Being the kind of man that I am—yes, a controlling, paranoid bastard—I decide to go to the school and get my kid. When I get there to see him waiting on the steps with the principal securely holding his hand, I feel a thousand times better and release the breath I’ve been holding since my woman phoned me.
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