Kendra fought down the effect he was having on her body. “More old-fashioned? What are you talking about?”
That determined look she knew so well settled on his face. “Connor needs both of us full-time. I want to give him the kind of life he deserves and I know that you do, too.”
She couldn’t figure out what Tom was driving at. “Well, of course, I do, but—”
“Kendra, let’s get married.”
Kendra shook her head. Did he just say married? Her eyes locked on his and goddamn, he was serious. He didn’t blink, didn’t utter a sound. So she did the only thing she could to lighten the mood. She laughed.
He stepped back as if someone had slapped him when she burst into laughter and put a hand to her chest. His proposal made her shiver, like a bucket of cold water poured over her head. Never had she imagined he would propose.
“This is no laughing matter.” Irritated, she watched him cross his arms over his chest and cock his head while her laughter subsided. She supposed she better hear him out, but there was nothing short of ‘I love you and want you both in my life’ that would even make his proposal remotely acceptable.
“Old fashioned all right and completely ridiculous. So many people make marriage a joke because they enter into it for all the wrong reasons. There is only one reason to marry—and that’s for love. Marrying me, just because of Connor is not fair on me, or him, or you. How can a marriage based on a child satisfy any of us?”
More than anything, she wanted love. How could she marry a man, who, until yesterday, barely acknowledged she was alive? Her parent’s marriage was cold and empty, her mother a shell of her former self from simply being another of her father’s possessions. She wondered if the pair had ever loved each other or that it was just too convenient—like a marriage between Tom and Kendra would be now.
“I can offer you and Connor a better life.” He glanced around her tiny apartment; his mouth firming as if to say, ‘look at this shit hole’, and as if she wasn’t doing the best she could. “You can’t enjoy living like this. I’m surprised Marcus hasn’t insisted you move from this part of town.”
Kendra stopped laughing at his comment and she wanted to hit him. He was pissing her off now, just as Connor rushed into the kitchen. He giggled as he clung to one of her jean-clad legs. “Mama, what funny?”
Even though it was clear he was still irritated, Tom couldn’t resist their son, and a smile tugged on the corners of his mouth as he watched Connor laugh too. Connor looked so much like Tom, Kendra thought as the little boy giggled with them, without knowing what was funny. A pang of regret ran through her, quickly chased by guilt. She should have tried harder to tell Tom about Connor.
The other fact hanging over her was she should have told Marcus. He would have sorted everything out, but it would have ruined his chance of winning the drivers’ championship. Tom had only learned about Connor on his return stateside last year after Marcus’s crash. When she’d been so concerned with her brother’s injuries, she’d taken Connor to the hospital. Tom hadn’t even asked who the boy’s father was, and since he hadn’t read the emails, it obviously never occurred to him he was Connor’s dad.
He arched an eyebrow at Kendra as she sobered.
“You’re not laughing,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
She put a hand on Connor's head. “You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m deadly serious,” Tom said. “Connor needs a real home, Kendra. I want to be in his life every day, not just on weekends. We could make this work.”
Sorrow sparked in her gut, but she kept her voice mild. “No. I’m not marrying you, Tom. Having a child together is not the basis of a successful marriage. Love, friendship, mutual respect, those things count. We really don’t know each other at all anymore. We have both grown and changed. If you think I’d marry you just because of Connor...” She took a step back. “No way. Not happening.”
That went about as well as Tom thought it would. But what had he expected? Deep inside he knew Kendra was right. He didn’t want to put his boy through a divorce, because if he did this, if he committed to Kendra, it was for forever.
But they barely knew each other anymore. Except he knew he still wanted her. Just being this close made his body burn.
She was hot. His reputation screamed that he’d thought a lot of women were hot. Marriage meant sleeping with no one but Kendra. Could he handle that?
He ran his gaze over her body and those long legs that he’d love to feel wrapped around him once more and decided it would not be a sacrifice. The night he’d shared with Kendra four years ago, still played like a movie in his head. He’d often woken up hard and needy, jerking off to the memory of her touch, her kisses, her tight…
They could make this work.
He sighed. Pushing wouldn’t accomplish his goal. Just like her brother. Stubborn as hell. But maybe he could coax her. “Kendra, I know that it’s not the perfect situation, but we could make a marriage work. There is no question that we still desire each other. It would solve your financial problems, too. Just think about it.”
Her delicate nostrils flared, reminding him of a spirited horse. She gave a big sigh and hugged Connor. “This is not the time or place for this conversation. I have a piano lesson to give in fifteen minutes—I teach piano, by the way. I think you need to take a day or two to think about what you just said. I’m pretty sure you’ll change your mind. You never struck me as the one-woman kind, and I won’t have a marriage of convenience.”
Tom gave her his best disarming smile, the kind that used to make her blush. “You’re right, we really don’t know each other—yet. Just so you know, I’d never cheat on my wife. I’ll go for now.” He squatted down again in front of Connor. “Hey, little man. I have to go, but I’ll see you real soon, okay?”
Connor cocked his head a little. “You go bye-byes?”
Tom smiled. “Yeah. Me go bye-byes.”
“’Kay.” Connor held his arms out to Tom. “Give hugs.”
Tom had hugged his niece and nephews dozens of times, but enfolding his own son in his embrace for the first time was such a profound experience it brought tears to his eyes. Knowing this solid little life in his arms was his flesh and blood made the floor beneath his feet tilt. His life was crashing and pounding around him, but he’d give his life for this wee boy. Love hit him like a cannon ball in the chest and he could barely breathe.
And he’d missed three years already. He was not about to lose more. Nor was he going to play fair. He played to win. And he wanted his son with him, and that meant Kendra too.
He hugged Connor close for a few moments until Connor squirmed. Tom loosened his hold on the toddler, but took his face in his hands. “You be good for Mommy, okay?”
Connor’s smile was the sweetest thing Tom had ever seen. “’Kay. Bye.”
Tom rode the wave of love as he stared into his son’s eyes, not wanting to leave. He wanted to stay and get to know Connor. He wanted to make up for the time he’d missed. The feeling made him even more determined to marry Kendra so they could finally be a family. It was the perfect opportunity to get what he didn’t deserve with no one pointing that out.
How someone so small could change a determined bachelors mind he really didn’t know, but he knew what he felt and he felt he wanted to be part of this family.
He kissed Connor’s forehead and stood up. “See ya, buddy.” He smiled at Kendra. “I’ll call you later to arrange a time when we can really talk about things.”
“Fine. But Tom, you can’t expect to simply walk into my—our,” she patted Connor on the head, “lives and expect to run everything. I have been on my own with Connor for three years.”
He bit back the words ‘whose fault is that’, because both of them were to blame. “Just promise me you won’t dismiss the idea. We don’t have to get married right away. We could date and see…”
She hesitated before nodding, then added, “But
I’m not promising anything.”
Tom gave her a last, direct stare, winked at Connor and left her apartment. Jogging down the stairs of the dilapidated apartment building, Tom smiled to himself as he thought about the sexy mother of his child.
He looked up and down the street and knew even if Kendra wouldn’t marry him; she would not remain living in this neighborhood. He’d lived in a rough area and no child of his would go through what he went through, not when he had the money and space to give his son a fabulous and safe upbringing.
Tom remembered how often Marcus complained about Kendra’s stubbornness to do things on her own. He could empathize with her need to be in control, given how her cancer had taken all the control from her. But this was about all their lives. He wanted a relationship with his son that was better than the one he had with his father. She would be tough to convince.
He’d grown up in a single-parent household and it sucked. When his mother had walked out, he’d felt torn between two people he loved the most in the world. One parent always lost. He didn’t want to be the loser, but he wouldn’t wish that on Kendra either.
He glanced at his watch. Speaking of fathers, he should pop by the hospital and see how dad was doing. It was hard to stay angry and bitter at the shell of the man who was lying in the hospital struggling after his liver transplant. Somehow it made Tom even angrier that he couldn’t go on hating his father.
He swore Connor would never end up hating him. His son. He had a son.
He had wracked his brains all night trying to think of a better solution. How else could he have his son in his life in the way he wanted? He saw how kids got shoved from house to house, from parent to parent; and what would happen when Kendra met someone she wanted to marry? What if they wanted to take Connor out of state? Coldness swept over him. What kind of relationship would he have with his son then?
Yet, he’d be giving up his plan to never marry and risk ending up a part-time dad, anyway. The idea of a divorce scared him as much as losing a chance to know his son did. But the longing from his shitty childhood, that he’d always kept hidden deep inside, to belong to a happy family like most other kids, rose like an avenging dragon to fire him up. He longed to give his kid what he’d never had—a loving, perfect family—if they even existed? Maybe then he would lose his feeling of worthlessness.
If there was a better solution to give his boy the dream of the perfect family, he didn’t know what it was. This was the only way that he could see a way ahead for him. He had to at least try.
Now all he needed to do was convince Kendra they should be a family. She wanted love. She had loved him once. And it had sent him fleeing. But not this time. Surely, he could make her fall in love with him again?
So he would fight for his son and try.
Chapter Six
Kendra had asked her best friend Stella Perry to pop over. She had grown up in the same neighborhood, Beverly Hills: a world away from where she lived now. She couldn’t blame Stella for not understanding why she lived like this. Why would any sane person give up a life in high society? But she refused to let herself be under her father’s thumb. He thought he could control her as he controlled her mother, but she would show him.
To be fair, she wasn’t sure if she’d have gotten through the cancer if her father hadn’t been their fighting with her and providing her with the best treatment money could buy, but once she’d recovered, he thought it meant he could control every facet of her life. That she owed him her life for helping to save it.
He’d tried to map out her future, even to the point of arranging a marriage to a lawyer in her firm.
“Forget college, my dear. Women raise the children and run the household so the men can earn the money.”
For fuck’s sake—really? In this day and age?
The day she’d told him she was pregnant and wouldn’t reveal the father’s name, he’d got so mad. She thought for a moment he might hit her. He disowned her when she refused his plan to marry her off by tricking the lawyer in his firm into thinking the baby was his. So she’d been on her own, with only Marcus and Stella helping her ever since.
Stella shifted Connor to her other hip. “I’m just saying. Marcus will not let you keep dodging his questions about Connor’s father forever.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Kendra said while putting on some coffee. “He rips my head off every time he comes to see me and Connor. He hates me living in this neighborhood.”
At least Marcus still wanted her in his life. In contrast, her father was a wealthy, prominent lawyer and having a pregnant, unmarried daughter was damaging to his reputation. Her mother was so browbeaten by her father that she always took her father’s side.
“I don’t understand why you won’t take Marcus up on his offer to set you up in a better neighborhood,” Stella said.
“If I give in on that, he’ll think he can run my life just like my father. Believe me, he’s more like my father than he wants to admit.”
“If you ask me, you both are,” Stella took a seat in the chair by the window. “Why do you think you have to do all this on your own?”
How could she make her friend understand? For most of her life she’d been Marcus’s quiet, shadow-like, sickly little sister. Mr. and Mrs. Black’s little girl, whom everyone had needed to look after because she’d spent much of her childhood in the hospital battling her leukemia. She still hated how cancer had defined her.
She wanted to stand on her own two feet for a change, to prove to the world she wasn’t as weak and helpless as they all thought her to be. No more pampering for her.
That’s what had attracted her to Tom. He’d never treated her like some fragile vase that would shatter at the slightest touch. He’d never tried to protect her. He never thought of her as the sick girl. At their very first meeting he’d treated her like the survivor she was, daring her to push back and take a swim in the pool if she wanted to. Perhaps that is why she fell so hard for him.
Wanting to end the conversation, Kendra fell back on her usual excuse. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I need to be independent.”
Stella knew not to push her, but she said, “So, now that Tom knows about Connor, is he going to step up and help you out?”
“Tom’s not just a wallet, you know. He’s Connor’s father. He popped by and met Connor today.” She tried to act like it was no big deal. “Oh, and he suggested we try being a real family.”
Stella choked on the sip of wine she’d just taken as she and Kendra sat in the living room later that night. “He said what?” she croaked.
Kendra crossed her arms and deepened her voice while giving Stella a hard look. “Let’s get married, Kendra,” she mimicked and cracked up. “I can’t believe it. He’s absolutely serious, though.”
Stella sat her wineglass on the coffee table. “I certainly wasn’t expecting him to react like that. He doesn’t seem like the marrying kind.”
Tom was a more casual sex kind of guy. Relationship was a foreign language.
Running a fingertip around the rim of her wineglass, Kendra said, “There’s more to Tom than I suspected.” She might still consider him a man-whore, but how many people knew he didn’t drink? She suspected there was more to him than anyone knew, more than she knew. She understood that his shitty childhood probably tarnished his views on happy families. That’s what scared her about his offer. Did he even know what he was doing?
Stella arched an eyebrow at her. “You could do worse. I mean, you still have the hots for him and he’s a rich stud.”
Kendra gaped at Stella for a moment. “What happened to you hating Tom and calling him a prick?”
Stella’s shoulders lifted. “If he didn’t know… He gets points for taking responsibility now he does. Are you sure that he didn’t know?”
Bold lines of text rose in Kendra’s mind. “Yeah. I’m sure. None of the emails were opened. He’d never read them.” Why did he keep them?
“He’s still an as
s for not opening them or listening to your voicemails, but he’s not quite as big a jerk as I thought,” Stella said.
“No, he’s not. Tom was never a jerk to me,” Kendra said. “He was the one person who didn’t sugar coat stuff or treat me like a fragile piece of china. I liked how honest he was with me.”
“Even when he loved you and left you?”
“Sex is not love. The love word never crossed his lips.” She could not blame him for that either. “You mean when I chased him so hard, he finally gave in? He never made me any promises, and I knew he was leaving the country the next day.”
“I love how you constantly defend him. You’re still in love with him.”
Tears stung Kendra’s eyes and she closed them. “Yeah. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. God, he was so hot. He’s even hotter now.”
Stella’s snicker made Kendra open her eyes. “Boy, you got it bad. I doubt he loves you. If he did, why has he ignored you this past year?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. I think he’s too scared to love anyone. I’m simply the mother of his child, who he wants in his life and this is the way to get his son.” It was the ghost in the room when he’d suggested getting married. His proposal wasn’t accompanied by a ‘I love you’ and Kendra wanted that. Wanted it badly. Her parents had a marriage not based on love and she refused to ever end up in a marriage where separate bedrooms were the norm and you lived separate lives too. The children usually suffered. It was far better to tell them the truth and live separately.
Her face must have said it all as Stella added, “Look, don’t rush into anything, but maybe you should explore a relationship with Tom.”
Kendra shook her head. “Is that so? If not for Connor... If he’d wanted me, he would have come for me by now. He’s been in LA almost a year. I bet he’s never even thought about me over the years. I was a one-night romp. I don’t blame him for that. I chased him like crazy. I’m not about to repeat my performance.” She paused. “Plus, you know his rep with the ladies. A different one every night. I don’t think he’s the marrying kind. What happens if he cheats on me? I’d leave and Connor would be heartbroken.”
Reckless Curves: Bad Boy Autos (Drive Me Wild Book 1) Page 5