Claiming Isabella

by M. E. Clayton

  My Inner Quinn was strong today.

  His face flushed, but he didn’t cower. “He’s sick. But more than that, he’s regretful. He admitted he’s been wanting to see you for years now, but he was scared and felt ashamed.”

  I cocked my head at him. The poor guy didn’t realize that by showing himself to me, he gave me the perfect target for all my resentment and pain. “And what does Mama Stanhope think about all this?” I asked, sarcastically.

  If he caught the edge of my sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “She’s going through her own hurricane of emotions, but she’s dealing as best she can.”

  I hated his answer.

  I didn’t want any of them to be victims. I wanted them to all be co-conspirators. I wanted them to all hate me, so I could continue to hate all of them. This man had no right coming here today, telling me he wanted to meet his sister.

  I leaned forward and rested my arms on the desk as I clasped my hands together. I held his stare as I made myself perfectly clear for him. “Mr. Stanhope, while I can appreciate the guts it took to come here today, I have no desire to inherit any more family. I have no need for additional siblings when I already have two sisters and two brothers, who may not be related to me by blood, but they’re more loyal to me than any blood I’ve been related to so far.”

  His face morphed into regret and pain. “I under-”

  I held up my hand to stop him. “Please, let me finish.” He nodded and I continued, “Even if I wanted to form a relationship with you and your brothers, I wouldn’t. I’m not the kind of person who enjoys bringing pain to other people and I assure you, your mother would most definitely feel pain knowing I was a part of her sons’ lives. Your father has caused her enough pain without me adding to it.”

  “We’re adults. She wouldn’t necessarily have to know. We could-”

  My hand stopped him again. “I’m not a dirty, little secret, Mr. Stanhope.”

  His eyes widened in shame and shock. “That’s not what I meant. I would…I’d never…”

  I patted my hand at him again. “All that aside, I’m not going to help your father and I have no plans on forgiving him. Ever.”

  He ignored my earlier order and hearing my name on his lips made the pit of my stomach bottom out. I didn’t want to feel anything in connection with this man. “Isabella, he wants to meet you, even if you aren’t willing to get tested. He just wants a chance with you.”

  I lifted a haughty brow. “And I would have liked to have had a father growing up, even If he hadn’t been married to my mother, but thems the breaks.”

  Logan nodded in defeat. He stood up and reached inside his jacket to pull a small card out of the inner pocket. He placed it on my desk, and at quick glance, I saw that it was a business card. “Here’s my business card. It has my office and cell phone numbers. I wrote my home number on the back, as well.” He stood at his full height and looked down at me. “I understand if this is where this has to end. I really do, Isabella. But if, after you’ve had some time to think about it, you want to get together and talk or get to know each other, I hope you won’t hesitate to call me.”

  I didn’t trust myself to say anything, so I just held his gaze until he let out a crushed breath and headed towards the door.

  He had one hand on the doorknob before he turned back towards me. “You know, that chair has got to be the most uncomfortable seat I’ve ever sat on, and not because I was meeting my sister for the first time, either. That chair really does suck.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped my lips.

  And then I couldn’t stop the tears that started forming behind my eyes.

  I didn’t want to laugh with him.

  He shouldn’t be here making me laugh.

  I’m supposed to hate him and his perfect life with both his father and mother.

  Logan smiled at me and my heart started breaking, because his smile was just as familiar as his eyes and hair. “I always wanted a sister,” he quietly whispered before opening the door and walking out of my office.

  The tears escaped and I couldn’t control the sobs that wracked my body.

  Why did he have to be so nice?

  Why did he have to seem so sincere?

  After a few moments of self pity and emotional havoc, I called Julian. “Hey, Dove,” he answered.

  “Do you love me,” I choked out.

  I could feel the tension radiating from the phone. “Isabella, what’s wrong?”

  “I…I’m…”

  “Goddamn it, Isabella! What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Julian barked out.

  “Y…yes. I’m…I’m safe…”

  “Baby, what’s going on?” Julian’s voice was laced with concern and desperation

  “C…can you c…come get me from work, please,” I begged.

  “I’ll be right there, Isabella. Do not fucking move,” he ordered. “I’ll be right there, baby.”

  I hung up and waited.

  And the tears didn’t let up.

  Julian~

  I was about to tear the walls down all around us.

  When I had picked up Isabella from work, she had been an emotional mess. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she just held on to me. I had left my car parked at Willshire because I didn’t want to drive while she needed me. I let Garret drive us as she clung to me in the back seat. As soon as we got home, I fired off a quick text to Nick to get my car from Willshire, right before I sat Isabella on the couch.

  We’d been sitting on the couch, with her tucked under my arm, for over ten minutes now, and I was going fucking crazy waiting for her to finally tell me what was going on.

  I wanted to force the issue and push her, but she was already a mess. I didn’t want to add to whatever she was experiencing.

  Finally…FINALLY…she spoke. “I have an older brother named Logan,” she murmured.

  I could feel my entire being lock up. My brain screamed at me to calm down and listen. It screamed at me to not get up and go on a killing spree. It screamed at me to acknowledge and absorb that Isabella, though emotional, was safe.

  She. Was. Safe.

  With more effort than I ever thought myself capable, I gathered her in my arms until she was sitting on my lap, her face plastered to my chest. It took a few seconds, but I finally got to where I could speak reasonably. “Do you want to tell me about it now or later?”

  Isabella let out a ragged breath. “He showed up at my office telling Janie it was important. When she opened my office door to tell me I had an unannounced visitor, I became giddy because I thought it was you.” Even though it seemed impossible, she tried to bury her face deeper into my chest. “I’m so stupid,” she mumbled.

  It tore at my fucking heart to hear her speak about herself that way.

  Isabella wasn’t stupid. She was intelligent, driven, caring, loving, beautiful and successful and I could go on forfuckingever.

  “He looked familiar to me as I noticed him. And when he introduced himself as Logan Stanhope my chest felt like it was caving in when I realized why he looked familiar.” She was quiet for a few seconds before she continued. “We look ali…related,” she admitted.

  I did my best to steady my voice, “What did he want?”

  Her voice was so low and sounded so sorrowful, it was killing me. “He said he wanted to meet his sister. He said that he hadn’t learned about me until a few months ago, I’m guessing when Elliot got sick, and he said he wasn’t okay with that.” I held her tighter. “He said we had two other brothers, one is 24 years old and the other is my age…”

  “Jesus Fucking Christ,” I couldn’t hold in the explicit. The sonofabitch had his wife and mistress pregnant at the same fucking time?? Who the fuck does shit like that? He was starting to remind me more and more of Chase’s dad.

  “He said he want to get to know me and that…”

  “That what, Dove?”

  She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He said Elliot wanted to meet me and try to make up f
or abandoning me. Logan claims he wants that whether I test to help him with his illness or not.”

  I was going to kill him.

  Absolutely fucking kill him.

  “Did Logan say anything else about yo…his brothers or his mother?”

  “I didn’t ask anything about Jeffrey or Steven. Jeffrey’s the 28 year old and Steven’s the 24 year old. I did ask what his mother thought. He said she was dealing with things in her own way.”

  “So, tell me everything word for word,” I asked her, not because I wanted to put her through it all over again, but because I needed to know if I needed to find this asshole and fuck him up or back off because he was sincere. Bits and pieces of the conversation weren’t going to be able to tell me that.

  I listened silently as she went over the visit as it happened, and when she was finished, I reluctantly believed that he genuinely just wanted to meet her.

  And that just pissed me off more.

  There was no way she’d be able to maintain a relationship with Logan without feeling the absence of her father and two other brothers. Every time she saw Logan should would focus on what she would be reminded that she wasn’t good enough to whereas he was. Even if it wasn’t his fault.

  Her answer to my next question would tell me everything I needed to know. “What did you do with his card?”

  She tightened in my arms and I knew the answer before she spoke. “It’s in my purse.”

  I unwrapped my arms from her body and sat her up so I could see her face. “Why were you so upset over his visit, Isabella?”

  She blinked. “Well, my father-”

  I shook my head at her. “Your father’s not the one who visited you. It sounds as if Logan spent most of his visit pleading to get to know you and not picking up his father’s cause. And you kept his card, Dove. Why did you keep his card if you want nothing to do with him or them?”

  Her solemn amber orbs started tearing over again and then she sobbed, “I look like him, Julian. We have the same color hair, the same shaped eyes and our smiles are both a little crooked.”

  Sonofabitch!

  I took her face in my hands and did my best to wipe the tears away with my thumbs. “Tell me what you’re feeling, baby. And remember, It’s okay to feel whatever it is you’re feeling, Isabella.”

  Her voice sounded so broken, “I feel so sad, Julian. I feel so damn sad.”

  I wanted to punch something. Or someone.

  “When he informed me of Jeffrey and Steven and then said he always wanted a sister, it felt like he was taunting me with a picture of the family I should have had growing up, but didn’t. I know that’s not how he meant to make me feel, but that’s how I felt.”

  I hated leaving her, but I got up to go grab some tissue from the office. I returned placing the box on the coffee table and handing her a wad of single sheets. She offered me a grateful smile when I sat back down next to her.

  Her face was a beautiful was a mess as she continued to explain her meltdown. “I felt…feel so abandoned. Seeing him and hearing him say the words father, brothers, mother…sister…it all made me feel so abandoned. So discarded.”

  Hearing her say the word ‘discarded’ had me wishing her father and mother dead. Sure, Loretta had no control over whether Elliot had chosen to stay or leave, but that bitch could have raised Isabella with love instead of resentment. If she had, maybe Isabella wouldn’t be using words like ‘discarded’ and ‘abandoned’ to describe herself.

  Fucking assholes.

  The next words out of my mouth felt like acid on my tongue, but this was about Isabella, not my violent tendencies. “He was right about you guys being adults, Dove. There’s nothing shameful or weak about wanting to get to know him. He’s not your father and it sounds like he feels a bit of a victim in all this, as well. If he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know about you until a few months ago, then he’s never actually done anything to intentionally hurt you, baby.”

  Isabella fell back against the backrest and dropped her head to the side. She regarded me as she was processing my words. “I don’t think I can have a relationship with him without my feelings towards my mother and father tainting it. At least, I don’t think I can right now.”

  I nodded and just took her in, wondering how much this was going to plague her. Even though we were doing all we could to make sure Flower Guy never got to her, her being distracted wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t until she closed her eyes that I realized how exhausted she must feel. “Hey, why don’t I draw you a bath and you can soak while I make you something to eat?”

  She popped one eye open and smile at me. “That sounds great, but I can run the bath, Julian. Why don’t you just get started on…whatever you feel like making? I’ll be fine.”

  I shook my head. “Not going to happen, Dove,” I countered as I stood up. “Go get your stuff, while I run your bath.”

  After getting Isabella settled in the tub, I pulled out my phone as I headed into the kitchen. I started pulling pots and pans out with more aggression than was needed.

  Poor pots and pans.

  It took three rings before Nick finally answered, “What’s up?”

  “I need Carson’s PI to pull everything he can on Logan Stanhope,” I bit out with as much control as I could.

  “Uh, Stanhope as in…”

  “Yeah, as in Elliot Fucking Stanhope’s eldest son.” I pulled a packet of sandwich meats from the refrigerator and I almost threw them against the wall. I knew I needed to calm down. I took a deep breath and willed myself to get under control.

  “What’s going on, Julez?” Nick asked. The details of Logan’s visit came rushing out in my haste to get make Isabella some food and to get this phone call over with before Isabella finished with her bath.

  He let out a long, low whistle, “Wow.”

  “Yeah, I know, Sav. In fact, the more I think about it, have Carson’s guy get everything he can on Jeffrey and Steven Stanhope, too. If Isabella’s entertaining the thought of one day reaching out to Logan, I want to make sure I know who these people are and what needs to be done to crush them if they dare hurt Isabella again. Unknowingly or not, I don’t give a flying fuck, Nick. If Logan is not coming into her life to make it better, I will fucking tear him apart with my bare hands. And I’ll take down the other two and her fucking father as collateral damage, just because.”

  Nick waited a heartbeat to see if I was done with my rant before speaking, “No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

  I didn’t want to do it, but I wasn’t so stubborn that I couldn’t admit I needed some help. “How do you deal with it, Sav? How do you control it? The need to save and defend her is making me more unstable than I already was, for Christ’s sake.”

  I could hear Nick expel a deep breath over the phone. “Jesus, Julez. I wish I could tell you something that was actually helpful, but I can’t. I don’t know how I manage it. I suppose it helps that Eric is in prison and I can’t get to him. Like, maybe, my mind is concentrating on what it can control instead of what I wish I could do. I mean, I wish I could be in room alone with that bastard, but that’ll never happen and I’ve accepted it.”

  “So, that’s it? Just the whole recognize what I can’t control and move on?” I asked incredulously.

  “No. It’s more like understanding the pieces of the situation you can control and working those to prevent as much damage as possible. For instance the flowers, none of us can control when or how Isabella’s getting the flowers, but we can control the fucker’s access to her with Garrett, her living with you now, things like that. You can’t control if she’s going to want to form a relationship with those people in the future, but you can control the early stages where you make it clear that they’ll be six feet under if their intentions are less than noble.”

  I thought about his words and they made sense. “Thanks, Sav,” And I meant it.

  “You know, there are random times when Avery’s scar catches my eye and pain like nothing I
’ve ever known radiates across my entire body. I can’t control that, but I can control the way I love her. And all I can hope is that I’m loving her well enough to make me forgive myself for letting her down,” he divulged.

  “There’s nothing to forgive yourself for. She’s never blamed anyone but Eric,” I reminded him.

  He let out a soft chuckle, “We’re men, Julez. It will always fall on us if something ever happened to the women in our lives, whether we could have prevented it or not. As it should.”

  And no truer words have ever been spoken.

  Chapter 15

  Greed: Because someone will only get to her over my dead body!

  Julian~

  God was testing me.

  That had to be it.

  God was testing me, because why else would Isabella get flowers the day after that shit with her brother?

  Or maybe it was the devil tempting me. Maybe he was trying to lure me over to his side. Admittedly, it didn’t take much for my mind to turn to homicidal thoughts, but I’ve managed to keep from acting on them, so far.

  Maybe Satan has gotten tired of waiting for me.

  I stood in Isabella’s office with her and her boss, Phillip Westmoreland, staring at the flowers I wanted to throw through the window.

  Luckily Phillip’s voice snapped me out of my violent fantasies. “Isabella, I know you wanted to keep this quiet because you didn’t want this to affect your job, but-”

  “Mr. Westmoreland, please don’t put me on a leave of absence, I-”

  So much for snapping me out of my violent fantasies.

  I wanted to turn this city red with blood hearing Isabella begging another man for anything. I had to jam my fists in my pockets to keep from beating the ever loving shit out of her boss. And the man hadn’t even done anything.