by Levine, Nina
I took a deep breath to calm myself. We’d had a few arguments over this, and I didn’t want another one. I just wanted Tenille to get some sleep. “There’s enough milk in the fridge for one feed. I can give that to her, so all you need to focus on is lying your ass down on that bed, closing your eyes, and not waking up for hours.”
Charlotte stopped crying at the same time that Tenille’s eyes widened. “I haven’t heard that bossy tone from you in a few weeks,” she said quietly, a slow smile touching her lips. Dropping her gaze to the baby, she murmured, “I think Charlie likes it, too.”
I held Charlotte close to my chest with one arm and wrapped my spare one around Tenille’s waist, settling my hand on her ass. “Charlie, huh?”
Her smile grew, and my dick twitched. Nearly four weeks of not being inside her was far too fucking long. “Yeah, Charlie. It was on your list of possible boy names. I think it makes a great nickname for her.”
Glancing down at my daughter, I took in the way her eyes fluttered closed as her chest rose and fell before she finally drifted off to sleep. Looking back up at Tenille, I said, “It seems she likes that, too.”
Tenille shook her head. “No, I think what she really likes is being in her daddy’s arms, which I totally get. It’s the best place in the world to be.”
“Jesus, woman, you need sleep, and here you are turning me on so fucking much that I want to keep you awake all night.”
“Uh-uh, no sex for six weeks. Doctor’s orders.”
I raised my brows. “You think I give a fuck what the doctor says? And besides, I don’t need my dick inside you to keep you awake all night.”
She was silent for a few moments, just watching me intently before cradling Charlotte’s head and bending to place a kiss on her forehead. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with her while I sleep?” The smile on her face and in her eyes disappeared.
I frowned. One minute we were in the moment together, the next she’d fucking exited without stopping to take a breath. I moved my hand to her waist and pulled her closer to me. “What the fuck just happened there?”
Blinking, she shifted her gaze to the floor. “Nothing. I’m just really tired and want to go to bed, but I want to make sure you—”
“No,” I cut her off, “something happened in your head, Tenille, and I want to know what it was.”
She kept her eyes down for far too long before meeting mine again. “Can we please just leave it for now?” Her question came out more like a plea.
“No. Tell me.” If there was one thing I’d learnt in the four years we’d been together, it was that when she retreated like that, it was always something that needed to be talked about. Tenille was the queen of avoidance. Her shitty family had taught her that. But it did her no favours.
“God, you’re a pushy bastard sometimes,” she muttered as she attempted to move out of my embrace.
I tightened my hold on her. “Yeah, welcome to the rest of your life, but you already knew that about me.”
“Fine,” she started before snapping her mouth shut as if she had changed her mind. But she knew from experience that there was no way I was dropping this, so she finally blurted out, “Sex with me isn’t going to be the same. I just need you to know that.”
I frowned again. “How do you figure that?”
She stared at me as if I was the crazy one. “How do you figure it won’t be? I mean, I birthed an eight-pound baby out of my vagina, and my stomach is stretched and flabby. And I was already overweight. And on top of that, I don’t even feel like having sex or sucking your dick or doing any of the shit you like to do. Everything has changed!” Tears trickled from her eyes, and a moment later, they fell in gushing streams.
“Fuck, baby, that’s a lot of shit to be carrying around in your head and keeping to yourself. You need to be talking to me about this stuff.”
She madly wiped her tears away, not having much success because as soon as she wiped them, more fell. “This isn’t stuff I want to discuss with anyone, let alone with you.”
Always my strong girl, trying to deal with everything on her own. “Okay, so let’s go through it all, starting with your pussy. I don’t care if it’s pushed ten babies out, there will never be a day I won’t want my dick inside of it. As for your curves, I fucking live for them. I wake up thinking about them, and I count down the hours during the day until I can get my hands all over them at night. If you ever try to starve yourself to get rid of them, you’re going to have a huge fucking fight on your hands with me.” I let go of her so I could place my hand on her cheek. Stroking her jaw with my thumb, I added, “If you never want to suck my dick again, I’ll deal with it. I won’t love it, but I love you, so I’ll fucking deal. But I read some of the shit your doctor gave you to read, and it’s normal for you to not want sex straight away, so I’m fairly fucking sure that the time is going to come soon where you won’t be able to keep yourself off my dick.”
“You read that stuff?” She forced her words out between sobs, and it fucking killed me that she was so upset over this. She was supposed to be on a high after having Charlotte, and yet the last week had been nothing but tears and anxiety.
“Of course I read that stuff. I’m your partner in all this, Tenille. You’ve done the physical stuff. Let me help you with everything else.”
Something I said clicked with her, and she sagged against me, her arms tight around my body. The three of us stood together for a long time while she cried and allowed me to comfort her. We’d been together for a while, but I knew she’d always held a piece of herself back. It was in the way she refused to cry in front of me, and the way she clammed up when we talked about certain topics, and the way she was guarded about her dreams for the future. I’d always vowed to break those walls down; I’d just never known how to do it. Maybe this would be the beginning of those walls shattering.
After I’d settled her in our bed and Charlotte in her cot, I headed into the kitchen to find something to cook for dinner. My mother’s voice drifted from the lounge room. “You’re just like your daddy. Smooth with your words. I hope you don’t turn out like him when it comes to sticking around long term.”
I stilled in the hallway, her words cutting through me like sharp blades. Turning, I entered the lounge room and found her sitting in the corner, taking a swig from her bottle of scotch, watching me through eyes that betrayed so many toxic emotions. My mother and I had always had a hard relationship, but the birth of my child had stirred some nasty shit in her, and I’d dealt with nine months of this bullshit.
“How long will you be staying with us this time?” I asked, choosing to ignore what she’d said.
“What? You don’t want your mother staying with you?”
Not particularly. “Answer my question.”
She narrowed her eyes at me as she stood and walked my way. “That right there, that’s your father coming out in you. Refusing to answer my question, but demanding I answer yours.”
My patience frayed at the edges, and I couldn’t hold my asshole side back. She’d turned up on our doorstep three days ago, and if her history was anything to go by, she’d still be with us in three weeks. Tenille didn’t need her around, and I sure as fuck didn’t need to listen to shit about my father for another minute. “I never knew my father, so I wouldn’t know if I was like him or not.”
She stiffened. She hated being reminded of the fact the only man she’d ever loved had walked out on her when their child was seven months old. The sting I’d intended hit its mark. Pushing her shoulders back, she said, “Take my word for it, you have plenty of your father in you. I’ve never felt as abandoned as I did when I was quitting the coke. The way you chose Shane Gibson over me hurt in a way I’ll never forget. And that was true McVeigh style.”
Fuck. She liked to throw out the shit about “McVeigh style” as often as she could. It was the surname I shared with my father—the one he never gave her but that she made sure to give me in her desperate effort to keep him. “What the fuc
k are you going on about? I was there for you when you quit the drugs.” Hell, I was seventeen at the time and knew more about surviving in this shitty world than most adults. I’d made sure my mother made it through the detox, and I kept our home running while finishing my last year of high school and holding down a fucking job.
“Shane Gibson offered you a job and you jumped at it. You did everything to help that man, and I was the one who suffered. You might have been around a few hours a day, but I needed you more than that. It was the only time I ever really needed you, and you let me down.” She paused for a beat. “I hope your wife and child never know the coldness of your back to them or the despair of you deserting them.”
Before I had a chance to reply, she exited the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I had no desire to go after her. This was the way our interactions tended to go. She unleashed her mean streak on me when she’d been drinking, only to take it all back the next day. It was our vicious cycle.
But her words clung, and I spent far too long thinking back over that time in our lives when she’d finally kicked her drug addiction. It hadn’t been her first attempt, and perhaps there was something to what she’d said. I hadn’t had faith in her. Not after all the other times she’d half-heartedly tried. And I’d been tired of dealing with her crap. So when Gibson offered me that job, I’d taken it and given him 200 percent. I’d wanted to escape the hell of my life. So I had to admit to myself that there was some truth in my mother’s words. But the shit she’d said about me abandoning my wife and child? That would never happen. Tenille and Charlotte were everything to me. There was no way I’d ever turn my back on the two people I loved more than life itself. I was not that kind of man. I was not my father.
Chapter 1
Hyde
Current Day – Sixteen Years Later
Removing my sunglasses, I met Sully’s gaze. “So you’re telling me that her bank account is down fifty grand, and you can’t track where it went?”
He nodded. “Yes. The cash was withdrawn a week ago, and they’ve made no significant purchases that I can see. I’ve been tailing all three of them and nothing seems out of the ordinary in their behaviour. Tenille and Craig go to work the same as usual, Charlotte goes to school, mostly, and the way they spend their free time hasn’t changed. Like I mentioned on the phone, though, Charlotte has started smoking, cutting class, and fighting with her mother a lot more. And Tenille and Craig have had a few fights in public that bordered on violent. She appears to be drinking heavily. The bank statements verify that, as does her public behaviour.”
I glanced around the pub as I sifted through his information. Two in the afternoon was a time you saw the dedicated drinkers, and there were a few there that afternoon. I recognised them just as easily as they recognised me. But none of us acknowledged the other.
Turning back to Sully, I said, “Something’s not right with the family.”
“Agreed. You want me to do some more digging?”
I drained the glass of whisky in front of me. “No, I’m going to pay them a visit and find out for myself what’s going on.”
“You think that’s a good idea, son?”
I wasn’t his son, but he was the closest thing I had to a father. Sully had been working for me, reporting back on my wife and daughter, for fourteen years. He knew my history, and over time, we’d developed the kind of friendship that resulted in the occasional meal together. Outside of Storm, Sully was the only person who showed any interest or care in my life. That interest wasn’t requested, but I’d grown to tolerate it.
“No, it’s a really bad fucking idea, Sully, but I don’t see that I have any other choice. I walked away from my family once. I won’t do it again. Not when they need me.”
“And Gibson?”
I clenched my jaw. “Fuck him. He wants to come at me? Let him fucking come.”
“You’ll take some club members with you for backup?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m doing this on my own.”
His forehead creased. “Now that’s a really bad fucking idea, Aiden.”
I pushed my chair back and stood, my tolerance for his interest having met its limits. “We’re done here. I’ll call you if I need any further information.”
As I watched him leave, a voice filtered through my thoughts. “You want another drink?”
I turned to find Jilly, the waitress, waiting for my answer. Her eyes ran over my body in the same way they always did. I ignored the heat in those eyes. “Yeah, another whisky.”
She finally met my gaze. “I finish up in an hour. You wanna come back to my place? We could have some fun like we used to.”
My irritation flared. I’d made it clear to her on numerous occasions that I wasn’t interested in more time between her legs. “No, just the whisky.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but King cut her off when he joined me. “I’ll have a whisky, too.” His eyes met hers. “And some privacy.”
After she threw a pout my way, she left us alone, and I directed my attention to King. “I thought we were meeting later at your place.”
“Something’s come up that I need to take care of, and I figured I’d find you here.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just some family bullshit.” He settled into the seat across from me and crossed his arms over his chest. “You leaving tonight?”
I nodded. “I want to get there early tomorrow morning.”
King remained silent for a few moments. “I don’t fucking get why you never told me about your family, brother. Not after the shit we went through together years ago.”
I hadn’t told anyone about my family, but I’d come close more than once with King. Staring at him, I thought back to the night he saved my ass the first time. “Do you remember how fucked up I was the night you saved my life?”
Jilly placed our drinks on the table, and King reached for his. After drinking some, he said, “The night you decided you could take five assholes on and win? I’d seen you at that pub a few times, always jacked up on something, and I remember thinking you were one crazy motherfucker. The way I recall it, though, is that you didn’t really need me to help you that night. I was just looking for a fight, and yours seemed like a good one to get in on. I didn’t save your life, that’s for fucking sure. You were capable of doing that yourself.”
“No, I wasn’t. And you know that. Saving my life had nothing to do with that fight.” I knocked back some whisky, savouring the burn as it slid down my throat. “If I’d never met you that night, I’d have been dead within weeks. I wanted to fucking die back then.”
“I know. But no one wants to die in a filthy back alley with a needle stuck in his fucking arm or beaten to death by a bunch of assholes he doesn’t even know.”
“I did. I didn’t want to deal with life. And I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it or my family. Not to you. Not to anyone.” I threw back some more whisky. “Fuck, King… you’re always saving the fucking strays. What the hell possessed you to save me from myself?”
He didn’t have to think about his answer. “I knew you’d make a fucking good VP.”
I stared at him, processing that. King had been twenty-three at the time, seven years off becoming president. I was twenty-two and a man with no future. King had helped me win that fight, and then he’d given me a reason to live. He’d also spent months making sure I kicked my drug habit. “How the fuck did you figure that?”
He held my gaze, his eyes hard. “You were almost as crazy as me, but every now and then you hesitated and thought shit through. And you never failed to tell me when you thought I was wrong. I knew I’d need someone like that.” He glanced around the pub for a moment before looking back at me. “Turns out I was right to fight for you. Some of the shit you’ve done for me….”
I shrugged. “It’s what we do.”
He lifted his drink to his mouth. “You gonna tell me why your wife thinks you’re dead?”
I ran my finger
around the rim of the glass in front of me. “There was a fire, and our home burnt to the ground. My remains were supposedly found in it.”
King didn’t blink, didn’t show any reaction at all. He simply said, “Why?”
I emptied my glass and signalled to Jilly to bring us another. Getting into this with King wasn’t something I had the patience for without more alcohol. “Let’s just say I was young and made a fatal error about where to put my loyalties. The guy I worked for, Gibson, was being investigated for all sorts of shit, but mostly they were desperate to pin two murders on him. I was the guy he called on to handle any problems in the business, so the cops hauled me in for questioning. After I was released, Gibson gave me an ultimatum—fake my death and walk away or he’d get rid of me his way. Part of the choice involved Tenille and Charlotte’s safety. If I didn’t choose to walk away, he’d kill us all.”
King frowned. “Walking away doesn’t sound like your style, Hyde.”
The guilt I’d carried with me for fourteen years roared to life, squeezing the fucking air out of my lungs and coming dangerously close to flipping the switch that sent me from controlled to crazed in under a second. “Jesus, King, I was a fucking twenty-two-year-old with no family and no fucking resources. They caged me in and threatened me, beating the shit out of me and almost killing me in the process. It wasn’t like I had much fucking choice. And back then, I wasn’t the man I am today, that’s for fucking sure.”
“Why didn’t you use Storm’s resources once you had access to them? I would have helped you get your family back.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face while my gut churned with regret. “I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. In the end, though, I didn’t want to put Tenille through that. She remarried within a year and was happy. I’ve kept an eye on them, and the guy seems to have done right by Charlotte. Me going back would only have stirred shit up for them.”