I didn’t let myself think too much about it. All that would be was wishful thinking. For years I’d wanted him to notice me as something more than the girl behind the bar or his kid brother’s best friend. Now that it seemed I’d finally made my way onto his radar, I couldn’t believe it. Then Nick mentioned it to me the night before. After our lunch together, I went to work feeling far better than I had before showing up at Nick’s house. He came into the bar later that night, and I couldn’t help but notice the smirk on his face.
That’s when he dropped the hammer. He picked and kidded me for getting cozy with Vince and asked me how I got his big brother to be so flirty. I was dumbfounded. But once he mentioned it, I started to think about our last few interactions with a totally new thought process. Rather than convincing myself I was only seeing his flirty tone through the prism of my own attraction to him, I accepted that he might actually have been flirting with me, too.
And I had absolutely no idea how to handle it. Up until that point, I figured my crush was harmless. It was just one of those puppy dog-eyed attractions everybody went through. You never actually thought that crush you had was going to turn into anything. That was definitely the case for me. Never would I have imagined there was a way the gorgeous millionaire nearly ten years my senior would ever look at me like that. I wanted it. But there were also plenty of days in my life when I wanted Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to be real so I could just go stand outside and wait for mashed potatoes and gravy to come rain on me. Wanting it didn’t make me think it could actually happen.
Now it was and it was freaking me out.
Running away and starting a new life at the beach was more than a feeling. It would get me out of a lot of tense situations and would definitely separate me from having to think too deeply into whatever might be going on with Vince. But it would also distance me from the most important thing in my life. And that’s what stopped me. I couldn’t leave. If I did, I would lose all access to my son. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind Grant would use me leaving as leverage in our perpetual battle over Remy.
Like he pointed out at the coffee shop, we didn’t have any legal arrangements that guaranteed me visitation with my son. The courts expected I would be given access to him. It was understood Grant would allow me to participate in Remy’s life and we would co-parent. The custody agreement was only meant to dictate where he would physically spend his time. It also established that Grant could make decisions about him without having to consult with me.
I hated the way that sounded on the surface. It made me uncomfortable to know Grant didn’t even have to tell me when he was making major decisions about our child’s life. I had once thought it was important that he had that power. If it was a medical emergency or something serious happened and decisions needed to be made quickly, there wouldn’t be time for him to try to reach out to me. I would rather know Remy was going to get what he needed than to always have control.
Thinking about how much I had been manipulated and fooled made my skin crawl. It embarrassed me that I was so willing to just let them push me over and walk on me. I didn’t know how they convinced me I could trust them. I was never able to trust them before. But they pushed me into giving over control and just believing I would have plenty of time with my son. That wasn’t the way it worked out so far, and if I left Charlotte, it would be even worse. Grant would make every excuse not to bring him to see me or make him available for me to see.
There would be nothing I could do. Even if I somehow managed to go to court to fight for more visitation, he would bring up me moving. He would present it to the courts as me not caring about my son or being close to him. I would lose what little connection I had, and that was something I just wasn’t okay with.
Tossing aside my plans of escaping to the beach and possibly starting anew, I went into the bathroom and drew a bath. As the tub filled, I went back into the kitchen to get a glass of wine. If I couldn’t soothe my troubles in the waves, I might as well soak them away in a bubble bath.
A cap of my favorite body wash created lush foamy bubbles on the surface of the water. I spiraled my hair up onto my head and stepped into the steaming water, taking my wineglass with me. A few sips started to relax me, and I let my head fall back against the side of the tub. As my eyes closed, my mind filled with thoughts of Vince. I became very aware of my naked body in the hot water and the brush of the bubbles across my breasts. They teased my nipples, bringing them to a peak.
I groaned at the way my body tingled, my thighs trembling at the images of Vince swelling in my thoughts. Setting the wineglass aside, I let my hand slip down into the water as the other stroked across my breasts. My fingers found the soft skin of my inner thighs and ran along them to increase the heat rushing to my core.
Finally giving in to the desire, I traced my fingertips through my delicate folds. Pleasure tightened the muscles through my hips and thighs, and heat burned on my cheeks. I cried out as my climax hit me. When my body finally relaxed, I sank down further into the water and sighed.
9
Vince
There were a lot of perks to being CEO of Freeman Racing. The money was good. I could get to work late and the worst thing that would happen to me was my superior would tattle to our mother. There was a fantastic diner down the street that delivered amazing boxed lunches. When I wasn’t stuffed with those lunches, the kitchen was usually stocked with goodies Mama made.
Among those perks, one of my favorites was my office. High up in the building, it was the only office with one entire wall made of windows that let me look out over the compound and see what was going on from day to day. Technically, it should have been Quentin’s office. It was our father’s when he owned the company, and he was all ready to hand it over to his oldest son as part of passing the torch of the company, but Quentin declined it. He’d never intended on being in his office all the time and didn’t want to feel compelled to. He would much rather have an office lower down in the building where he was right in the middle of everything.
Besides, he knew much of the administrative work was going to be on me, which meant I needed a better office.
The room was big, bright, and sunny, and being in the somewhat isolated space, let me focus on my daily tasks without a lot of interruption. That was particularly beneficial on days like today. It was a hive of activity around the compound. And finally, all the chaos revolved around a race and not a wedding.
I sounded bitter. Every time I thought about all the hubbub and fluttering around the wedding plans and got frustrated at my family for focusing on them so much, I felt like the Grinch right around Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the way I wanted to feel. It wasn’t like I was upset about my brother getting married. In fact, I was thrilled. Darren was always the quietest and most romantic of the four of us. He tended to stay in the background and observe what was going on rather than jumping right in and being a part of it. If there was anyone who deserved to find a good wife and settle down, it was him.
I just wished the discussions about it could be limited to outside the work environment. Owning so many businesses and having my hands in several others wasn’t an accident. Ever since I was young, I’d had a head for business and determination to make my own way in the professional world. Even before my father retired and Quentin bought the company from him, I knew my future didn’t settle only with racing. Unlike Nick, it never occurred to me to not be a part of the family business. I always wanted to stay close to my family and continue the legacy my father created. But I wanted something for myself as well.
Somehow, seeing everybody lose focus and start concentrating more on what was going on in our personal lives rather than at work made me feel unsettled. The business was a constant in my life. It was something I knew from my earliest recollections. Even when other ones of my businesses have come and gone, or my investments haven’t worked out the way I wanted them to, I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed or discouraged. There was always that sense that the comp
ound was there. The racing was there. The legacy was there.
We were all devoted to it. Even Nick. He might not work for the company, but he was still a part of it. He came to the races and was active on social media. I knew for a fact he had earned us a lot of fans by talking up the races and getting people involved. We were always a close family, and our shared commitment to this one thing made us even closer.
Maybe, in a way, I felt like I was watching that disappear. They were more about the wedding and the baby shower and everything that came after those than they were about what we had always had. I didn’t like the thing I trusted all along and depended on throughout my life becoming less important. I liked Merry and Kelly, and I was happy to have both of them as part of the family. But there was still a twinge of jealousy. I didn’t want to give up my brothers or how tightly knit we’d always been. And I didn’t want to have the company become less of a focus of our family.
That was why I was so excited that day. Everybody was busy. Everybody was running around preparing for the weekend ahead. Most of the races were done at the local track. It was easy to get there the day of the race, set up, and break down immediately after. It made for extremely long days, but it didn’t require extensive traveling or being in unfamiliar surroundings.
The upcoming race was going to be different. We were heading out Thursday night for a full weekend of racing at a track a few towns over. The exhibition wasn’t a formal part of the racing season in that it wouldn’t count for the standings of the individual riders. But there was still glory and prize money on the line. Not to mention building up more fans and growing our reputation.
Going to the races wasn’t always something I got to do. I enjoyed them, but sometimes there was too much work to be done behind the scenes to actually let me go to the track. I had to keep up with the action from behind my desk, then join up with everybody for our usual celebration at the bar afterward. But not that weekend. I wasn’t going to miss the excitement of the weekend away. But that meant I had a lot of preparation to do ahead of time.
With only a couple days to go until we needed to leave, there was still much to be done. Starting with calling the pet sitter. Frankie might have a very strong personality and had no problem making sure his opinions were known, but he couldn’t take care of himself for a whole weekend. He had yet to figure out how to open his own cans of food. Once that happened, he would probably take over the world. Until then, he needed a pet sitter.
I had just picked up my phone and was getting ready to dial the number when I heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall toward my office. A second later, the door crashed open and Nick rushed in. His face was red and his eyes wild. He was pissed as hell and looked like any second he was going to pick up one of the chairs and lob it through the window. I set the phone down.
It was strange enough seeing Nick at the compound during the day in the middle of the week. He worked in the city, and should be there right then. Instead, he was pacing back and forth in front of my desk with his nostrils flaring. That was a red flag. It was a lot of red flags all waving together. Nick wasn’t the type to act like this. He wasn’t as quiet as Darren, but he wasn’t known for having a short temper and flying off the handle, either.
“Nick? What’s going on?” I asked. He continued to pace, shaking his head as his jaw clenched tighter. “Nick? Seriously. Tell me what’s happening.”
Finally, he stopped pacing. He stepped up to my desk and slammed his hands down onto it. My eyes dropped to them and then lifted back up to his furious gaze.
“You aren’t going to fucking believe what he’s doing to Lindsey,” he said.
That was all I needed to hear. All my brother had to do was mention Lindsey and I didn’t care what else he had to say. I got up from behind my desk and headed for the door. He didn’t move, and I grabbed onto his arm to yank him with me until he was walking on his own. We got down to the garage and climbed into my truck. I needed the control of being able to drive right now. The surge of anger and protectiveness was too much for me to just sit in the passenger seat. But the opposite was true for Nick. He looked shaken and distracted.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. “What did who do to Lindsey?”
“Grant Waters, her ex. When she left the area for that stretch of time, she hooked up with him for a while. Apparently, their relationship wasn’t very long and never got serious. At least, not serious like they would want to continue being together,” Nick said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Nick glanced over at me. “They have a kid together.”
That hit me hard, and I shook my head, trying to process it. “I had no idea she had a child.”
My brother nodded. “A little boy. His name is Remy. She doesn’t talk about him a lot. She’s very protective and doesn’t want people getting involved in her business. Especially because of the way Grant has been. His family is extremely wealthy, and they steamrolled her after Remy was born. She had to give up custody of him, and they’ve been holding him over her head ever since. She rarely gets to see him, and they have total control.”
“Well, that’s a load of bullshit,” I said, feeling my blood pressure rise a few points.
“To sum it up, yes,” Nick said. “She just called me, and apparently it’s gotten worse.”
My stomach was twisting and burning by the time we got to the bar. As soon as we got inside, my eyes locked on Lindsey. She was fighting back tears and gripping a sheaf of paper so tightly in her hand it was crumpling up. All I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms and hold her. But I had to stand back and let Nick be the one to hug her. She held tightly to him as he rocked her back and forth for a few seconds, making soothing sounds against her hair.
Finally, Lindsey stepped back and wiped away the tears from her cheeks. We sat down at the bar, and Nick walked around behind it to get her a glass of ice water. Lindsey sipped from it with a tremulous hand, then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly to try to gain her composure again.
“You okay?” Nick asked, rubbing her back.
Lindsey nodded. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course. Tell me what’s going on.”
She flattened the papers on the bar and slid them over between Nick and me so we could look at them.
“I’m not even sure what they say, but it feels like he’s threatening me.”
It was all so surreal. The bar looked strange in the daylight, and I was still trying to wrap my head around the past I didn’t even know Lindsey had. It didn’t bother me that she had a child, of course. It was just something new about her I didn’t know. What mattered to me right then was the pain she was obviously in and the terror in her eyes. I didn’t have all the details, but it felt like pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. This could definitely explain why she was so upset at the bar and why she’d shown up to Nick’s house so worked up.
Even without knowing everything that was going on, it was obvious Lindsey needed help. I had a good lawyer, so as I watched her try to piece together the words to explain what happened, I used my phone to jot out a quick email.
10
Lindsey
“I honestly thought things were going to be fine. I can’t believe I was so stupid,” I said.
Nick shook his head. “You aren’t stupid. You can’t do that to yourself.”
“What do you call it? The way Grant treated me the whole time we were together, not to mention his parents. Then how they reacted when I told him that I was pregnant. All that, and I still managed to let them manipulate me into letting them take my son. Even after all that, I still convinced myself things were going to work out okay. If that isn’t stupid, I don’t know what is,” I said.
“It’s not stupid that you want what’s best for your son and that at the time, that was what you thought would be best for him. Before you left when you were working at the bar with your father, it was starting to decline. You’ve said that to me a thousand times. Yo
u love the place and wanted to make the most of it, but you could see all the ways it was starting to go downhill. Then you came back to take it over and you had no idea if it was going to survive, much less do well enough to support you in the way you would want your son supported. The Waters family has money. You did what you thought you had to do,” Nick said.
I hated hearing it come out of his mouth that way. It was so simplified. I rarely talked about the time I spent away from here. Growing up in the same neighborhood my father did, just miles from where his father grew up, there was always the pressure to stay there. Bloom where I was planted and all that. It wasn’t that I wanted to get out of Charlotte or that I didn’t want anything to do with the area where my family had such deep roots. As an only child, I knew if the bar was still going when my father died, it was going to be up to me to carry on the family business.
And even if it wasn’t, my connections to Charlotte were going to see me here throughout my adult life. One way or another, I was going to find my way home. But I needed to experience something else. I needed, at least for a little while, to have a life I chose rather than the one that was chosen for me. It wasn’t like I went very far. It was only a couple of towns over. Meeting Grant threw off my plans in more ways than one. As soon as I found out he lived in Charlotte, I should have walked away. That should have been the indication he wasn’t what I needed right at that moment. Instead, I took it as a sign that he was perfect.
After all, if I was going to settle down someday, it was going to be with someone from my hometown. Just like I could never imagine moving to another place for somebody, I wouldn’t ever ask them to move for me. Running into a charming, sophisticated, and wealthy man from my town when we were both away from home just seemed like the universe trying to tell me something.
The Freeman Brothers: A Secret Baby Romance Collection Page 48
