The Freeman Brothers: A Secret Baby Romance Collection

by Natasha L. Black

  Nick stayed for just a while longer but didn’t stay the night. I walked him to the door, and he leaned down to give me a comforting, reassuring kiss.

  He cupped my face with his hand, stroking my cheek with his thumb as he looked into my eyes. “It’s going to be okay. Good night.”

  After he left, I was still thinking about the whole thing, trying to force it to make sense in my head. If Nick was right and Justin was trying to figure out a way to wiggle himself back into my life, that needed to come to an end immediately. He needed to have a quick reality check that it wasn’t ever going to happen.

  Maybe I should just take the initiative and talk to him. Rather than waiting for him to say or do something else, I should be the one to take a stand and cut him off at the pass. Maybe that was what it would take to get him to leave me alone for good. Not giving myself any more time to think about it and possibly talk myself out of it, I picked up the phone and called Justin.

  He sounded mildly surprised to hear from me, but not enough that I really believed he didn’t think I was going to call. More like he was surprised it was so fast.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “About anything in particular?” he asked.

  “Just make sure you have time available tomorrow afternoon. I’ll text you to tell you where to meet me,” I said and hung up.

  34

  Nick

  When I told Bryn everything was going to be okay and that I was going to make sure nothing happened to her, I figured she understood that meant I would take care of the situation with Justin. I didn’t know how exactly I was going to do that, considering I was still unsure of his angle.

  It was obvious he was doing everything he could to try to get back into her good graces. Or at least find a way to burrow himself back into her life so he could continue to take advantage of her. From what she told me, he didn’t have a tremendous amount going for him outside of his relationship with her. So far, he had a group of friends he’d been clinging to for his entire adult life. And he had a whole lot of big dreams and aspirations he was determined were going to work out for him and give him the elaborate lifestyle he wanted and believed he entirely deserved.

  But other than that, there wasn’t much. His career was nonexistent. He didn’t have his own home, and she had been paying his car payments for him. Fortunately, she had been smart enough to make sure the car was in his name. She didn’t sign any of the paperwork, so she wasn’t obligated to keep paying. As soon as she kicked him out of the house, he didn’t have her support anymore. He was suddenly completely on his own, and it seemed to me he didn’t know how to function.

  All that aside, Bryn was pretty incredible. After a couple of months without her, he was likely starting to realize just how empty his life was. And just how much he’d lost when he lost her. I was under no delusions there was a big romantic push behind him wanting her back. Maybe he did have some feelings toward her, but there was no love there. What he did to her wasn’t something a man who loved a woman could possibly do. But I didn’t put it past him to want to have her back because she was a good catch.

  I just needed to figure out what he was going to do next. He had to be planning something. Coming into my office wasn’t a coincidence. He didn’t just spontaneously come up with the idea of coming in and asking me to help him with his investments. This was part of something bigger. If I figured out what that was, I could make sure he didn’t get too close to her again. With any luck, I would find a way to prove what he had done and force him to face the consequences.

  That was all churning around in the back of my mind while I was working the next day when my phone alerted me to a new text message. I saw it was from Bryn, and I immediately smiled, but when I read the message, that smile disappeared.

  She was going to meet up with Justin.

  I stared at the message, reading it over and over. She couldn’t seriously be considering going to see him. I knew she’d said he had never been violent toward her before, but I had seen enough in my life to know that didn’t really mean anything.

  All it would take was for her to say the wrong thing, or for him to get particularly fed up and angry. Not only was she at risk, but our baby was, too.

  I texted her back, demanding to know more about the meeting. I wanted to be there. She shouldn’t be with him alone. While I waited for her to message me back, I called Gabe’s police officer friend, Clint. I explained the situation to him, telling him I was wary about her being alone with the guy and that I worried he might lash out at her.

  Clint’s agreement validated my feelings, but even if he hadn’t agreed with me, I would still be on edge. As it was, he confirmed women were often in the most danger when they were in the first few weeks and months following the end of a relationship, and men who had never before shown any sign of violence could snap, leading to horrific results.

  She needed to make sure they met in a public space with plenty of people around. That would help to keep her safer, ensuring there were eyes on them and people to notice if he tried anything. Being in public and reducing the risk to her safety also gave her a new opportunity. She could record the conversation they had and try to get him to confess to stealing the money from her.

  Even if the recordings ended up being thrown out of a court case, they were still leverage. I thanked him for the advice and called Bryn.

  “Nick, I’m not telling you where I’m meeting him,” she said as soon as she answered the phone.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because this is a conversation I need to have with him. I need to do it on my own.”

  It made my stomach turn not knowing where she was going to be and not being able to be there. “I talked to Clint, the same police officer who I talked to about the situation originally. He said to make sure you meet in a public place. You want plenty of people around to see you and know what’s going on. He also said you should record the conversation. You want to have a record of everything he says, especially if you can get him to admit to taking the money illegally.”

  “I’m not stupid Nick,” she said. “Of course I’m meeting him in public. And I will record the conversation.”

  “Be careful,” I said.

  “I will. I promise. And I’ll let you know as soon as I’m done.”

  We got off the phone, and I knew my day was shot. I let Gabe know I was taking the rest of the day off and headed for home. For the next half an hour, I paced back and forth across my living room floor. Maybe I could figure out where she was meeting him and go there, just to be available in case something happened. I’d stay out of sight and just watch.

  It wasn’t until that thought was all the way formed and I was actually headed for the door that I realized how creepy it was. I was convincing myself it would be a good idea to stalk her. And that made me realize something else.

  I was in love with her.

  It was something I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself. Something I didn’t think would ever happen. But there it was. The only explanation that made any sense. It was the reason behind my chest pains and the anxiety making me sweat, behind my fear for her, and the anger that she was doing this without me.

  I dropped down onto the couch and buried my face in my hands. Now that the wall was down and I had come to terms with the reality that I was in love with Bryn, I had a whole new feeling. Helplessness. That was something I really hated. I was always a self-motivated, determined problem solver. Nothing stopped me or got in my way. If I wanted something done, I did it.

  Until now. Now there was nothing I could do. I didn’t know where Bryn was meeting with Justin or what she was going to say to him. And I couldn’t very well call her and demand she not go, or that she stop the meeting and go home. That wasn’t my place. No matter where we were in our relationship, I couldn’t do that to her.

  So, all I could do was wait around and trust that she could take care of herself.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to
do something else to keep my mind off the anxiety and nervousness making my heart pound and my hands sweat. Changing my clothes, I went downstairs to the gym in my basement to get a good workout in.

  The gym was considered one of the most desirable features of the home when I’d bought it. But in all honesty, it didn’t get used anywhere near as much as most people would think I would use it. I generally preferred rock climbing or at least doing something like hiking or swimming where I could be out in nature. Being outside cleared my mind and helped me feel calm. I also liked the challenge of something that wasn’t the same every time I did it.

  The monotony of working out inside in the home gym didn’t appeal to me very often. I usually only relied on it when the weather was too bad for me to realistically go for a climb, or if I was too busy to dedicate the several hours it took to do a hike. At that moment, all I needed was to just expend some energy. Pounding the living hell out of a punching bag with angry music thudding in my earbuds did the trick.

  When I had punched and kicked out as much of the energy as I could, I tossed aside my gloves and took a shower. I had just gotten out and gotten dressed when my phone rang. I scrambled to answer it.

  “Bryn? Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Are you at home?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “Can I come over?” she asked, not answering my question. From the tone in her voice, it didn’t sound like it really mattered where she was anymore.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “I’ll make something for lunch,” I said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  We got off the phone, and I went to the kitchen, anyway. Even if she didn’t have any appetite, she needed to eat something. It was important for her to keep up her strength, and the baby needed the nutrition.

  Taking out chicken breasts, I sliced them thin and tossed them into a hot frying pan with a little bit of olive oil, oregano, basil, and garlic. While they cooked, I washed and chopped vegetables, then got a loaf of bread from the bread box. I had gotten the French loaf from the bakery a couple days before, and it was starting to get hard, perfect for cubing up, tossing in butter, and toasting for croutons.

  By the time Bryn arrived at my door, I had big bowls filled with salad and topped with the chicken and croutons. I’d also warmed up some of the amazing minestrone soup Lindsey made and I kept in my freezer all the time.

  Setting the food out on the table, I went to the door and let Bryn in. I tried to decipher the look on her face to determine how the meeting might have gone, but she was hard to read. There were no tears on her face, and her eyes didn’t look bloodshot, so I was going to take that as a good thing. We went inside, and she sat down at the table while I poured her a glass of water.

  “Go ahead and eat,” I said. “If you’re not in the mood for salad, I can make you something else.”

  She shook her head. “This looks good. Thank you.”

  She picked up her spoon and took a small sip of the soup. I wanted to ask her how the meeting went and why she came over rather than just telling me about it over the phone, but I didn’t. She needed some time to unwind and decompress. And I wanted her to eat. The conversation would happen when she was ready.

  35

  Bryn

  By the time I got to Nick’s house, I was so angry, I was shaking. I knew the meeting with Justin was going to be hard.

  But I wasn’t expecting it to affect me as much as it did. Possibly because I wasn’t expecting that he was actually going to get worse. There was some hope that he might have come to the realization of what he did and want to apologize.

  That was before I found out he’d gone to Nick’s office. As soon as I heard that, I knew Justin had reached a new level. The time we spent apart helped me see how much he tried to control and influence my life and reassure me us breaking up was the best thing that could have happened to me.

  The goal of going to meet with him was to make sure he understood everything was final between us. I wasn’t going to go back with him, and he wasn’t going to manipulate me into it. He also wasn’t going to bully or intimidate me into it by trying to go through Nick. With any luck, it was going to be a smooth, fast meeting, then I would be able to go see Nick and everything would be fine.

  Turned out, that luck wasn’t coming to me.

  The whole event went in a direction I wasn’t anticipating and left me furious and not knowing what I was supposed to do next. When I finally got away from Justin, I did the only thing I knew to do, and the only thing I wanted to do. I went to Nick.

  The lunch he had waiting for me was perfect. Not just because it smelled delicious and was somehow the exact thing I wanted even if would never have thought of it myself. Even more than that, it was just amazing because he had thought of me. It also made my heart warm knowing he was doing something to take care of the baby. He wanted both of us to be healthy, and that meant the world to me.

  He didn’t ask me how the meeting with Justin went immediately when I got to the house. I could tell he was bursting to find out what happened, but he cared more about getting me to the table and making sure I ate. He sat with me quietly while I worked on the soup, then ate a few bites of the salad. My appetite hadn’t been great but having something that was delicious and fresh made it easier to eat what I knew I needed to.

  Even though being there with Nick helped to bring down my anger and pent-up energy, I could tell he was angry as well. I wondered how much of that was my fault. He had specifically asked me not to go see Justin by myself. In fact, he had all but demanded I wait until he was able to go with me. I refused him. I told him this was something I needed to do myself, which I still believed. But that didn’t stop him from being upset.

  By the time I ate about half of what he put in front of me, I felt calm enough to talk about what happened. Nick seemed to recognize that I had settled down and moved a little closer to me.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I took the officer’s advice and met up with Justin at the park,” I said. “I wanted to make sure we were in a very public place so even if he got upset, there wasn’t anything he could do. I have to admit, it made me feel a lot better once I was there with him and knew there were other people around. I’ve never been afraid of Justin, exactly, but there was something unnerving about the conversation from the very beginning.”

  “Did you record it?” he asked.

  I reached for my phone and set it on the table in front of me. “I did. And I’m glad.”

  “So, you got him to admit that he stole the money from you?” Nick asked.

  I shook my head. “Not exactly. Why don’t I let you hear it for yourself?”

  I turned the volume up a little bit so he could hear every word and played the recording of the entire conversation. There were moments when Justin spoke more quietly, obviously aware of all the other people moving around us and not wanting anybody to hear what he was saying.

  As the conversation unfolded, I paid attention to Nick’s expression. I wanted to watch his face as he listened to what Justin had come up with.

  “Is he seriously trying to blackmail you?” Nick asked after the first few exchanges of the conversation. “Am I hearing that correctly?”

  His reaction almost made me laugh, but I couldn’t get far enough past the anger to let myself find it funny. Instead, I nodded.

  “Yep. You are hearing that correctly. His big plan for the meeting was to blackmail me,” I said.

  Nick shook his head, still staring at the phone as the conversation continued. “I just can’t even believe what I’m hearing. This is ridiculous.”

  “Tell me about it. This was definitely not among the top five things I would have come up with if someone had asked me what I thought he was going to say to me during our meeting. Honestly, I was still thinking about what you said about him trying to weasel himself back into my life. I couldn’t figure
out if he was going to try some sort of slimy seduction approach, or if there was going to be a ridiculous big romantic gesture. Or maybe he was going to go another direction and go the intimidation factor.”

  “And instead, he went for trying it to get you to shell out more money to him,” Nick said. “Money he was probably going to then bring back to my office and try to get me to invest for him. This guy’s unbelievable.”

  “That’s a good way to describe him,” I said. “I wish I could say it actually shocked me that he was doing it. But it didn’t. I wouldn’t have come up with it, because I don’t like to dwell on the negativity and worst potential of humanity. Unfortunately, he doesn’t leave me a whole lot of options.”

  Nick shook his head again and pushed away from the table, holding his hands up like he just couldn’t take it anymore. “Alright, that’s enough. I don’t want to listen to that guy’s voice anymore. Tell me you at least got something on him about your money.”

  I turned off the recording and put my phone away. “I didn’t. You’ll notice he didn’t come right out and say he expected me to give him money. He just inched around it and orbited the whole concept a bit. So, when he was done and asked me what I thought, I figured I could bait him into making an admission. I explained to him he didn’t have anything over me he could use as leverage that would make me give him more of my money.”

  “How did he react to that?” Nick asked.

  “He just sat there and smiled at me. I think he knew I was recording the conversation. I don’t know if he came into the meeting already expecting me to record it, or if he figured it out somehow while we were talking. But he never said anything that would even come close to a confession that he took the money without me giving him permission to.”

  “And you’re absolutely positive he doesn’t have anything he can hold over you?” Nick asked.