Deny Me

by Ella Sheridan

  Charlotte tried to glance over her shoulder and winced. Mom was staring somewhere across the room. “What is it?”

  Ben Alexander’s shoulders blocked her view as he settled her on a large couch. Wes sat at her feet and pulled her shoes off without asking, and she caught a glimpse of what she swore was guilt in his eyes. Guilt over what?

  Her father straightened, turned, and a rough growl left his throat. “What—”

  “I asked him to come.” Wes gave her ankle a gentle pat, then stood, seeming to brace himself.

  The tension in the room ratcheted to ten, restarting the pounding in Charlotte’s head. “Asked whom?”

  The whom stepped into her line of sight, just beyond Wes. A sharp gasp choked her. Of course. Only one man could decimate her parents’ manners, and that man was standing in their sitting room.

  Kingsley Moncrief.

  For a minute the sense of unreality blocked out everything else. The room spun, and she worried she might faint. It was too much on top of everything else—the fight at Becky’s, the wreck, almost dying, her parents, and now… “King.”

  His face was inscrutable, those eerie ice-blue eyes blank, revealing nothing. “Charlotte.” He nodded toward her. “I trust you really are fine. What did the doctor say?”

  “What business is it of yours, Moncrief?” Dad demanded.

  “I asked him to come,” Wes said again. The why was what escaped her.

  Her parents too, obviously. The stiffness in both their bodies screamed anger, but it was her mother’s mottled face, the glint of tears burning in her eyes that hurt Charlotte the most. Wes might’ve meant well, but—

  A handsome Hispanic man, as tall and broad as King but beefier, stepped forward. “Sir, my name is Saint Solorio. King and I work together.”

  Dad took the man’s hand, studying him intently for a moment. “No offense, Mr. Solorio, but that’s not a recommendation in my book.”

  Saint’s expression didn’t change.

  “They work for JCL Securities,” Wes said tightly.

  Her parents exchanged a glance. JCL was a renowned firm, one of Atlanta’s pride-and-joy companies. Anyone who was anyone in the city knew the owners, Conlan James and Jack Quinn, by reputation if not in person. What they didn’t know—what Charlotte shouldn’t know either, but did because she’d never been able to stop checking in on her former fiancé—was that King had been with the company for several years.

  Dad’s hands tightened into fists as he angled himself to face off with Wes, cutting King and his friend out of the discussion. “And that concerns me how?”

  Wes shoved a hand through his thick blond hair. “Because Charlotte’s ‘accident’ wasn’t an accident. The man who tried to hurt her is still out there.”

  “We know that.”

  “He’s the least of your worries, Ben,” King added.

  His name coming out of King’s mouth seemed to infuriate her father even more. Charlotte held her breath, waiting for an explosion, unsure if she wanted it to come or not. Seeing King again… She closed her eyes. This was all too much right now, way too much.

  And yet she couldn’t stop herself from peeking beneath her lashes toward King, examining the man who’d left her behind ten years ago. His mere presence was overwhelming, but now that she really looked, she couldn’t miss the changes so many years apart had wrought. He’d aged, no longer the fresh-from-college young man she’d loved back then. Unfortunately for her, the years only added to his appeal. Still tall, he’d filled out, muscles riding the expanse of his shoulders, broadening his chest. Even through the button-down shirt and sport coat he wore, she could tell he was strong, fit. The tension of leashed energy added to his aura of capability, leaving no doubt that he could handle himself in a fight. He was more bad boy than tender lover now.

  Lines gave character to his face instead of taking it away, the edge of his jaw and cheekbones somehow harder than before. Or maybe time had made her forget. She couldn’t forget those lips, though, soft when he wanted, hard when he needed them to be. And those eyes, the ones that used to see into her soul…

  His penetrating stare met hers through the crowd between them, sending a stroke of lightning down her spine. Taking her breath. Stopping her heart. Dredging up emotions that threatened to push her over the edge of control.

  “Sir…” Saint still stood close to her father, close enough to Charlotte that the concern in his expression was impossible to miss. “We’ve been out to the suspect’s home—”

  “What?” Charlotte swung her legs off the couch, trying to rise. The room tilted as pain twisted through her body. “Was Becky there? Is she all right?”

  “Charlotte!” Her mother’s hand on her shoulder urged her back into her seat.

  “Becky’s fine now,” King assured her. “She’s here, actually.”

  She’s here. The words filled Charlotte with so much relief that she collapsed against the couch. “Thank God.” She waited for the room to right itself. “Where?”

  “She’s in the kitchen,” Wes said. “Ruth is getting her something to eat.”

  “Our team lead is on the way as well,” King added. “We think it’s important that he hear her story as well as yours.”

  “What right do you have to—”

  Dad held up a hand, forestalling her mom’s protest.

  “Ben, you can’t possibly be considering this.”

  A wealth of emotion that had nothing to do with Charlotte’s accident filled the words. And based on the roller coaster the few minutes in the same room with King had generated, Charlotte agreed. She didn’t need this right now.

  But who else could help? Not just her, but Becky.

  Her father seemed to feel the same way. “It’s bad then?” he asked. Wes, not King.

  “It is.”

  Wes’s response sent a chill through her overheated body. How bad could it be? They knew who had attacked her. Pick him up and prosecute, right? What else was there to do?

  The chime of the doorbell filled the room, startling her, bringing the ache of every bruise on her body to life once more. Her brain begged to shut down, sleep, forget about all of this. She wanted escape so badly she could barely stand to sit here and not scream, but she wouldn’t give in. Becky was here; she was in trouble.

  Becky needed her, and that was all that mattered.

  King strode toward the front hall without a word.

  “I’ll get Becky,” Wes said, moving to follow his cousin out.

  “I’ll do it.” Mom laid a hand on Charlotte’s arm. “I’ll get you something to eat while I’m there. I’m sure you could use that pain medicine.”

  “That or an anvil,” Charlotte said, trying for a smile.

  The stricken look that crossed her mother’s face stopped Charlotte’s breath. The look of a mother who’d almost lost her child. Charlotte opened her mouth to apologize, but her mom shook her head, gave Charlotte’s arm a pat. “I’ll be right back.”

  Right. With Becky. And food.

  Footsteps and male voices filtered in from the foyer. King. Who had news that was even worse than Becky’s father trying to kill her. Charlotte closed her eyes and prayed she’d make it through whatever came next without completely breaking down.

  Chapter Six

  King’s heart thumped in his throat as he entered the foyer. Him, Mr. Ice Man himself. Was it seeing Charlotte again that threatened the walls he’d surrounded himself with for so long, or knowing she was in danger?

  He wasn’t certain. Wasn’t even sure it mattered at the moment. The only thing that mattered was keeping her safe. Which was why he latched on to the sight of Dain entering the front door like the lifeline it was.

  His boss’s intense stare sized him up as he approached. X-ray vision, stripping away the layers of armor King used to protect himself. He needed every last layer he could keep right now, but he didn’t look away.

  “Want to fill me in?” Dain asked.

  “We have a potential client.”
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  “Someone you know, I take it?”

  That was the problem. King raised a hand, ready to shove it through his hair, release some of the tension riding him. Dain’s perceptive gaze latched on to the move before he could complete it.

  He dropped his hand to his side.

  “It’s someone I know, yes.” If you could call it knowing. He’d lived and breathed for Charlotte when they’d been together. And now, because he had broken things off a decade ago, her family might refuse his help. But Dain and his team were the best, and Charlotte needed the best. Just the thought of not being here to protect her made his blood run cold.

  “Things here are…complicated.” Putting it mildly. “But Dain—” This time there was no stopping the jab of his hand through his hair. “They need us, whether they know it or not.”

  Dain stayed silent, stared hard, boring deep to take in all the things King couldn’t say. When he nodded, King felt the tension seizing his muscles finally relax. I’ve got your back, that nod said. Not that he’d expected anything less. His team always had his back.

  Now they had to convince Charlotte they had hers.

  “I expect a full debrief later,” Dain said. “For now”—he jerked his chin toward the interior of the house—“introduce me.”

  He led Dain into the sitting room just as Kim Alexander entered at the opposite end with Becky. Fatigue shone from the girl’s eyes, but those same eyes lit up when they landed on Charlotte. With a muffled sob that hurt his heart, she hurried across the room to Charlotte’s open arms.

  “I got help,” he heard Charlotte say, her words muffled by tears and Becky’s hair in her face. “I’m just sorry it took so long.”

  Becky shook her head against Charlotte’s shoulder. King didn’t miss her wince of pain. “He hurt you,” Becky said. “It’s my fault.”

  Charlotte drew back, taking Becky’s face gently in her hands. “None of this is your fault. None of it, do you hear me? Richard made his choices.” She stroked a thumb along the girl’s cheek. “You understand that, don’t you? It isn’t your fault, yours or the baby’s.”

  As Becky curled up beside Charlotte on the couch, King moved farther into the room. Ben’s gaze fixed on him. He had to admit, he hadn’t expected the man to like him after the choices he’d made, choices that had hurt Ben’s daughter, but it wasn’t dislike he saw when he looked into Ben Alexander’s eyes. It was hatred.

  King faced it head-on.

  “Benjamin Alexander, this is my team lead, Dain Brannan.”

  He watched as the two men shook hands, then introduced the rest of the room. When he got to the couch, he paused.

  Charlotte extended her hand, the one wrapped in an ace bandage, leaving the other around Becky’s shoulders. “Forgive me for not standing, Mr. Brannan. Better to sit than fall down.” Her smile was strained. “I was in a car accident last night.”

  “A car accident Richard Jones, Becky’s father, caused,” King explained. “We’ve contacted the local police with evidence found at the man’s home, but Jones is nowhere to be found right now.”

  Dain grunted, accepting the information as his narrowed gaze took in the bruises along the side of Charlotte’s face, the deep purple slash across her collarbone where the seat belt had held her in place. King couldn’t look at the marks without his gut doing a slow, ominous churn.

  “I’m sorry to hear about the accident, ma’am,” Dain said, turning his palm to allow Charlotte’s hand to rest atop his without pressure. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances.”

  “Thank you.” Charlotte pulled her arm from Becky’s shoulders to reach for the girl’s hand. “This is Becky Jones. She’s my client at the organization I run, Creating Families. And she’s my friend.”

  Becky’s eyes glanced off Dain, and King couldn’t blame her. The towering, muscular guy sporting a Mohawk was intimidating on the best of days. Dain proved how astute he was when he moved to sit catty-corner to Becky, getting on her level. A smile completely transformed his chiseled face.

  He nodded toward the swell of Becky’s stomach beneath the thin T-shirt she wore. “My wife is due in just a couple of months with our first. When are you due, Becky?”

  The girl glanced at Charlotte, her hands coming up to caress where her baby lay. Charlotte gave her an encouraging smile.

  “Three weeks, the doctor says.” She gestured toward Charlotte. “Creating Families is…” A vee creased the area between her brows. “They were helping me adopt her to a good family.”

  “I’ll help you no matter what, Becky,” Charlotte assured her.

  Dain leaned forward, his elbows coming to rest on his knees. “May I ask what happened? Did you decide not to adopt? To keep your baby?”

  A tear spilled down Becky’s cheek. King tensed, wishing he could get his hands on the girl’s bastard father and strangle him.

  “No.” Becky swiped at her wet cheek. Her mouth twisted. “She needs a good home, away from him—my dad. But…a couple days ago he came home with a stack of money. Said I had to call Charlotte and tell her we weren’t going to give the baby up. I told him no.” Her hand came up to press against the bruise on her cheek. “He said I’d call or he’d make sure no one got my baby. Including me.” She met Dain’s eyes, her own spilling over. “Charlotte loves my baby; she loves me.”

  As the tears started to flow harder, Dain reached carefully for Becky’s hand. She latched on tight, the contact seeming to steady her.

  “Do you know where the money came from?” Dain asked.

  Becky shook her head. “No. Just that there would be more when we gave them the baby.” Becky’s gaze latched on to Charlotte’s. “How could he sell my baby? He said it wasn’t any different from what we were doing, but it was. It was!”

  As Charlotte cuddled the girl close, Dain’s gaze met King’s. They both knew what the money meant: black market baby selling. People like that had no conscience and zero hesitation about killing to get what they’d paid for.

  King cleared his throat, waiting until Becky lifted her head. “Sweetheart, we need you to tell everyone what happened yesterday, okay?”

  The girl’s tear-reddened face twisted with fear.

  “It’s all right, Becky,” Charlotte murmured, holding her tight to her side. King could see the strain on Charlotte’s face, the gray cast to her complexion—she was in pain, but she didn’t let go of Becky. “We’re going to keep you safe, I promise. Dain needs to know what happened so he can help us do that.”

  Becky bit her lip, then nodded. With a deep breath, she said, “Charlotte came to see me, to make sure I was all right.”

  “Richard threatened me,” Charlotte added. “I wanted to take Becky with me, but…” She brushed the hair back from Becky’s forehead. “I was coming back; I just needed help. I didn’t want to leave you there.”

  “I know.” Twin tears tracked down Becky’s cheeks again. She cleared her throat, glanced toward Dain. “After Charlotte left, he kept yelling, arguing with me like I had asked her to come. I didn’t, I promise! I wouldn’t put her in danger.

  “I heard him on the phone, saying something about Charlotte, about getting rid of her. He was getting more and more angry. Drinking too. Then he left.” She worried her lip between her teeth. “I figured he’d find a bar, so I hid in the closet like I normally do. But he wasn’t gone long enough. A couple of hours maybe.”

  King’s gut clenched at the mental image of Becky, eight months pregnant, folded into a tiny trailer closet to hide from her drunk, abusive father. The looks on Dain’s and Saint’s faces told him they felt the same.

  “He banged around for a while, but I didn’t want to see what he was doing. Didn’t want him to see me. When I came out this morning…everything was gone. His stuff. The bike and money. The truck. Everything.”

  The bastard had left his daughter with nothing. With no protection. At that moment King could’ve killed the man with his bare hands.

  “You don’t have to worry abo
ut him anymore,” Charlotte said. “You’re safe here, with me.”

  Except that wasn’t totally true.

  “Here’s the problem,” King said. He rounded the furniture until he was looking straight at Dain, not wanting to see the blow he was about to deliver to Charlotte’s already fragile state. “If Richard took what these people gave him and ran before he delivered what he owed in return…”

  Dain’s jaw went tight. “They are still expecting a baby.”

  A muffled sound of rage left Charlotte, her arm tightening along Becky’s shoulders. “We can’t give them Becky’s baby!”

  “No, we can’t,” Dain assured her. “We also don’t have Richard to hand over the money he took. And…” He glanced from King to Saint. “If Becky did in fact overhear Richard talking to these people, they know who you are, Charlotte. They’ll come after you.”

  “Because they want what they paid for.” King’s words felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each as they left his mouth. “And the best way to get it back, to get to Becky, is through you.”

  “So what do we do?” Charlotte asked. Her voice shook the slightest bit, but she didn’t back down. A trickle of pride that he shouldn’t feel pulled at him.

  Dain’s brown eyes were nearly black with worry. “Their timeline is tight,” he said, glancing toward Becky’s stomach. “I’m assuming you want her here.”

  Charlotte tightened her grip on Becky’s hand again. “I wouldn’t have her anywhere else.”

  Dain nodded.

  “We’ll keep you both safe,” King said, looking down at the black and blondish-brown heads resting against each other. He felt more than saw Ben going stiff at the assumption that King would be allowed to help, and chose to ignore it. Dain could fight that battle if and when the time came. Now was all that mattered.

  The sudden slump of Charlotte’s shoulders told him exactly how tired she was. She didn’t look at him, more tilted her head in his general direction. “How?”

  Dain leaned forward and laid his hand on hers where it covered Becky’s. “Leave that to us.”