Which made Helena believe it.
And so, the elder woman left, shoving her way through the reporters flanking the door. As she had done once before, Helena waited with bated breath, every so often glancing at the TV to cast the re-running interview of her mother a disgusted look. Janette Freeman simply refused to lose.
While she might look different, Helena knew better. Nothing about her mother had really changed. The fact that she was here in California proved that.
When her cell phone rang, Helena jumped. She was almost scared to see who was calling. When she glanced at the caller ID, however, she was relieved to see that it was Susan. The doctor immediately inquired as to how she was doing and insisted that neither she, nor Miranda, nor anyone in the office believed any of the horrible things they were saying about Xavier. Helena barely managed to keep from bursting into grateful tears and when Susan offered to bring over another bottle of prenatal vitamins for Brandy, along with some formula for Isaiah, she gratefully accepted.
After nursing, Isaiah slept once more. He was exhausted, Helena reasoned, from all of that crying – and so was she for that matter. She was so on edge, however, that she didn’t think she’d be able to close her eyes.
So, instead, she put Isaiah into his pen and paced, back and forth, down the length of the foyer.
What on earth had Xavier done? After all the preparation they’d gone through, he wouldn’t have done anything callous…which meant that he’d no doubt been set up. The thought made the young woman frown deeply. She didn’t know how much more of this they could take. It seemed like they were constantly on edge – trying to keep ahead of those bound and determined to see their dream shattered.
It was perhaps a half hour before the doorbell rang again, and Helena rushed over to the door to open it. However, she was greeted by neither Brandy nor Susan, but instead tens of flashing cameras and two severe-looking, middle-aged women clad in suits.
The shutters continued clicking as Helena stared at the both of them, confused. “Excuse me, can I help you?”
“Yes, Ms. Graves.” The taller woman, auburn-haired and gray-eyed, handed her a card. “My name is Samantha Perkins and this is my colleague Amanda Wilson. We’re representatives for the California Department of Family and Child Services. We’ve come to speak to you about your son.”
Helena continued to stare, even as a cruelly excited murmur raced through the crowd of reporters.
They said they were there to speak about…her son? Helena knew the Department of Family and Child Services through her many experiences with them in New York. No matter how many times they came to her mother’s house while she was being abused, Janette had always somehow managed to wiggle her way out of giving up her daughter.
And now, in California, they’d come for her son.
Wordlessly, Helena began to back away, shaking her head in denial. She couldn’t have heard right. This wasn’t happening.
She wouldn’t let it happen.
“Helena!” Brandy’s voice rang through the crowd and Helena looked around wildly to see the blonde forcing her way through the crowds with Xavier in tow. The dark-haired man somehow managed to look exhausted and infuriated at the same time. “You don’t have to speak with them!” Now Xavier took the lead, creating a path for his more diminutive sister.
“Step aside!” He bellowed loudly. “I said step aside.” Brandy reached Helena’s side in moments, standing, red-faced, in front of her companion.
“I’m her lawyer, and unless you have papers stating that you can take the child into custody you have no business on this property. You’re trespassing.”
There was a loud sound of disapproval from the crowd.
“Take the baby!”
“She’s an unfit mother!”
“She’s a criminal like him!”
Before the DFCS employees could even reply, a reporter reached forward to shove Brandy harshly out of the way. She slammed into one of the pillars on the front walk and slid down, obviously dazed.
Helena was snapped from her horrified trance. “Brandy!” She shouted, shocked at the violence of the crowd. “Brandy, are you alright!”
“Step back!” By this time, Xavier was in full protector mode. “Step back right now! Don’t come near my family!” His words only seemed to be encouraging the reporters’ unruly behavior as the crowd continued to push in on them.
This was a nightmare. A nightmare that Helena couldn’t wake up from. She tried to reach Brandy, but Xavier prevented her from doing so in his attempts to keep the throng away from both her and his sister. Jesus, where were the cops? Where was the law when you needed it on your side?
“Out of the way!” A loud, feminine voice cut suddenly through the din. “You are impeding an officer in his duties!” Helena’s gaze jerked to the source of the addressal, hidden by a crush of people. The demand was repeated twice more before the crowd finally parted, revealing a very angry Susan accompanied by a young man in uniform that Helena had never seen before. The cop’s severe expression was enough to cow the reporters away from the front veranda of the house so that Susan could rush forward, her face flushed. When she reached Brandy, she knelt to check on the blonde woman, touching her face and neck gently before turning back to the crowd, livid.
“What kind of animals are you? This woman is pregnant! See what you’ve done!” She lowered her voice slightly, taking Brandy’s arm. “Riley, help me with her.” The Officer immediately rushed forward to lift Brandy into his arms and help Susan get her inside. Xavier quickly ushered Helena in behind them before closing and locking the door firmly behind him.
In the middle of the foyer, Helena collapsed to her knees, shaking, as the policeman with Susan lay Brandy’s dazed form on the couch for the Doctor to check over.
Dear God, she needed to breathe.
She just needed to breathe.
Chapter Seven: Refusing Goodbye
They lie together, and held each other.
Xavier inhaled the scent of his lover’s hair deeply, listened to the sound of his son’s gentle breathing from his crib beside the bed and tried to tell himself that they would get through this.
For the second time in two months, he had been hauled down to the jail like an animal and caged. While he had stewed, alone, knowing the consequences of his actions, he wished he could punch Daniel again and again, until his face was a messy pulp. Why the hell had he done all of this? Xavier had never been anything but kind to him…and he was doing everything in his power to destroy him and everyone he loved.
Brandy would be alright. She had only a minor concussion, but who was to say things wouldn’t have been worse if Susan hadn’t arrived when she had? The Doctor’s nephew was a cop in another California district and they were lucky he was visiting, otherwise Susan might never have gotten to them. She opted to stay overnight, as support for both Brandy and Helena. The blonde’s baby, the doctor promised both them and the mother herself, was still perfectly fine. Not that that made her any less angry at the crazed mob camped out on their lawn.
As many times as he’d tuned into the news over his life, Xavier had never considered reporters cruel and unfeeling. Not until now.
They were all but terrorizing his family – and all because of Daniel and his machinations. Xavier only wished he could understand all of this.
How could a man who he had worked so closely with hate him so much?
Though Helena was still against him, Xavier knew she wasn’t asleep. She was far too worried. Officials from the Department of Family and Child Services had come to speak to them about their son. Xavier supposed that he couldn’t blame them. With all the misinformation the media was spouting, of course they would have to look into the case. However, if he went to jail…if somehow, Daniel planted some other false evidence and got the baby taken from Helena as he’d promised…Xavier wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
It was obvious that Helena was extremely upset that someone from DFCS had even approached their
house. She’d told him no less than ten times before they’d fallen into bed that she would never let them take her son. Never. In her eyes, he’d seen years of pain and suffering at her mother’s hands reflected back at him.
And Janette Freeman was another issue in and of herself. Of course, as soon as she’d been freed on parole she’d come to California in an attempt to manipulate her daughter once again; and she couldn’t have arrived at a better time. It was easy for her to exploit the story-hungry media and weave a sob-story that people ate up.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
It was hard, realizing he’d failed. He’d promised to protect his family, and now, it was broken. The Government wanted to take his child, Daniel wanted to take the company he’d put his blood sweat and tears into, and his sister had been hurt for the umpteenth time trying to help him. And all for what?
For a case they couldn’t possibly win?
Even though Horace might have some evidence that the money transfer from his account hadn’t been done lawfully, who was to say that Daniel wouldn’t find a way to refute it? He’d thought of everything else already, that was true enough. He seemed to pre-empt their every plan. Unless Xavier signed his company over, he would lose everything. If he signed his company over, he would still lose everything.
The trial date had been set for a date one week in the future, and he couldn’t stand to see the people he loved hurt any longer.
It was with a heavy heart that Xavier finally spoke. “Helena.” He murmured the dark-skinned woman’s name softly. She raised her head and the gray gaze that met his tore at his heart strings. “Helena, listen to me.” He clutched her desperately close. “I have some money hidden in the house. Fifty thousand dollars cash.” Xavier took a deep breath. “I want you to take the money, Brandy and Isaiah, and leave.”
Helena’s eyes widened in shock as she stiffened against him. “Leave? Where would we go?”
“Anywhere outside the states. Far away from here.”
For a moment, Helena just stared at him before she began to shake her head slowly. “No, Xavier. I can’t do that.”
“Shh.” He covered her lips with a gentle hand, willing her to hear the desperation in his voice. “Helena, I’ve told you what’s happened. What Daniel said he’d do to you and the baby if you stay…” Indeed, everyone had been shocked when he’d revealed that the accountant had been behind the hostile takeover of his company. When they’d worked together, Xavier had spoken so highly of him, especially to Helena, and he could see her heart break as he revealed the information.
One of the people they’d most trusted had exploited them – and wouldn’t stop until they were completely finished.
So the only option he had left to protect those he loved was to send them beyond Daniel – and XTech’s reach. “I can’t stand the thought of knowing that he could hurt you or Brandy. I just…please.” It was the closest Xavier had ever come to shedding tears in front of the woman he loved. “Do this for me.”
Helena searched his gleaming eyes with her own before reaching up to cup his cheek tenderly. She was gorgeous. Just as gorgeous as she had been the first time he’d bumped into her at the Antioch University library. He would just have to hold her in his mind just like this.
“I’m not leaving you.” She whispered softly. Before he could protest, she had pressed her soft, sweet mouth to his.
A low groan escaped him as he pressed his body flush against hers. Christ, this might be the last time they were intimate – the last time he was able to touch her like this for God knew how many years. “I am never,” Helena pecked his nose, “never,” and then his forehead, “ever leaving you.”
Xavier’s fingers slid through her hair, loosening it from its ponytail before he kissed her desperately, drinking in the taste of her. Blindly, he reached for the hem of the sweater she wore, peeling it up and over her torso to drop onto the floor. Her skin was so soft…so warm.
This was where he belonged.
Xavier’s mouth blazed a hot trail over her neck to dip his tongue into the indent of her throat. Helena moaned softly, her voice hoarse from crying. Xavier knew that his short-sightedness had caused that pain, and vowed to do all that he could to soothe it. He took her full breasts in his hands, his palms rubbing her nipples into taut awareness against his skin as she arched against him. They weren’t close enough. They could never be close enough.
His mouth found hers again as he memorized the soft pliability of her lips. Every time he tasted her, she was fresh and new and perfect. The mother of his child. The woman he loved heart and soul. Helena sighed softly, her breath mingling with his as he stripped her of her bra.
Her pregnancy had changed her breasts. They were soft and heavy – ripe with milk. Lowering his lips, he tugged one into his mouth to suckle lightly, moaning at the gush of sweetness against his tongue.
In that moment, he envied his son.
Helena squirmed beneath him, her hands reaching frantically for the buttons on his shirt. In her haste to undo them, she popped several, sending them pinging softly off into the darkness. Her fingers roved his suddenly bare chest and her lips followed suit, stoking fire wherever she touched. Xavier bit back a groan as he reveled in the slow burn of his ever heightening desire. He whispered his love into her ear as he undid the drawstrings of her sweatpants before shimmying them down her long legs.
Helena had recently been self-conscious about the softness of her body post-pregnancy, but Xavier wanted to savor it. He nipped at the curves of her stomach and trailed his tongue down to tease at her belly button and make her whimper. He kneaded at her waist, her sides and her hips as he playfully bit up and down the expanse of her inner thighs.
Helena thrashed beneath him, her fingers threading through his hair as she begged him silently to sate her. Raising his head, Xavier brushed his lips over the healing scar through which she had birthed their son before his mouth found the most sensitive parts of her.
His lover arched on a wordless cry as his tongue flicked over the moist seam of her entrance. God, she was just as hot, just as decadent as he remembered. His tongue danced along her heated folds before pressing deep inside her, drawing a soft cry from Helena’s throat.
Sliding two fingers gently into her to replace his tongue, Xavier wrapped his lips around the sensitive bundle of nerve endings above her entrance, plying it slowly as Helena began to tremble, tossing her head back and forth.
She was so intoxicating…so goddamn addicting…and he would remember her like this. Just like this.
She didn’t last long. Once he began suckling on her tender little clit, Helena came quickly. Gasping his name, she shuddered as her climax rolled over her in slow waves.
Xavier didn’t remove his mouth from her until she had gone completely limp. Licking his fingers, he kissed his way back up the sweat-sheened length of her body before finding her lips once more. Helena kissed him slowly, leisurely, before a soft laugh escaped her.
“What?” He inquired lowly, against her mouth, pressing the substantial ridge of his still-clothed erection against her lower folds.
“I still don’t think it’s fair that you’re so good at that.”
Xavier chuckled, nipping at her lower lip as he reached for the fastening of his slacks. “As I always say, you tend to inspire a man.”
Helena’s smile was soft and sad as she wrapped her arms around him, kissing his neck sensually. “I assure you, Xav, the feeling is mutual.”
It took him the longest thirty seconds of his life to wiggle his way out of his pants and underwear before the rigid length of him slid against her ripe, moist femininity. Helena shuddered at his hardness, tilting her hips at exactly the right angle to take him deep inside. Xavier inhaled sharply as she squeezed him exquisitely tight. He had always fit so deliciously inside her that he was tempted to lose himself.
The only thing that kept him from doing so was wanting to hear his name on her lips.
Xavier thrust deep, dra
wing a gasp from his lover. When her grip only tightened on him, he knew he hadn’t hurt her, and repeated the action, building up a slow, steady rhythm. She felt so mind-numbing, so right that he moaned her name against her neck, kissing it tenderly as he made love to her.
She came once, quickly, but once was never enough. Xavier curled his hands into the divine curve of her behind and continued to move into her until she was gasping, begging him to stay inside her for as long as they existed. Brushing hair from her forehead, Xavier watched her, memorizing every detail of her expression as she undulated in pleasure. When she came again, this time clamping down like a vice upon him, Xavier let himself go, his hips jerking against hers as he found his own completion.
For a long while afterward, they lie intertwined, their breaths mingling. Though Xavier knew he must be heavy, Helena didn’t ask him to move. He lay his forehead against hers, willing the moment to last forever.
It was broken, however, when Isaiah began to fuss softly. He’d been asleep almost six hours and was almost certainly hungry.
Far be it from Xavier to deny his son a meal.
Reluctantly, he rose from his lover, a soft sound of regret escaping him as he slid from her warmth. Helena kissed him indulgently, yet briefly, before slipping from the bed to retrieve Isaiah from his crib.
She shushed him, cradling him in her arms before offering him her breast, which he latched onto almost immediately, staring up at his mother in wide-eyed wonder.
The image was burned into Xavier’s mind.
He watched, wordless, for several minutes before rising to pull on his robe and stride down the hall to his study, retrieving something he’d hidden in the bookcase. By the time he returned, Helena had settled back in bed, the sheets around her waist, as she fed her son with a serene expression.
Not wanting to disturb them, Xavier slid onto the mattress beside Helena, transfixed by her expression. Slowly, he pulled the red velvet box from the pocket of his robe and held it up before her line of vision. “Helena.” Her name escaped him softly, drawing her attention. At the sight of the box, the young woman’s eyes widened. Before she could say anything, Xavier opened it, revealing the glistening gem inside. “I’d planned on giving you this before…but I never got a chance to. Now, I want to ask, just in case…” He took a deep breath. “Will you be my wife?”
A Kiss of Color: A BWWM Interracial Romance (Book 3) Page 10
