“Did you really think that I was going to stay where I was so that I had to deal with my brothers and cousins dropping in at all hours of the night to interrogate me?” she shot back.
“I wouldn’t say that it was at all hours of the night,” Trevor murmured thoughtfully as she turned her glare on the large bastard that had made it a habit of showing up at her place at two in the morning to raid her fridge and bug the shit out of her.
“You shoved me in a closet and left me there so that you could finish watching the game,” she snapped.
Shrugging it off, Trevor said, “You wouldn’t answer my questions.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Kenzie said, trying to yank her hands free but the damn rope wouldn’t budge.
“You do when you get married and don’t tell any of us about it,” Garrett said, drawing her attention back in time to watch as he got up and headed over to the Christmas tree to help Danny’s baby girl grab a candy cane off the tree.
“Don’t worry,” Jason said, reaching over to shove another bite of brownie in her mouth, “we still love you.”
“Are you going to untie me?” Kenzie demanded, narrowing her eyes on the bastard that looked really pleased with himself.
“Not a chance in hell,” Jason said, finishing off the rest of the brownie as he got up and headed towards the kitchen.
That left…
“This is for your own good,” Trevor said, getting up with a sigh and left her sitting there, struggling to break free and-
“Mikey!” she said, sighing with relief when she spotted her brother’s stepdaughter coming down the stairs.
“Can’t,” Mikey said with a sad shake of her before Kenzie could say anything else.
“What do you mean you can’t? Untie me,” Kenzie said, watching as the small girl that had her brother wrapped around her little finger gave a helpless shrug as she rolled a baseball between her hands.
“Well, I would, but that man,” Mikey said, pausing mid-roll of her ball so that she could point at Reese, who was trying to pull his wife under the mistletoe so that he could steal a kiss, “told me that if I let you go that he would beat me senseless.”
Rolling her eyes, Kenzie said, “He’s not going to beat you.”
“True,” Mikey murmured, pursing her lips up thoughtfully as she added, “but he also won’t give me the twenty bucks that he’d promised me if I made sure that no one untied you.”
Narrowing her eyes on her niece, Kenzie said, “I’ll give you forty.”
“And so will Uncle Jared,” Mikey said, gesturing to her uncle who was currently glaring at his grandson as Cole made a show of finishing off what appeared to be the last cupcake.
“Fifty,” Kenzie bit out.
“Uncle Lucifer already offered that,” Mikey said, nodding towards Kenzie’s brother who was busy rearranging the ornaments on the Christmas tree.
“Fine. What do you want?” Kenzie asked, more than willing to do whatever it took to get out of here before-
“Play catch with me,” Mikey said with a huge smile while Kenzie sat there, unable to look away from the baseball in Mikey’s hands before shifting her attention back to Reese and that scar above his eye that he got the first time that he played catch with Mikey and-
“No, I’m good where I am,” Kenzie said, nodding because she really didn’t feel like spending the night in the hospital.
“Are you sure?” Mikey asked, looking really freaking hopeful.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Kenzie said, licking her lips nervously as she did her best not to wince as she glanced at her brother Darrin and spotted the scar on his temple that he got from Mikey’s curve ball.
“But-” Mikey started to say only to sigh when Sebastian, who’d been hiding in the corner with a book for the past hour, walked over and grabbed Mikey’s hand, pulling her away with a sad shake of his head and a muttered, “She’d never survive your hardball,” that had Mikey pouting as she allowed her best friend to drag her away.
Relieved, Kenzie shifted her attention to her Uncle Shane and Aunt Caylee to find them smiling as they watched their son Devin, who couldn’t seem to stop glaring at the woman that he’d been going out of his way to avoid since they arrived a few hours ago. She really didn’t understand the men in her family sometimes, Kenzie thought as she looked away from Charlie, who was reading to the twins to glance back at her cousin and-
Found herself wondering why the bastard that ruined her life was here.
“I was hoping that I’d find you here,” Roger said, sighing heavily as he sat down next to her.
“Did you sign the divorce papers?” Kenzie asked, because that was the only thing she cared about.
“We’re not getting a divorce,” he said, shaking his head absently as he took in every Bradford in the room who had stopped what they were doing to glare at him.
“Yes, we are,” she bit out, because there was no way in hell that she was going to waste one more year of her life on the man that had nearly destroyed her.
Nodding, Roger absently began to toy with something on his left hand, drawing her attention and-
She felt her stomach drop when she spotted the black wedding band that she’d given him on their wedding day back on his finger. For several minutes, all she could do was sit there, watching as he slowly turned the ring around his finger, something that she used to find endearing. Now all it did was turn her stomach.
Once upon a time, they’d been happy. Truly, unbelievably happy, but that was another lifetime where everything was perfect, she was young, in love, and married to the man of her dreams with a baby on the way. They’d never planned on starting a family that soon, but when she found out that she was pregnant, oh, god, she’d never seen Roger happier. He’d just glowed. There was no other way to describe it.
He wanted to quit medical school and go work for her Uncle Jared, but she wouldn’t let him. He’d worked too hard to get where he was, so they’d compromised. They were going to finally break the news to her family that they were married and move back to Massachusetts so that she wasn’t alone when Roger was stuck in class or work, but…
Life didn’t work out that way.
She still didn’t remember the accident, but that probably was for the best. But she would never forget the look on his face when the doctor told him that she’d lost the baby. He’d shut down on her while her grief had swallowed her whole.
When her family came to get her from the hospital, Roger hadn’t said a word. He’d simply stood there, looking out the window while her father thanked him for looking after her, while she’d laid there, silently pleading with him to say something.
But he didn’t say anything.
Not when they helped her into the wheelchair that was going to take her away and not when she’d said his name. He just stood there. As they rolled her out of the hospital, she’d told herself that he just needed time, just needed to figure this out and that everything was going to be okay, but it wasn’t.
Nothing was okay after that.
She had so many chances to tell her family about the baby and every time that she tried, her grief would swallow her whole. As far as her family knew, she was just depressed because the accident had forced her to drop out of school. They’d told her that everything was going to be okay, but she knew that it wouldn’t.
For the first few months, she’d waited for him, waited for him to come for her, call her, something, but he never did. While he’d buried himself in his studies, switching from plastic surgery to pediatrics and OBGYN, determined to make sure that this never happened to another parent, she’d been mourning the loss of their child alone.
She’d never had the chance to hold Brandon, never got a chance to tell him that she loved him, and she never had the chance to say goodbye and that…
She was never going to be able to get over that.
Forcing herself to go on without her baby or Roger by her side was the hardest thing that she ever had to do. She never
wanted to go through that much pain again and she sure as hell didn’t want to be reminded of it and that’s what he did. Every time she saw him, Kenzie remembered just how much it hurt to lose him and she couldn’t go through it.
Not again.
“Sign the papers,” she said hollowly, forcing herself to look away.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?” Kenzie snapped, wondering why he wouldn’t just let her go.
“I came to tell you something,” he said, turning his head to look at her.
“What’s that?” she asked, wondering when this nightmare would end.
“I’m done waiting.”
Chapter 22
New Year’s Eve
“We want to go to the party, Daddy,”
“We really do,” Dustin said, nodding absently as he paused to select a crayon from the large box that Charlie had given him for Christmas.
“And I really want you to get in your pajamas,” Devin said as he plucked Abbi out of her chair and hung her over his shoulder.
“Why aren’t you going to the party, Daddy?” Abbi asked, sighing heavily as she began to draw shapes on his back with her finger.
“Because I would rather spend New Year’s Eve with you,” he said, wrapping his arm around Abbi’s legs as he reached over and helped Dustin put his crayons away.
As tempted as he was to go to the party tonight, it wasn’t a choice. If he went there would be nothing on this earth that would be able to stop him from pulling Charlie into his arms and that…that was a bad idea.
Christ, just being around her was a bad idea.
Over the past week, he’d kept his distance, hoping that it would be enough to stop him from doing something that he would regret and…
He loved her.
God, did he fucking love her, but the problem was that his children loved her too and he would never do anything to hurt them. Charlie was the closest thing that they’d ever had to a mother and he wasn’t about to do anything to take that away from them.
Nothing else mattered, not the fact that he wanted her, couldn’t fucking stop thinking about her, or that the idea of never being able to show her how much she meant to him was tearing him apart because his children came first.
“We’d rather go to the party,” Abbi said with a forlorn sigh, bringing him back to reality.
“You’re brutal,” Devin said, chuckling as he took Dustin’s hand in his.
“What do you think?” came the question that drew his attention to the woman that he had to remind himself was off limits at least a hundred times a day.
“You’re pretty,” Dustin said, making the woman that was so much more than pretty smile as Devin slowly ran his eyes over her, taking in the way that her blue eyes sparkled, the soft pink of her lips, the way that her curly hair teased her bare shoulders, her toenails painted white, and the soft white dress that took his breath away.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he found himself saying, unable to take his eyes off her.
She opened her mouth to say something only to frown when Abbi said, “I thought you were mad at Charlie, Daddy.”
“Why would you think I’m mad at Charlie, baby girl?” Devin asked, frowning as he pulled Abbi off his shoulder and placed her on the table even as he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d noticed that he’d been avoiding Charlie over the past week.
“Because you’re always yelling her name, Daddy,” Dustin said, shrugging it off as Devin shared a confused look with the woman in question.
“What are you talking about, sweetie?” Charlie asked as she absently reached over and ran her fingers through Dustin’s messy hair.
“He growls you name,” Abbi said, nodding.
“A lot,” Dustin added with a matching nod.
“When?” Devin asked, wondering what they were talking about since he’d never raised his voice around his children only to feel his stomach drop seconds later.
“When you’re in the shower, Daddy. You yell Charlie’s name,” Dustin said with a shrug.
Oh, god…
“He sounds mad.”
“He really does.”
“He does it almost every night,” Abbi said as Devin stood there as a burning sensation crawled up his neck and he found Charlie staring at him and-
“He’s been doing it for a long time,” Dustin said as he selected another crayon.
“For a very loooooooong time,” Abbi said, only to open her mouth to say something else when Charlie reached over and placed her hand over his baby’s girls mouth with a, “Why don’t you guys show me what movie you picked out for tonight?” and a forced smile that had his stomach turning.
“That’s a good idea,” Devin murmured weakly, clearing his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck, unable to look Charlie in the eye as he glanced around the room, looking for something to do only to mumble an excuse and head back into the kitchen before they could say something else to make this worse.
“Fuck!” he bit out as he slammed the kitchen door shut behind him before he grabbed hold of the kitchen counter and released a humorless chuckle because this was beyond fucking perfect.
He’d been doing everything that he could think of to make sure that she didn’t know how badly he wanted her and now, because he didn’t add extra insulation to his bathroom walls when he bought the place, she knew just how fucking pathetic he really was.
“Are you going to the party?” came the softly spoken words that let him know that his humiliation wasn’t over yet.
“No,” Devin said evenly as his grip tightened around the counter.
There was a pause and then…
“Are you ever going to look at me again?”
“No,” he said, wondering how this night could possibly get any worse when her next words fucking destroyed him.
“How long?” Charlie asked after a slight hesitation.
“Five years,” Devin said, deciding that there was no point in pretending anymore.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” she asked, sounding hurt.
“Tell you what?” Devin demanded as his grip tightened around the counter to the point of pain. “What was I supposed to tell you? That I can’t stop thinking about you? That I’ve wanted you from the moment that I saw you? That I’m so fucking in love with you that it’s killing me? That it doesn’t matter because I can’t risk breaking my children’s hearts if this doesn’t work out? Is that what you wanted to hear?”
For a moment, she didn’t say anything and then…
“You really don’t know me if you think that I would ever do anything to hurt Dustin or Abbi. I love them and no matter what happens between you and me, that will never change,” she bit out evenly.
“I can’t risk it,” he said, feeling sick to his stomach as he forced the words out.
“And that’s why you’ve been avoiding me all week,” she said, sighing heavily.
“Yes,” he said, praying that she would just leave before he lost his fucking mind.
“I see,” she murmured, sounding thoughtful before adding, “I’m not playing this game with you, Devin.”
“It’s not a game,” he bit out angrily.
“What would you call it?”
“Keeping my promise,” he said evenly, wishing like hell that there was another way but he couldn’t risk it.
He couldn’t fucking risk it, Devin reminded himself as he squeezed his eyes shut and-
“Even if it means breaking my heart?” came the softly spoken words that had him opening his eyes and glancing over his shoulder in time to watch her walk away.
Chapter 23
“I’m having a great time, how about you?” Ben asked dryly as he dropped down in the booth across from her with a heavy sigh.
“The best,” Charlie said, matching his sigh with one of her own as she sat there, trying to figure out what she was doing here.
“Move in with me,” he said, making her frown as she glanced away from the dance floor filled to capa
city with Bradford Creation employees, their dates, venders, and local customers that looked forward to this party all year and-
“Hey!” Ben snapped when she was forced to take his drink away, because clearly, he’d already had too much to drink if he thought that she was going to move in with him.
“You’re cut off,” Charlie said as she handed the bottle of beer to a passing waitress.
“I was still drinking that,” he grumbled as he watched the waitress walk away while Charlie sat there wondering if she should arrange for an intervention.
“And you’ve clearly had enough if you think I’m going to willingly move in with you again after what you put me through in college,” she said with a pitying shake of her head as she watched his eyes narrow dangerously on her.
“I thought we’d agreed never to speak of that,” he bit out.
“Then don’t ask me to move in with you knowing how it will end,” Charlie said, reaching for her drink only to have Ben get to it first.
“We were kids,” he pointed out.
“And we were both Googling the asking price for hitmen,” she reminded him, thankful for the distraction from her rather depressing thoughts.
“You want to talk about it?” Ben asked, sending her another one of those concerned looks that he’d been sending her since he picked her up a few hours ago.
“Not even a little bit,” she said, shaking her head as she found herself glancing at the clock above the bar, wishing that midnight would hurry up so that they could leave.
“Fair enough,” Ben said, finishing off her drink before he stood up and held his hand out. “Come dance with me.”
“I would rather wallow in self-pity,” Charlie said, only to groan when he reached over and took her hand, giving her no other choice but to leave the sanctuary of her booth.
“How about this?” he said, leading her towards the bar. “I’ll grab our coats while you pay off our tab and we’ll get the hell out of here, grab a shitload of alcohol and head back to my place where we’ll get drunk, pass out on the floor, and wake up in the morning ninety percent sure that we’re dying while we try to figure out whose asinine idea it was to drink in the first place.”
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