I shook my head. “I was. For about a minute.” We both grinned, and I stood on my toes to brush my lips across his. “We both know I can’t stay mad at you for more than a minute.”
“Emmie will have security toss their asses out if you want.”
“No. Ariana is queen of scenes and I don’t want to give her the chance to make one. So, like I said, ignore them.” I glanced at Emmie over Shane’s shoulder. When she raised a brow at me, her cell glued to her ear, I shook my head. She shrugged, as if saying it was my party.
“Okay!” Dallas had the microphone now, having relieved the wedding planner of it to make her speech. I turned to face her and Shane wrapped his arms around my waist, his lips brushing over the top of my head. “Well, if you don’t know me then you don’t know Harper. She’s been my best friend since we were both teenagers. We bonded over similar yet at the same time different mommy issues and the shared hatred for Ariana Calloway—who is here by the way! Evil bitch, really, but that’s another story. Today we’re going to talk about Harper and only Harper.”
Dallas turned the full force of her smile on me and I felt my heart lift with the love shining back at me in those blue depths. Dallas was my sister, not just my best friend. “Harper came into my life when I felt like I had no one. No one should ever feel that alone, but I didn’t know that until the day I met the gaze of a violet-eyed beauty. She is the most loving, giving, forgiving, and beautiful inside and out person I have ever had the good fortune to meet. I hope that Shane realizes what a treasure he has been handed today, and that he respects and cherishes it for the rest of his life… Because if he doesn’t I have a ball bat with his name engraved on it.” The room filled with laughter, most of them not suspecting that Dallas was completely serious.
I snickered, but lifted my champagne flute to my lips as Dallas finished her toast.
Chapter 8
Layla
That freaking cake was calling my very pregnant name!
I glared at the twelve-tiered thing, my mouth watering at just the sight. I had been with Harper and Emmie when they did taste tests for the perfect flavors. Some kind of lemon crème was what Harper had finally decided on for the entire thing. It shouldn’t have surprised me. If you walked into Shane and Harper’s house right now all you would smell was lemon. Candles, hand soap, dishwashing detergent. They were freaks for lemon.
And the two beasts in my stomach were wanting to dive into sweet dessert.
I rubbed a hand over my very distended stomach, silently begging them to behave. Beside me Jesse was people watching. Or rather, boy watching. One in particular. Harris Cutter was dancing with Lucy, who seemed a little star struck by the fourteen-year-old. I thought it was adorable. But Big Daddy wasn’t having the same thoughts as I was.
I nudged his arm with my elbow, trying to draw his attention to me and not the kids dancing less than fifteen feet away. “Hey.”
Jesse barely spared me a glance. “Yeah, baby?”
“He’s just dancing with her, Jess.”
“Who’s dancing with who?”
My eyes narrowed and I realized that maybe his eyes weren’t narrowed on Devlin’s son but only on Lucy. “What’s with you?”
He shook his head, then seemed to force his gaze from our daughter to me. “Sorry, was I spacing?”
“Big time. Is something wrong? You really haven’t been acting like yourself all day.” Actually he had been spacing on and off since the ceremony. I had put it down to concern after I had told him that Emmie was pregnant and initially hadn’t taken the news well.
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired. Couldn’t sleep worth shit last night without you beside me, baby.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek, but moments later his eyes were back on Lucy. His gaze was zeroed in on her for the next hour, following her every move as she went around the room talking with all the people that she knew, which was nearly everyone present.
While he watched Lucy I watched him. His jaw was tense, his skin on the pale side. My usual happy-go-lucky husband was scaring the fuck out of me. I wanted to grab hold of him and demand he tell me what the hell was going on.
“Did Lucy do something I should know about? Is she in trouble?” I finally demanded, knowing that if that were the case, Jesse would have already told me about it. Damn it, Lucy would have already told me about it. We were all open and honest in our little family. It was our house rule!
“No.”
Okay, now I was starting to get upset. “Then why can’t she take two steps without you nearly freaking out? Why the fuck did you just follow her to the bathroom!”
Lucy had been standing talking with Jenna, Harris, and Harper’s boss’s daughter. When the three girls had left the reception hall to use the bathroom Jesse had gone even tenser and followed after them. When they had returned he had come back and sat down beside me. I grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn his gaze from Lucy who was now dancing with Shane.
If I had been freaking out before, the sight of his eyes sent me over the edge. Those ever-changing dark eyes that I fell in love with before I had even guessed I loved the man, were the darkest I had ever seen them. Whatever was going on was bad. Really, really bad.
“You’d better start talking or I’m going to start screaming,” I told him as calmly as possible considering my heart was about to pound out of my chest.
Jesse swallowed hard, running his free hand over his shaved head. “I don’t want you to worry about this, okay? I’m going to handle it first thing in the morning. I swear to gods I’m going to fix this. Okay?”
“What needs fixed?”
“When I went home yesterday to water your plants and get the mail… There was a guy sitting in the driveway. He said he had been waiting for a few days. He wanted to talk to either me or you. It didn’t matter who…” Jesse blew out a frustrated breath, his gaze going back to Lucy almost unconsciously. “He served me with legal papers, Layla.”
“Legal papers? What for? Are we being sued or something?” I was even more confused but the sudden butterflies in my stomach had nothing to do with the twins and everything to do with a nameless fear.
Jesse shook his head. “Not for money. For custody. Lucy’s real father wants her.”
If I hadn’t been sitting down I was sure I would have fallen. All the blood drained from my head so suddenly that I felt faint and I clutched at his arm as I sucked in several deep breaths. Like his gaze, my eyes went straight for Lucy and became glued there. “I don’t even know who he is,” I whispered.
Adopting Lucy had been fairly easy. My mother hadn’t listed her father’s name. But the lawyer we had dealt with had warned us. Just because a father hadn’t been named didn’t mean the biological father didn’t have rights. If one should one day step forward he could nullify our adoption if he wanted to. I hadn’t even worried about it. The men my mother had surrounded herself with, the men who had fathered both Lana and myself were men who were not exactly happy playing daddy dearest. I assumed that whoever Lucy’s sperm donor was had left Lydia without a backwards glance just as Tommy and Cole had done.
“His name is Vince Grady.” His fingers wrapped around my shaking hand, entwining with mine. Lending me strength because I suddenly had absolutely none left. “That’s the name on the papers that douchebag gave me. I Googled his name… Two names came up within the state of California. Some average Joe with a receding hairline and a potbelly and… some guy who has a prison record for possession of crack and aggravated assault. He has Lucy’s eyes.”
When Jesse’s voice cracked on the last word I felt tears burning my eyes. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I had just been staring at the damn cake too long, that was all. I was suffering from low blood sugar or something. That was the only explanation for this nightmare I was suddenly in.
Nausea like I had never had in the beginning of my pregnancy rolling in my stomach and I struggled to stand. Jesse stood quickly and helped me to my feet. I practically ran out of the reception hall towar
d the closest bathroom. As soon as I opened the stall everything that I had dared to eat that day came up.
A sob racked my body and I had to grab onto the toilet seat before I fell to my knees. I wasn’t sure what hurt more, my stomach or my heart. Oh fuck! I couldn’t lose Lucy. I couldn’t! She was proof that there was still good in the world.
“Layla?” I didn’t even try to raise my head as Lana’s concerned voice drifted to me from the other side of the door. Another wave of nausea washed over me and I couldn’t help but cry out before I emptied the rest of the contents of my stomach.
“Is she okay?” Emmie’s voice was just as concerned as my sister’s was. “Jesse wasn’t making much sense.”
When there was nothing left to come up I straightened on shaking legs and slowly opened the door. I couldn’t stop the flow of tears as they rained down my face. I was scared—no I was fucking terrified! By blood, Lucy was just my half-sister. In my soul, she was as much my daughter as the babies I carried inside of me.
Lana stepped forward, grasping my cold, nerveless hands. “What’s wrong? Did you eat something that disagreed with the babies?”
I shook my head, panting as the nausea was suddenly replaced with a tightening in my stomach that was so painful I nearly fell to my knees for an entirely different reason. “Fu-ck!”
“It’s because you’re so upset.” Emmie put her arm around me, urging me to the little sofa against the wall. “Come and sit down. Take a few deep breaths.”
My hands clutched at my stomach as I tried to breathe through the cramp or contraction or whatever the hell it was. Apparently my babies didn’t like it when their momma was upset. It took nearly a full minute before the pain subsided and I breathed a sigh of relief as the pain faded. Lana was sitting on one side of me while Emmie sat on the other.
My sister leaned forward with a damp paper towel to wipe at my damp brow. “Now, let’s talk about what made you so upset.”
Fresh tears pooled in my eyes and I bit my lip to keep from sobbing. “Lucy’s…real dad?” They both nodded and I could actually feel their tension. “He wants…custody.”
“But you adopted her.” Lana looked as pale as I felt, her eyes nearly as wild as I suspected mine were. She had been the one to take care of Lucy from the day she was born until our mother had died and the girls had come to live with me. Lucy was ours. “She’s legally yours and Jesse’s. Right?”
I shook my head. “Technically yes. But the lawyer and even the judge told us that if Lucy’s real father ever showed up and could prove paternity then he had a viable case to take her. I never gave it another thought because all of Lydia’s other baby-daddies were such deadbeats that they didn’t want to be a part of our lives…”
“Who is he?” Lana asked. “There were so many men coming and going around that time I wasn’t sure who her father really was.”
“Vince Grady is the name on the papers Jesse was served yesterday.”
Lana flinched as if I had physically hit her and she shot unsteadily to her feet. Emmie moved quickly to steady her in case she were to fall, but Lana moved to the sink and clenched the edge of the tiled top. “Oh my god,” she whispered, her dark head bowed while her long black hair fell in her face.
“What?” I demanded, my voice rising without me really meaning to do so. If I was terrified before then there hadn’t even been a word invented yet to describe how scared I was now.
After a hesitation Lana finally turned to face me. “He’s violent, Layla. Mom didn’t keep him around long because he was too extreme even for her. Vince hit her all the time, and we moved not long after she broke up with him… I can remember asking her why and she said so we would be safe. A few months later a cop knocked on our door and said that he was going on trial and they needed Mom to testify. By that time she was about six months pregnant.”
“So he really could be Lucy’s father?”
“I can’t tell you for sure, Layla. I wish I could tell you that he is some playboy rock star like yours and mine. Or even one of her sugar daddies instead of her coke dealer. Only a paternity test can do that.”
Emmie was noticeably quiet beside me and I glanced over at her. She was typing something into her phone, her face expressionless. The only sign that she was as upset as both Lana and myself was the way her jaw was clenched. I knew that she loved Lucy as much as any of us. Because we’d had the same type of mother, Emmie saw the little girl she had once been in Lucy.
After a moment of tense silence, Emmie finally dropped her phone onto her lap. “The lawyer you used for the adoption will be at my house at eight in the morning. We’ll get this taken care of, Layla. Don’t worry about it. There isn’t a way in hell that you’re going to lose Lucy.”
If anyone could fix this for Jesse and me, it was Emmie. But for the first time since I had known my best friend, I wasn’t feeling as optimistic about her ability to fix something.
There was a heavy tap on the bathroom door before Drake’s head peeked around the corner. “Ladies, everything okay in here?” When his eyes landed on Lana, noticing instantly how tense and pale she was, he stepped fully into the room. “Angel?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later, Drake,” she promised, holding out her arms for her husband’s hug. When he wrapped his arms around her tenderly she buried her face in his wide chest. “Just hold me for now, babe.”
“I need to get back to Jesse.” I frowned, wondering how I was going to get up off the sofa. Emmie stood and offered me a hand, but I shook my head at her. No way was I going to let tiny, pregnant Emmie pull on my fat ass. “Don’t even think about it. You’ll hurt yourself and the baby.”
That had both my sister and brother-in-law jerking around. “Baby?” Drake’s eyes widened and went straight to Emmie’s still-flat stomach. “Are you pregnant again, Em?”
“Apparently.” She offered him a small smile. “I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon to confirm it.”
“No wonder you’ve been so sick lately!” Lana stepped around Drake and embraced Emmie, who hugged her back. “Congrats, Em.”
Drake kissed Emmie’s cheek before finally taking pity on me and offering me his hand. He practically lifted me to my feet with one hand. This close he could see how red and puffy my eyes were. “Whatever it is, Layla, we’ll work through this together as a family.”
Tears burned my eyes all over again and I could only nod.
Chapter 9
Shane
I was standing with Harper and her boss, Rex, when I saw Jesse’s face.
Without thinking about what I was doing I pressed a kiss to Harper’s temple and started toward my friend. By the time I made it over, Nik had already joined him. Their gazes were suddenly locked on Lucy and the small group of teenagers surrounding her. The look on Jesse’s face was something I remembered well from when we were on the road touring without Emmie.
Every nerve in my body seemed to come to burning life. Whatever was going on with my friend, was bad. I put my hand on the big man’s shoulder and squeezed. “What’s up?”
Jesse’s throat worked once, twice before he could finally speak. The words that came out of his mouth hit me square in the chest and I found my gaze going straight to Lucy too. I had known her since she was six years old. The day that Jesse adopted her---no, damn it, before then!—she became my niece in my heart. She was as much a part of my family as if she had been born in it. We couldn’t lose her!
“We’ll get through this,” Nik told Jesse, his jaw clenched as he watched Wroth go up to Lucy and ask her to dance with him.
Lucy hugged him and then followed the big, woman-hating rocker onto the dance floor. Even someone as hard-hearted as Wroth Niall had a soft spot for Lucy. She was just that fucking special.
Layla, Emmie, Lana, and Drake joined us as the words left Nik’s mouth. Layla wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist and Emmie grasped Jesse’s hands. “We’ll sort it out, Jesse. You know this asshat just wants a payoff. The lawyer can handle all th
e legal shit, but I’ll start liquidating some assets. A few million and he won’t bother you again.”
Some of the tension eased from the drummer’s shoulders, but he didn’t speak. He was too emotional, too tormented. We could all see the tears in his dark eyes.
Lana rubbed her hand over my back. “Okay. Let’s just relax for now. Nothing can get sorted until morning. It’s not every day ex-man-sluts get hitched.” A small smile twitched at my lips. I hadn’t been a man slut in years now and she knew it. “Dance with me?”
I met Drake’s gaze over her head, asking permission. Since Lana had gotten pregnant my brother had become even more possessive—yeah, I know. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible either. When Drake nodded his head I wrapped my arms around her waist and guided her toward the dance floor.
“Don’t let this ruin your honeymoon plans,” she said after only a moment’s hesitation.
I clenched my jaw. Honestly, I had already mentally started a checklist of what I needed to do to postpone the trip to Mexico. I knew that Harper would understand. She loved Lucy just as much as I did. We couldn’t run off for a week when our family was dealing with this shit. “Don’t worry about it, Lana. A few weeks’ delay isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“It’s going to stress Jesse and Layla out even more. They don’t want to ruin your honeymoon. Let us take care of it. Go and enjoy yourselves.” She had that look in her whisky eyes. The one that was full of stubborn determination.
“Do you honestly think I could enjoy five seconds of my honeymoon knowing the hell that Jesse and your sister—and you too, damn it—are going through back here?” I demanded quietly. “I’ll make it up to Harper.”
My gaze drifted over Lana’s dark head, searching for Harper through the crowd. She wasn’t with Rex any longer. I stopped dancing, my heart beating frantically as I searched for her. “Where is she?”
I hoped she was with Dallas, but saw that Axton was dancing with the other woman. When I spotted Cecil, he was talking with my stepmother. No Harper there. Grimacing I walked away from Lana, knowing she wouldn’t care.
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