by Lane Hart
“Dad,” Torin warns again, but his deep, demanding president voice has no effect on his father.
“Explain this to me now!” he roars, not unlike Torin when he raises his voice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Torin says with a sigh. And I’m pretty sure that he’s trying to protect me from how his father and stepmother see me. Otherwise, he would just explain what happened. But I don’t want them to think the worst of their son when it’s avoidable.
“It’s my fault,” I tell them. “I-I took advantage of Torin when he was under the influence. I didn’t know that at the time, but I should have, so it’s my fault that this happened. Not his.”
His father’s angry green eyes turn to his wife’s, and then both of them burst into laughter.
When I look to Torin as to what to do or say, he rolls his eyes, so unlike the MC president he is, before he tells me, “They think you’re full of shit.”
“It’s the truth!” I assure them.
They both pause momentarily to look at me and then Torin before the laughter starts up again. This time they hug each other. Eventually, the laughter dies down and then gives way to sobbing while they embrace.
“Come on,” Torin says. Picking up Liam’s carrier again, he takes my hand in his and leads me through the open glass door and into the house. “They’re gonna need a few minutes to process all of this,” he says as we walk through the warm, beach themed home with high ceilings and the sun shining through all of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He sets the carrier on the hardwood floors and then releases my hand at the same time.
“You didn’t have to tell them all that,” he says to me with his hands braced on his hips.
“I know,” I reply. “But they shouldn’t think badly of you.”
“Drugged or not, I put myself in that situation the night you got knocked up,” he says. “Chase asked where I wanted to have my bachelor party, and I could’ve told him I wanted to go to any other bar or strip club on the east coast. And what did I do? I picked fucking Avalon where I knew you would be. So, I’m not innocent in all of this, no matter how much I wished that was the case.”
While I would love to take his admission as a compliment, I know that’s not why he told me. Torin blames himself and regrets what we did that night, even though he can’t remember it. If it were up to him, he would gladly pretend it never happened, only that’s impossible now since Liam is the living, breathing reminder of what we did, regardless of the reasons.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sorry that I got pregnant and that you have to deal with the consequences. That’s not what I wanted for you.”
“If I hadn’t come for you, you wouldn’t have ever told me, would you?” he asks.
“No,” I reply honestly. “You had enough to deal with. You didn’t need the extra burden.”
“A burden?” he repeats. “That’s what you think he is to me?” he asks, waving a hand toward Liam’s carrier.
“Yes.”
“He’s not a burden, okay?” Torin says, moving closer to me as his voice drops to a whisper. “He’s the only reason I didn’t blow my brains out after I watched your father die.”
“What?” I gasp in response to his shocking confession. “You can’t be serious. You were going to…you want to…”
“I wanted to end my fucked-up life. I wanted to stop the constant ache and guilt I felt for losing the woman I loved and will never see again.”
Holy shit. What if my father hadn’t found Liam and brought him that day? Would Torin have actually ended his life right then and there?
“That’s why you didn’t want your brother there that day,” I say in understanding. “You didn’t want him to see you with a gun to your head.”
“I would’ve pulled the trigger too, if not for that son of a bitch telling me that was my kid. And you knew the whole time but didn’t tell me!”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him as tears fill my eyes. “I didn’t know!”
“You’re right. You didn’t know that I had run out of reasons to keep breathing or that dying seemed easier than trying to survive what I had done. Now you do,” Torin declares. “So if you ever think of running off with him, just know that I will hunt you down and make your life a living hell.”
“I wouldn’t…I won’t,” I assure him.
“I know you won’t,” he agrees. “Because you won’t go anywhere without me or one of my men watching you.”
I’m not able to respond to that threat before Torin’s father and stepmother come inside. They wrap him in a group hug and murmur words to him that I can’t hear before they turn to Liam and start discussing how adorable he is and that they can see his resemblance to Torin.
They seem to have accepted our son into the family easily. Too bad that acceptance doesn’t apply to me.
…
Torin
Just discussing the idea of Lexi leaving with Liam has me seeing red. My threats that she’s basically my captive again is an empty one and we both know it. If she decided that she wanted to move back to Vegas tomorrow with my son, there’s nothing I could do about it short of tying her up and holding her hostage, which I wouldn’t do to her again. I don’t want her to take him all the way across the country when I’ve just been given another opportunity to be a father.
I may not know what the fuck I’m doing most of the time, but I want to be in his life. So, I guess that means I need to find a way to convince Lexi to stick around. Hostility isn’t gonna do the trick. If anything, my anger will only push her further away.
“Aww! He’s awake,” Carol says. “Can I hold him?” she asks Lexi.
“Yeah, of course,” she responds before she flops down on the sofa like she would rather be anywhere but here, with my family, in my town. How do I make it her town too?
“He’s so cute I could just eat him up!” my stepmother coos while covering Liam’s head with kisses.
My dad, on the other hand, has his arms crossed over his chest as he looks at my son through narrowed eyes. “Are you absolutely sure? Have you…” he starts. Knowing what he’s trying to ask, I answer it for him.
“Yes, Dad. A paternity test was the first thing I did. I’m not stupid,” I mutter before I go over and take a seat next to Lexi.
“I wasn’t implying that you were stupid,” he harrumphs. “All I meant was, you’re going through a stressful time when your emotions are all over the place.”
“My emotions are not all over the place,” I mutter with an eye roll at his dramatics.
“Well, ours are,” he replies. “You coming in here telling us we have a grandson sounds almost too good to be true.”
“Are you back in the house?” Carol looks up from Liam and asks, glancing between Lexi and me.
“No, we’ve been staying at the clubhouse,” I answer with a cringe.
“Torin Edward Fury!” my father yells. “That’s no place for a baby or a young woman to live! You need to take them home.”
I wince again at the reminder of my “home,” the one I had with Kennedy. It feels wrong to be there without her. How could I ever sleep in the bed we shared when she’s not there beside me? Everything in that house represents a piece of her – something she bought, or wore, or touched.
“The clubhouse is fine,” Lexi speaks up and says from beside me. “The guys have all been really nice and welcoming.”
I barely refrain from gritting my teeth at that comment. My brothers are welcoming all right after she helped us out with Holden. In fact, I bet they would welcome Lexi right into their beds…
I don’t miss the raised eyebrow my father directs at me, likely thinking the same thing.
“It’s just temporary,” I explain.
“And what do you plan to do permanently?” my father asks Lexi, voicing the same question I’ve been too chicken to ask.
“I-I dunno,” she answers. “I’d like to try and find a job…”
“You don’t need a job,” I bark at her with
out a second thought. I have plenty of money to support her and Liam, and she’ll inherit all of her father’s money soon…
Lexi turns to me and says, “Yes, I do. That way I can rent an apartment on my own.”
“There’s no reason to go to all the trouble of getting an apartment when Torin has an enormous house to himself, with a stocked nursery and all,” my father declares. “Isn’t that right, son?”
“Right,” I reply, because what else can I say to my dad? That I trashed the house after I lost Kennedy when it was impossible to imagine living in it without her or our son? That I couldn’t bear to go inside, so I’ve been sleeping outside on the beach instead for the few weeks before the trip to Vegas? Or that I prefer to live in the clubhouse because there are fewer memories of Kennedy there to haunt me?
“We’ll come by in a few days to see if you need anything,” he responds, which in other words means that I need to get my ass in gear or I’ll never hear the end of his disappointment in me as a man or a father. “Now, let me hold my grandson,” he says when he goes over and takes Liam from Carol’s arms. Holding him in the air, my father smiles at him and says, “Welcome to the family, handsome.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Torin
“I need your help,” I say when Chase finally answers his phone.
“Name it,” he replies.
“How soon can you meet me at the house?” I ask him.
“What house?” he questions.
“My house,” I reply with a sigh.
“No shit?” he says in surprise.
“No shit,” I tell him. “Dad suggested that I move Lexi and the baby in. You know he won’t drop it either, so I have to get the place fixed up and all before he comes by.”
“We’re gonna fix up the mess you made in your house so that Lexi and the kid can move in…for Dad?” he mutters sarcastically.
“Yep,” I respond without further comment.
He chuckles in disbelief before he finally says, “Guess I better call in some backup.”
“Yeah, if you wanna see if Abe is free, War’s coming too.”
“Sure,” Chase says. “See ya there in half an hour.”
Thirty minutes later I pull up to my house and have to park in the street because the entire driveway is filled with Harleys. Nine men in leather cuts are hanging around on my deck holding hammers, buckets of paint and various other repair tools when I make my way up.
“Don’t you think inviting the whole club here is overkill?” I ask Chase.
“Nah,” he replies. “More bodies mean less time it’ll take to get this place back together. I bet we’ll have it ready for Lexi and Liam tonight.”
“Tonight?” I repeat in shock. “No. No way. We’ll have to, um, let the paint dry and air the place out first.”
“Tomorrow then,” Chase says with a slap to my shoulder. “And I’ll drop them off myself if you won’t.”
After I unlock the door, everyone heads inside while I hold Chase back. “This is all moving too fast for me. I need a few days,” I tell him.
“You’ve had days. You’ve had weeks and now months,” Chase tells me. “You want them here, right?”
“I-I dunno,” I answer honestly. “This was Dad’s idea. Not mine.”
“Because he knows that this place is a helluva lot better for a kid than the clubhouse. Besides, you really want Lexi strutting around the guys when they’re drunk and horny?”
“Fuck no,” I grumble.
“Then bring her and the kid over here tomorrow, and that’s at least one problem solved,” he says with a slap to my chest before he walks past me and into the house.
One problem solved? More like a million more problems created.
Having Lexi in the house I shared with Kennedy doesn’t feel right. It’s like I’m betraying my wife all over again, only this time, she’ll see and know everything, like the fact that I’m an asshole who already wants another woman after I just lost her. If the guilt doesn’t eat me alive, then the temptation eventually will. I’m so fucking screwed no matter what I do or don’t do.
…
Lexi
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask Torin for at least the third time on the way to his house. Last night he didn’t sleep in my bed with me. I don’t even think he was in the clubhouse. How do I know? I walked the entire bar and basement level looking for him each time Liam woke up for a bottle.
“No,” Torin answers my question with a slight lifting of his lips as he keeps his eyes on the road. “But my father is not a man to be reasoned with once he sets his mind to something.”
“You don’t have to do this to make your father happy,” I tell him. “If you don’t want us there…”
“I want you there, okay?” he grumbles.
“Okay,” I agree with a heavy exhale. “Where were you last night?” I ask, unable to help myself.
“Working late on the repairs,” he says simply.
“Repairs?”
“On the house,” he supplies.
“Why? Was there hurricane damage?” I ask.
“No,” Torin answers. “I took out my anger on it.”
“Oh,” I mutter as I try to imagine a grief-stricken Torin using his size, strength and aggression to demolish the home he once shared with his wife. I’m surprised it only took one night to make the repairs.
“So, you’ll have to let me know how much I owe you for rent and utilities,” I start.
“Why?” Torin asks.
“So that I can pay you back.”
“You don’t have to pay me back,” he huffs.
“I’m not gonna live in your house for free,” I tell him. “If I weren’t paying you rent, I would be paying it somewhere else.”
“You don’t owe me, and you don’t need to get a job,” he growls. “I don’t want to hear that shit again. I can cover whatever you and Liam need, and you’ll eventually inherit everything of your father’s.”
“I don’t want anything of his,” I tell him. “In fact, I’ve made arrangements with Reece to hire an attorney to sell everything to pay you back, then give the rest to charity.”
“Charity?” Torin asks, looking over at me in disbelief. “If you take the money, you won’t ever need to get a job.”
“I would rather work forty hours a week than take another penny that belonged to him,” I declare. “No telling who else he stole from. The money should go to you and then to the children’s hospital.”
“You don’t have to decide that now,” he says. “Just think about it.”
“Fine,” I respond, even though I don’t need to. My father’s money is dirty, so I don’t want any part of it. And therefore, I won’t give up on looking for employment. There’s no way I’m going to let Torin pay my way either. If he wants to make child support payments, then everything he pays will go to caring for Liam. That’s it.
Torin suddenly takes his right hand off the steering wheel and then reaches his long arm into the backseat. “Here,” he says when he pulls his arm free and places a thick, white shoebox in my lap.
“What’s this?” I ask him.
“Sort of a peace offering. Just open it,” he huffs.
“Okay,” I reply before I lift the lid and pull apart the tissue paper. Even when I see what’s inside, I don’t get it. “It’s…a purse?” My words come out as a question since I would’ve been less surprised to see a rattlesnake in the box. I pick up the handle and hold it up in front of me to get a better look. “A very nice, black, leather purse,” I remark more to myself than to Torin since he obviously knows what was in the box. A price tag hangs down from one of the straps. “Whoa. A very expensive purse. This is too much,” I tell Torin when I look back over at him in the driver seat.
“The purse isn’t the main part. Look inside,” he directs me, his jaw ticking in annoyance, although I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong.
I pull open the main zipper, but it’s empty, so I try the zipper on the narrow side pocket
and reach my hand in. As soon as my fingertips touch the cool metal, I know what it is. “A gun! You’re giving me a gun?” I exclaim in a whisper.
“There’s a built-in holster, and you can lock the compartment when Liam’s older. You need to be able to protect yourself,” Torin mutters. “And Liam. I want you to feel safe here. I’ll show you how to use it.”
“Okay,” I agree, withholding the fact that I’m already very familiar with firearms, because then I would have to mention my father again and that would piss off the man who I think is trying to give me a thoughtful gift. I think it means that he worries about me and my safety. Or maybe he’s just worried about his son. That’s probably it.
“Um, thanks,” I tell him, unsure what else to say. “You didn’t have to do all this. Or spend this much.” If I had to guess, the purse and the gun were probably more than a thousand dollars. Who spends that much money on their baby mama on the day she’s moving in with him?
“It’s nothing,” Torin snaps. “We’re almost to the house.” I get that he doesn’t want to talk about the purse or the gun anymore, so I drop it too, even though I can’t wrap my head around why he bought them for me.
The SUV comes to a stop in a semi-circular driveway in front of a massive oceanfront beach house. It’s so beautiful and modern with a million windows for taking in the incredible view, and it’s nothing like the home I expected Torin to live in. If I had to guess, I bet his wife picked out everything, from the design to the paint on the walls. I can’t imagine how hard it must be on Torin to come back here where there are little pieces of her everywhere. No wonder he’s been staying in the clubhouse.
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” I ask him again. “I mean, it’s gorgeous and all, but Liam and I were fine at the clubhouse.”
“Get your ass out of the car,” he orders before he’s out of the SUV and grabbing Liam’s car seat from the back.
There are two flights of stairs to get to the door on the deck that faces the ocean. I follow him up them, carrying the box with the purse. Torin opens the glass door and then leaves it wide even after we walk through, letting the salty breeze in.
