Hott and Taken (The Hott Brothers Book 1)

by Leah Sharelle

  “Her name is Makena Hott; we are still very legally married, brother.” It also irked me that Daxx didn’t bear my last name having seen Daxx Rogers written on his birth certificate. Earlier, when I went through Makena’s desk looking for more invoices, I happened across some family legal papers, her mum and dad’s death certificates, and the legal forms for my son. It didn’t matter that she used double x or that he bore my middle name, my son needed to carry the name of Hott, as was his legal and birth right. Immediately, I put in a call to my legal team in Melbourne, asking them to look into what was required for a change of surname. I was yet to discuss this with Makena, but I really didn’t care what she thought about it, I was here to be in my boy’s life to be his father, and for me, him carrying the rightful surname a big part of that.

  Hendrixx let out a loud chuckle. “Someone is a little touchy, what’s the matter Noxx, feeling a mite territorial?”

  Realising he was goading me, I raised my middle finger over my head at him.

  “Better watch it, Noxxie, your son will copy you if he sees that,” Mallory warned, coming up with her horse in tow behind her.

  “Must your sister ride like a maniac every time she gets on the back of a horse?” I asked, my heart still lodged in my throat after witnessing Makena’s stupid stunt, but I managed to drop my finger, knowing she was right. Daxx didn’t need to learn sign language, especially that kind.

  “Since when do I have any control over what your wife does on horseback or anywhere else? Here take this,” she said, thrusting the reigns at my chest, “I have had enough of the four-legged variety for the year. I swear this horse hates me; she tried to buck me off at least ten times and refused to trot. My arse is going to feel the last couple of hours into the next week,” she grumbled, glaring at the pinto with disdain.

  “Aunty Mallee!” Daxx shouted out excitedly, scrambling off the ladder to the slide, and ran to his aunt.

  “Hey there, stinker, I missed you!” Mallory cried out, getting down on her knees and caught Daxx up in her arms, both of them laughing when Mallory fell back on the ground from the force my boy hit her with.

  “Missed you too! Can we go ridin’?”

  “Absolutely not! Aunty Mal needs a rest and something to eat. How about we go find a tin of s’getti and talk about riding later,” she suggested hopefully.

  “’Kay, but we go ridin’ later wif Mumma and Banjo,” Daxx told her, conceding to Mal, but only just.

  “If you insist, Daxx, you know I can’t resist those blues,” she said ruffling his hair fondly.

  “Not many women can,” Hendrixx quipped, reaching out to take the horses bridle from my fingers.

  “You go talk to Makena; I will take care of Nelly, then I have to get back to the Triple H, Blake has been left unsupervised enough for today. Blasted woman was on the stallion again this morning, according to Mum,” he growled with clenched teeth, “I turn my back for a day and she starts her shit, fucking going to be the death of me.” Hendrixx turned and led the horse away to towards the stables, grumbling under his breath about the blonde he harboured more feelings for than he was prepared to admit to.

  “Sounds like Blake has his measure,” Mallory observed, giggling.

  “That she does, she is always doing something to do his head in; it seems to me that quality is ingrained in the female DNA.”

  “You know, Noxx, not every woman plays games or has evil ulterior motives; sometimes circumstances are forced upon them, giving them no choice.”

  Something in Mallory’s tone and the interesting choice of words piqued my sixth sense. And again, I got the feeling Mallory knew something I didn’t.

  “What are you getting at Mal?” I was tired of the word games; at some point, someone, I didn’t give a shit who, was going to be straight with me.

  “Do you honestly think that Mack would deliberately leave and have your child in secret, then come back here where she knew the reception she would be walking into from Dad? Do you truly think she could be capable of hurting you that way if she didn’t have to?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, the ominous way Mallory delivered her lecture sparked a deep, disturbing warning I didn’t like.

  “Mal—”

  “She nearly lost him in childbirth, we nearly lost both of them, and neither of us had any idea. She wouldn’t have risked that for no reason.” Tears filled Mallory’s eyes, shocking me. Out of the two sisters, Mal was the stoic one, never letting emotions get the better of her.

  “What do you know that I don’t, Mallory?” I asked again, barely holding my temper in check, hearing that Makena or Daxx could have died, while I was busy trying to hate her was gutting me.

  Slowly getting to her feet, Mallory picked Daxx up and settled him on her hip, her expression strained, but she smiled for Daxx’s sake. My son not aware that the adult conversation was taking a dark turn.

  “More than I ever wanted to know, trust me.”

  ***

  The house was silent when I finally made my way back to Makena’s place. After talking with Mallory, I decided to go for a drive; I had to get away and work through the hurricane of emotions whirling around inside me. Mallory told me so much yet not enough; her half-answers confused the shit out of me, her more detailed answers ripped at my heart, making it nearly impossible for me to go straight to Makena and demand she expand on the things Mallory wasn’t telling me.

  My business senses pricked, telling me whatever wasn’t being said was going to be worse than the shit I already knew.

  This whole week had been nothing short a clusterfuck with a sprinkling of good news thrown in. Everything about Daxx, the best parts, him meeting his uncles, and our mother, and him calling me Dad. The unfamiliar quiet greeted me as I made my way down the hallway, tossing my keys on the hall table as I stopped at Daxx’s room, the door slightly ajar. The dull glow from the night light just outside the door illuminated the room enough to see my boy laying upside down on the bed, his little sock-covered feet on the pillow where his head should be. His head was wedged up against the wooden slats, not at all a comfortable sleeping position, or one would think, but my kid was snoring up a storm not bothered at all.

  Slipping inside the room, I walked normally to the bed, foregoing the tiptoeing because Daxx really could sleep through anything and arranged his body further down the bed.

  “Night, little man, sorry Daddy missed your story, I promise to make it up to you tomorrow,” I whispered, then pressed my mouth to his temple, my hand flat on his downy hair.

  My god, I loved this kid—real pure, ferocious love. I fell in love with him in a matter of minutes, and now days later, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. Makena and I were going to need to come to some kind of a truce, Daxx deserved two parents and a happy home environment. One of us had to back down from exacting revenge, and I had a funny feeling it was going to be me.

  I had one weakness, well two now with Daxx in my life, but it was the beautiful green-eyed minx in the next room that had me second-guessing myself. I always stuck to my guns, in business dealing with high powered executives, I never backed down from my goals, always pushing forward no matter the approach to get the best outcome my family and for myself. Makena, though, was derailing all my business training and changing me from a cold and focused CEO back into a pathetic puppy dog with a hero-worship problem.

  Backing out of the room, pulling the door half-closed behind me, I walked with purpose to the room I was going to share with Makena. My mind was made up; tonight, we were going to talk, no more kissing her senseless or humping my dick through her wet slit until questions were asked and answers were given.

  Too much was at stake for anymore stalling or hiding behind the past, if she wanted to talk about, my so-called affair, then so be it. My hand found its way into my front pocket, the ever present black USB there, like it always was.

  “Makena, we need to talk,” I demanded, the second I pushed the door open and strode inside. Ma
kena was on the bed, dressed in a soft pink nightgown, her face freshly scrubbed, and her long beautiful hair brushed back from her face falling past her shoulders in wavy ribbons.

  She was stunning. So god damn beautiful it sometimes hurt to look at her, just seeing her sitting there looking nervous, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth made my heart ache for the lost years. So much time lost, so many nights, I didn’t get to see her sitting up waiting for me like she was doing now.

  “I know, it’s time, Noxx,” Makena said softly, shocking the rebuttal I had on the tip of my tongue. She normally argued, so her acquiescence surprised me.

  “It is?” Not expecting her to agree, in fact, I was getting ready for a fight, but as usual, my wife surprised me.

  Nodding her head, she patted her hand on the mattress. “Yes, Daxx missed you so much tonight at dinner and then his bedtime routine. I don’t want you to think you have to take off every time I piss you off. Daxx needs his dad, he deserves to have both his parents under the one roof, but in order to do that, we need to get rid of the tension. And the only way to accomplish that is to lay all our cards out. Agreed?”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t think you would,” I admitted, shaking my head then moved closer to the bed sitting on the edge rather than too close to her. Getting close meant bad things for my heart, but good things for my dick.

  Tonight though, my brain was taking charge, for once.

  “Well, Mal gave me what for when we were on our ride, then again after. And while I hate it when she thinks she is right … she is this time.”

  “Okay, so where do we start?” I asked, feeling nervous all of a sudden. I genuinely thought that coming in here, Makena would have fought me, refused to talk and I would have spent another night on the floor in Daxx’s room.

  This woman was a mind fuck, always surprising me.

  Makena toyed with the end of the bedspread, her face downcast, her body language almost defeated.

  “I don’t know, why don’t you ask me something and I promise to answer as best as I can?”

  “Okay, I can accept that. How about we start somewhere neutral, did you have anyone with you when you gave birth to our son?”

  The first question I really wanted to ask was, why did she believe photos and not me, but she looked so … scared, I didn’t want to get her on the defensive and give her an excuse to close up on me. She was willing to talk, and I was going to take that and run with it.

  “Ah, no, it was just me and two midwives and the doctor. I did the majority of my labour at home with my friend. She was a nurse, too, so she helped me through the initial hours before it was time to go to the hospital.”

  “She didn’t go into the delivery room with you?”

  “Nope, it didn’t feel right having someone other than … um … you there, so I went it alone,” she answered, still not looking at me, and while that pissed me off, I was prepared to give her a pass. I knew this had to be hard for her, nearly as hard as it was for me hearing it.

  “Was it a long labour?”

  “Oh yeah, sixteen hours at home then another eighteen in hospital. My labour kept on stalling; I wasn’t dilating fast enough. Everything that could go wrong did, only days before, the doctors discovered that Daxx was getting little to no nourishment from my placenta because he was so overdue, by three weeks, in fact.”

  “They performed an ultra-sound, informed me what was going on, then sent me home hoping I went into labour naturally, only I went home scared out of my mind that my baby was starving inside me. Two days of twenty-four seven stressing and I did go into labour without the need for any drugs, but that was when the really scary stuff began.”

  I found myself drawing closer on the bed to Makena, my heart in my throat at the imagery tossing about in my head. The picture Makena was painting sending chills through me.

  “Like what?” I asked, my voice rasped, my lips suddenly dry.

  “Oh lord, I developed dangerously high blood pressure, the labour went on for so long, the baby got distressed and moved about so much he turned into the breech position. That was when all hell broke loose. The hospital was a small one, not prepared for an extremely complicated birth, so when his little feet popped out and not his head, the room filled with so many people I could barely think through my fear. People were yelling, poking, and prodding at me, and it was so frightening.” Makena paused her eyes finally meeting mine; they were wet with tears, the memory of that day obviously still very much with her. And yet, I was angry with her, angry that I didn’t know my wife had been scared, angry that she went through it alone when she shouldn’t have in the first place. Angry that the hospital hadn’t been equipped or even cared that she was so overdue.

  Gritting my teeth, I lifted my chin for her to continue. “And?”

  “And, they delivered him breech, the pain was unbearable, but nothing I went through that day was anywhere close to the pain Daxx suffered.”

  Wiping away the tears on her cheeks, Makena gave me that look. The look that said I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  “What do you mean pain? What happened to him?”

  “They had to dislocate his shoulder to get him out, the birth canal was too narrow and he was stuck so—” Makena let out a heart-wrenching sob, the tears flowing faster and faster. I held my breath, not able to speak.

  “His arm was behind his head, and one of the doctors there was a visiting OBGYN from the city, thank god, and he took over and had to dislocate his shoulder. I will forever remember the noise … the terrible cracking sound.”

  In a second, I was up on my knees and crawling over the bed; a second after that, I had my weeping wife in my lap. Her shaking body wrapped in my arms as I gently rocked her, whispering words of comfort.

  “It is over now, baby, no more questions about Daxx’s birth, I promise.” The endearment slipped past my lips naturally. This wasn’t the first time I’d used the familiar pet name since Makena’s return to my life. It had always been my go-to when talking to her or about her. And using it now in this moment it felt … right.

  “That is why I didn’t come home right after his birth; I didn’t want anyone to know how I failed him. Didn’t want to see the disappointment from Mal or my dad, so I waited until he was completely healed, it wasn’t until Mal found the hospital records they sent me home with did she find out about his horrific entry into the world.” Makena hiccupped against my throat. “And Dad ended up being disappointed anyway, so I didn’t win anything by staying away.”

  “Your dad was a prick, he had no right to cast any judgement on you or your decisions,” I replied vehemently. No one had the right to pass judgement on her except me. As Daxx’s father, and the one that missed out on seeing my son being born, only I had the right to be pissed and disappointed. Old man Rogers should have been the last person to feel anything other than guilt for the way he mistreated his own daughter and grandson.

  “And you Noxx? What judgement do you pass on what I did?” Makena asked, pulling her face from its place in my neck to look at me.

  I struggled with what I should say, but I knew if this co-habitation, distorted as it was, wasn’t going to work if we weren’t honest with each other.

  “Honestly? I am pissed the fuck off, Makena. You needed me, Daxx needed me, and I wasn’t there because I didn’t know. You took all my decisions from me, because you excluded me from your life, from Daxx’s without a word.”

  “I will never get that time with him back, seeing you pregnant, feeling him move inside you. You judged, convicted and punished me on the word of some stranger dropping off a photo on our doorstep. Because of that, my son was in pain and I couldn’t be there to comfort him or you.” My voice was breaking as I let out what Makena asked to know, I couldn’t control the pain or the overwhelming unfairness of what she’d stolen from me.

  I should have been there, with Makena as her husband or just as our baby’s father, it made no difference. I had the right to see my son be born; noth
ing would ever make me change my mind on that.

  “The photo … the tape?” Makena spluttered, but I was done with that old argument. The photo I’d seen and I still didn’t believe it because it didn’t fucking happen. I’d never laid on top of another woman since I’d met her and certainly not since I got her name tattooed on my body.

  Yeah, it was me, my tatt, my body, but—fuck me! Instantly, a reason, an explanation emerged in my mind.

  It was me in that photo, but what if it was the woman in question that was the wrong one? Not once in all the years since seeing the picture of me in the throes of sex did I ever take notice of the woman I was with—how fucking stupid was I?

  “Makena, do you have a copy of the photo?” I asked, hoping against hope that she photocopied it or took a photo with her phone of it, but the widening of her eyes and her thinning lips told me I was out of luck.

  “No, I didn’t, I gave you the photo and the tape. I didn’t want to keep them as a reminder; the picture is imprinted in my brain, that is enough,” she muttered darkly, pushing off trying to escape from my hold.

  Tightening my fingers on her hips, I held her still, this line of questioning too important to let her get lost in anger or stalling tactics.

  “This is too important, Makena, we will deal with the tape later, but first the photo. Do you remember what the woman looked like in the picture?”

  Makena went from combative to quizzical in seconds, I could see her interest peak as she thought for a moment.

  “Um, to be honest, I took more notice of you than her. At first, when I opened it and saw her nails so blood-red digging into your biceps, I knew it had to be someone with bad taste. The red was so bright and tacky; it is something I will always remember, being a beautician. It almost didn’t look—”

  “Look what?” I asked quickly, her answer so far sending my mind somewhere I never thought possible. Something I never considered when I first looked at it. Was I on the right track?

  “Fake,” she said with a shrug. “The colour looked like it was painted on the picture.”