by Andre, Bella
She stepped out on the landing in front of her apartment and closed the door behind her. “Why are you here?”
“I saw a picture of you holding a baby at a Sullivan party.” On his face she could see the primal urge to claim his child now that he’d finally seen Mason’s picture and knew for sure he existed. “Which one of the Sullivan men are you screwing to get an invite to a private celebration?”
There was a picture of her and Mason from the party Tatiana had thrown for Mia? Grace knew with perfect certainty that none of the Sullivan girls would ever pass on their personal shots to the press. Not when Mia, Tatiana, and Nicola already had to deal with far too much pressure from the paparazzi. Had one of the wait staff secretly taken pictures and leaked them? Was that what those flashes had been when she’d been holding Mason and speaking with Mia? And did any of the Sullivans know yet that it had happened?
Fear was trying to clamp around her chest, but she wouldn’t let it. Wouldn’t let anything rob her of the ability to think clearly.
“I’ll bet you’re doing the architect, aren’t you?” Richard continued with a sneer. “I shouldn’t be surprised you landed on your feet, given that seducing rich men is your specialty. Still, I didn’t think you’d be able to get a Sullivan to fall for your tricks, especially dragging a baby around with you.” He gave her his best threatening look. “I want to see him. I want to see my son.”
By the barest of threads, Grace held back from punching him in the face. Not just for talking about her as though she were a slut with ulterior motives, but for daring to bring Mason into it. But she knew better—knew that if she so much as laid a finger on him, he’d likely call the police to have her arrested, and she’d be unable to protect her son while dealing with his charges.
“He isn’t yours,” she said first, knowing the truth of it all the way to the depths of her soul. “And he’s at his babysitter’s,” she lied. “But that’s irrelevant, given that you didn’t want to see him before, didn’t even want him to exist. What could possibly have changed?”
He’d looked so confident when he’d greeted her a few moments ago, but now she saw the first flicker of confusion cross the face she’d once been foolish enough to think was handsome. How had she not seen the weakness beneath the veneer of polish learned at the boarding school and Ivy League college his parents had sent him to?
“You’ve changed,” he replied. “You used to be so—”
“Malleable? Naïve?” She shook her head. “All that changed the minute I realized what you and your family are really made of. What makes you think you have any right to come here?”
“I never thought you’d go through with it. That you’d actually have the kid on your own. But when I saw the pictures of you and him, I realized I already had the son I’ve been trying for with my wife—”
“And you suddenly thought you could change your mind? Well, you’re wrong. You can’t. You gave him up, and he’s all mine.”
“You’re just bitter because I didn’t want you, because I didn’t want to marry you and take care of you.”
A couple of months ago, she might have let him convince her this was true. But now she knew better. So much better that she didn’t even need to argue or to protest that it wasn’t true. When he’d turned away from her when she’d first told him she was pregnant, she had been horrified to realize that he didn’t want to know his child. Worse, that he’d told her to get rid of it without blinking an eye. But now she realized what a gift his disinterest had been, because Mason was a million times better off without the Bentleys in his life.
“You didn’t want to take care of anyone but yourself,” she countered. “Your name is nowhere near the birth certificate.”
“I can easily get a DNA test.”
“I suppose you could,” she agreed. “Although I can’t help but wonder how your wife feels about your plan.” She could see that he was still confused about why she wasn’t yet cowering or giving in to his demands. “Does she even know you’re here?”
“It doesn’t matter what she thinks. She’ll do what I tell her.”
“Even taking on another woman’s child after she’s ‘failed you’ by not being able to get pregnant?” But Grace didn’t need to wait for his reply. “Actually, I’m sure she will, since that’s probably how your entire relationship has been so far.” Grace knew she shouldn’t feel anything for Richard’s wife, but how could she help but feel sorry for someone who was a part of that horrible family? “What about your parents? Have you consulted them about your change of heart?” He flinched, and she didn’t care if it was small of her, she loved seeing it, enjoying his discomfort. “They wanted me and the baby even less than you did.”
All this time she had thought she wasn’t tough enough, wasn’t good enough, but now she knew better. She was strong. She was good enough…and she wasn’t putting up with her ex’s crap for one more second.
“They want an heir to carry on the name,” he told her, but she could see from the uncertainty in his tone and expression that he hadn’t yet run his plans by the senior Bentleys. Which, on the plus side, meant that they hadn’t personally sent him here to take Mason. “Now tell me where the babysitter lives so that I can go see my son.”
“The day you offered me money to get rid of him, he stopped being your son.” She knew it was finally time to play the cards she’d kept so carefully guarded just in case this should ever come to pass. And then, as soon as he got the hell away from her, she’d finally use her defense fund to hire the best custody lawyer to keep Mason safe. “I have proof that your parents tried to bribe me with fifty thousand dollars to abort the baby and then another fifty thousand to never speak of my time with you. I kept the checks they forced on me.”
“This isn’t over,” he said, but even as he said it, she could see that she’d shaken his confidence. First by asking him if his parents—who kept him on a very short leash—knew what he was doing right now, and then by reminding him about the Bentley blood money. “My son is going to want to know who his father is. What are you going to tell him?”
“I won’t lie to him. Not about you, or anything. One day, when he’s old enough, it will be up to him if he wants to see you. But right now it’s up to me. And I don’t want you or your horrible family to have any part in his life.” She moved closer to him, with enough fierce purpose that though she was nearly a foot shorter and he’d come here to intimidate her, he was the one taking a step back. “You are going to go away now and leave us alone. And if you come back at any point without my express permission, I will go to my extensive contacts in the press and expose you and your parents for the kind of people you really are.”
He tried to stand his ground then, as he blustered, “Do you really think people will believe some slut who’s just trying to get her fifteen minutes in the spotlight? Or are they much more likely to believe a senator? It will be your word against theirs.”
She knew the word slut was supposed to hurt her, but she was bulletproof now. The scared girl who had broken down when he’d dumped her was gone, and in her place was a woman who would fight to the very end to protect the child she loved.
“Actually,” she said in a remarkably cheerful voice, “it will be their word against themselves.”
“Bullshit. You have no proof that they did anything wrong. Giving you money to help you out is not a crime.”
“When your parents came to my house, I was transcribing an interview. I had the recorder in my hand.” She enjoyed watching the color drain from Richard’s face. “They were so full of themselves that it never occurred to them that I would fight back, or that I would record their ‘offer.’ And you know how recognizable your father’s voice is.”
“I always knew you were trash,” Richard snarled at her. “All it ever took to get you into bed was the price of a fancy meal and a couple of glasses of champagne.”
She could have shot back a half-dozen barbs, but she was done with him. Completely done.
Besides, she knew that the reason he was trying to wound her now was because he finally understood that he couldn’t fight her for Mason, not if there was a chance of the former senator’s recording coming to light. Richard might not have known too much about her, but he clearly knew she wasn’t a liar. She wouldn’t make a threat like this if she didn’t intend to back it up.
Still, Grace would make sure the legal pieces were in place right away so that she would be armed and ready to fight for custody just in case he tried to take her to court for parental rights.
“I’ve given you your one and only warning to stay away from us,” she told him now. “And I wouldn’t make the mistake of pushing me. I might have been a pushover once, but I’m not anymore. If you so much as try to contact either me or Mason again without my permission, I’m going to let the entire world listen to the esteemed former U.S. senator and his wife try to make absolutely certain that I didn’t have the baby none of you wanted.”
With that, she stepped back into her apartment and closed the door in his face.
The shaking didn’t start until she tried to lock the door. It took her two tries to get the bolt into the slot, all the while thanking God that Mason hadn’t woken up. If he had started crying while she was facing down her ex, Richard would have realized that she’d been lying about Mason being with a babysitter and might very well have pushed in to see him.
She’d dealt with Richard all by herself and knew she’d dealt with him well. But in the aftermath of the confrontation, Grace needed desperately to lean on someone, to know that she wasn’t alone. Because even though she’d taken care of the situation with her ex, she needed Dylan. Not only to call him to tell him what had happened, but also to hear his calm, reassuring, loving voice before she got on the phone to do whatever it took to persuade the top child custody lawyer in the country to take her case.
Grace went to get her phone and that was when she saw the bag from the pharmacy sitting on her kitchen table. Oh God, how could she have forgotten?
She still needed to take the pregnancy test.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dylan had been counting the minutes until he could be with Grace again.
If Mason was still napping, he figured they’d barely get the front door closed before her clothes were off and he was inside of her. Later, after they’d spent the rest of the day playing with Mason and then put him to bed for the night, they’d move to a slow seduction. One in which pleasure would spiral out for hours and hours.
But the second Grace opened the door, despite how incredibly beautiful she looked in her dress, all those fantasies disappeared. She didn’t say anything, just stepped aside to let him in. When she closed and locked the door, her hands were shaking.
“What’s wrong? Is it Mason? Is he sick?”
“No. Mason’s fine.” She put her hand on Dylan’s arm before he could run into the bedroom to check for himself. “He’s perfect.”
Relief swamped him a beat before he realized that she wasn’t speaking to him as though they were lovers. Or even friends. Instead, that wall she’d had up during their first interview was back. And she’d taken her hand off his arm too fast when she should have been pulling him closer instead.
“Talk to me, Grace. I can see that you’re upset. What happened?”
Her face crumpled for a second before he watched her visibly work to pull herself together. “I was going through my calendar, looking at my deadlines, when I realized...” She looked up at him, the emotion in her eyes piercing straight through him. “I thought I was pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” The thought of Grace carrying his child rocked his world so much that it took him a few seconds to take it in. “We’re going to have a baby?” He hadn’t seen this happening, but he was happy. Couldn’t remember ever being this happy.
“No.”
He was halfway to pulling her into his arms. “Wait. I thought you said—”
“I took a test. Two, actually. They’re both negative. I’m never usually late, but maybe the stress of everything lately has made my system go off schedule.”
Dylan knew he needed to control his disappointment, but he’d never lied to Grace before and wouldn’t do it now. “Ever since I met you and Mason, I’ve wanted you in my life. I’ve thought about being his father a hundred times, but I never thought past that. Hadn’t thought about you and I making our own baby together. But when you said that you thought you were pregnant, when I thought that it meant you were...” He drew her against him the way he’d been about to just moments before. “It was the best news I’d ever heard.”
“How?” She looked utterly confused. “How could it be?”
“You make great kids, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“But we haven’t known each other that long. I mean, I know we’ve had fun—”
“Yes, we’ve had fun. And I hope we always will. But what we are, what we have, is so much deeper, so much bigger and stronger, than just having fun.”
She didn’t pull away, but she wasn’t putting her arms around him, either. “When I realized I was late, when I thought that I was pregnant again from out of the blue, I thought I had ruined everything. That you’d think this is what I do—I pretend to protest that I’m not easy, then go around sleeping with every successful guy I interview in order to reel them in.”
He took her face in his hands. “I would never think that. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve known each other, how long we’ve been dating. I knew you were the one the second I saw you. Both of you. You’re it for me, Grace. And,” he added with a grin, “if you wanted to try to change the results on the pregnancy test for next time, I’m all for it.”
But instead of the answering smile he hoped for, she still looked as serious as he’d ever seen her. “What else is wrong? It’s not just thinking you were pregnant, is it?”
She took a deep breath, one that shook in her chest. “The party I went to last week for Mia at Tatiana’s set—some pictures leaked from it. I don’t know who could have taken them, maybe one of the wait staff? All I know is that there was one of me and Mason.”
“Your ex,” Dylan instantly guessed. He had to work to keep his hands from fisting at the thought of the bastard coming after her and the baby. But it didn’t work. Couldn’t work when the fear that something bad might happen to them was the worst feeling he’d ever known. “He saw the picture, didn’t he?”
“I was freaking out thinking I might be pregnant when I heard the doorbell ring and thought you were back early. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him standing there. Not just because he’d managed to track us down so easily, but because I couldn’t believe he had decided he wanted Mason after all.”
Fury continued to rise swift and hot within Dylan as he said, “He doesn’t deserve one damned minute with Mason.”
“That’s what I told him—that the second he told me to get rid of the baby, he ceased to be his father. Richard thought I was going to be afraid of him. He thought I’d just give in. He thought I was still the naïve girl who had fallen for him without looking deeper than the fancy dates, the pretty words. But he was wrong.”
Looking at Grace, listening to her paint a picture of the showdown, Dylan could see exactly what her ex had faced: the fearless fire in her eyes, the determination to stand strong in every line of her face and body.
“He never knew you at all. Never knew one damned thing about you. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. And when it comes to your son, you’ll do anything to protect him. Only a massive idiot wouldn’t understand that—or someone who is too self-involved to pay attention to anyone else.”
“I still don’t know how I didn’t realize that about him, that all he cared about was himself. What he wanted. His own image. Taking whatever he wanted from whomever he wanted without ever giving anything back, while convincing himself that he was a great man because he gave away family money that he never had a hand in earning.”
Dylan was glad, frankly, to hear th
e anger in her voice after what she’d had to face today. Anger would help keep her strong for the time being. And it was a hell of a lot better than being afraid.
“He knew his parents had tried to pay me off, of course. Knew all about their untraceable checks, because mine wasn’t the first they’d had to hand out, as Rafe discovered when he investigated him. But Richard didn’t know everything, couldn’t have known I recorded my entire conversation with them.”
Despite everything, Dylan couldn’t hold back his smile at how clever she was. “You recorded them?”
“I was doing some transcription from an interview that day they came to see me. They didn’t see the recorder in my left hand. The former senator’s voice is extremely recognizable. So I knew that if I ever had to protect myself from them, the recording would do it.”
“I love you, Grace. So damned much, it blows my mind.” He kissed her then, partly because he could never resist her beautiful mouth and partly because he needed to reassure himself that no harm had come to her. “You scared the crap out of him, didn’t you?”
“I’m pretty sure I did. And I’m going to hire the best child custody attorney to make sure that they scare him, too. I’ve been saving up for this. I have a legal defense fund ready to go.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t head him off at the pass, Grace,” Dylan told her. “Lord, I wish I had. My brothers and I, we were going to meet tomorrow to figure out what to do to make sure something like this never happened. But we were too late, and you ended up having to face him alone.” And he’d spend the rest of his life making this up to her. “Rafe deals with broken families all the time, so he’ll know who the best custody lawyer is to make sure you and Mason never have any problems with the Bentleys, no matter what they might try to pull in the future. I’ll call him right now, have him shoot you to the top of his firm’s priority list.”
She had closed her eyes for a moment, and he could see how pale, how shaken she still was. He was rubbing his hands down her arms, when she opened her eyes and looked into his.
