“Can someone show me to the room?”
“You know where the room is,” Keir says, and I feel all eyes on me.
“I’ll be staying wherever Wren’s room is located.” I smile and head toward the house. It’s been so long since I’ve been in here. This place held me hostage, but also opened me up to so many things.
First, that my ex-husband was an asshole.
Second, I had somehow fallen in with the mafia boss who held me hostage.
And third, I wanted his hands to roam my body and keep doing it forever.
“You really do like to make him antsy,” Joey comments, following close behind me with the bags. I walk past Keir’s room. The same one I stayed in with him and wonder if she will be in there as well.
We did things in that room—things that gave me Wren.
I step closer to the door and look inside. Not much has changed apart from how now there is a vase of flowers on the window ledge where I used to sit. Shaking my head, I step out of his doorway and keep walking to the next room. When I look inside, I smile because it’s the prettiest little girl’s room I’ve ever seen.
“Look, Wren, isn’t this pretty?” I smile at her as I step inside the room.
Joey places her bags on the floor, and I move over to the large seat.
“It folds out to a bed. Though, there’s also a spare room next door,” Joey informs me, nodding to the couch slash bed combo.
“Just leave my things in here, thanks. This is fine.” I place Wren on the floor in front of a bunch of toys. She immediately grabs for them while I ready her bottle and grab a clean diaper from the bag. “Can you watch her while I heat this up?” I ask. He nods and walks in, looking down at Wren. “You can get on the floor with her. She won’t bite.” I laugh before I make my way to the kitchen. While waiting for the bottle to warm, I hear arguing.
Stepping closer to the door, I listen…
“You want me. I’m your fiancée, remember that, Keir.”
My spine straightens.
“I’m working, Paige. Go away.” His voice is cold, hard, almost flinty in sound. Keir is so unemotional when he talks to her that he sounds angry, confused, but dominant. He doesn’t talk to me like that.
“We could have some fun. You have that big shower. I’m sure we could play in there.” I hear her make kissing sounds and it makes me shiver.
“Get off of me. Fucking hell, Paige. Fuck off.”
“She doesn’t want you, but I do. Remember that.” I hear her heels and quickly grab the bottle before I head back out the other door so I don’t run into either one of them. When I return to the room, I find Joey passing Wren a doll while Paige sits on the couch, her legs crossed, watching. When she sees me, her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t make a move to leave.
“Thanks, Joey,” I say, bending down and reaching for Wren. I glance at Paige and then walk out, not wanting to even deal with asking her to move—I am not wasting my energy on that.
“You don’t want to be near me,” Paige calls after me, but I keep moving. I make my way to the living area and take a seat, and the bitch follows like a bad smell. “You’ll have to get used to me, you know. I’m marrying her father.” Her eyes fall to Wren. “Maybe he and I can raise her.”
Everything in me locks tight at her words.
Take my child?
Not a chance in hell.
I would rather die a thousand deaths than hand her over to this woman.
A thousand deaths.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I say through gritted teeth.
Wren drinks her bottle, having no idea what’s happening around her.
Lucky for her.
“Why must you talk to me like that when I’m only trying to be nice?” she says, and something in her voice changes.
“You are as nice as a fucking scorpion. Pretty from a distance but poisonous up close.” Her eyes go hard, and she looks behind me.
I turn and Keir’s standing there watching the interaction. “Get your fiancée away from me,” I demand. “And tell her to stay out of Wren’s room while you’re at it.”
Paige smiles softly at Keir. He doesn’t speak, just takes one look at me, our eyes locking, before he opens his mouth to say, “Go… make yourself busy, Paige.”
I hear her growl, then huff.
“Paige,” Keir warns her.
When I look away from Keir to find her gone, I sigh in relief.
“I know you don’t see me as a threat, and I’m not even on your radar,” I say, looking down at Wren and smiling at her before I look back at Keir. “But if you ever think you can take my child away from me, I will find a way to slice you in every way possible, and I will smile when you take your last dying fucking breath.”
“That turned dark quickly.” He takes the empty seat where Paige was.
“What can I say, gotta keep you on your toes somehow.” I smile but it’s all fake as I am steaming mad. He smiles back and it’s the first one I’ve seen from him in the last few days that actually looks real. His hand scrubs down his face, and I can tell something is stressing him, but I’m not sure I want to know what.
Or that I even care.
No, that’s a lie. I care. More than I should.
“Is there a reason we are all here?” I ask.
Wren reaches up and pulls on my hair after she finishes her bottle, and Keir watches our interaction with eyes that hold so many secrets. I wonder if he will ever tell me anything.
“I need you safe. What better way than here with me.” I stifle a yawn and place Wren on the floor. She’s doing that thing where she gets on all fours and starts rocking back and forth, wanting to move, but not quite doing it.
“You didn’t care about me months ago.”
“That’s a lie,” he snaps.
I look down at Wren. “I raised her by myself for months. Where were you once you knew about her?” I shouldn’t be having this conversation with him right now. But then again, why not? I thought I could get by without asking him, but I just can’t.
“I had Joey with you.”
I nod. That is true, but I hardly spoke to Joey. Yes, he drove me places and got things when I needed them, but that was it. It’s not the same and he knows it.
“Why weren’t you there?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you, or to be around you.”
Wow! Um, okay, didn’t expect that answer at all.
“I thought that way anyway. Figured if I thought it long enough, it would come true. Plus, you had a girl, and I shouldn’t want a girl.” His eyes go soft as they fall to Wren. “I want Wren with every fiber of my being…” his dark eyes lock on mine, “… and I want you even more.”
My head starts shaking and he rises from his seat and moves over to me. I look up as he leans down, his face coming close to mine. “I want you, Sailor. I want you more than anything.” He reaches for my hand and places it on his crotch—his cock, to be precise. I’m so shocked by what he’s doing that I just stare at where my hand is being held and gasp. He leans down farther, his lips coming near my ear. “Tell me you want me too.”
“You have a fiancée,” I state. “This can’t happen.”