Thirty-Six

Jensen

Emery and I had spent the last four days in my cabin, locked away from the outside world. As stressed as I was about what was to come, Emery was right. I’d needed to get away and to try not to think about anything for a while. I couldn’t do anything to change the situation while we waited for the test results to come back in. All I could do was stress. So, here we had been, just far enough away for me to relax some.

I was still on edge, but Emery wouldn’t let me stay there. At least not for long.

We were coming down from our morning sex on the fifth day when I got the call.

“Tests are in,” Jake said. “Showtime.”

“Do you know what they say?”

“They’re sealed. We’ll find out at the same time as everyone else. But be prepared.”

I nodded and then hung up the phone. “Time to go.”

Emery stretched out in bed and yawned. Her tits looked amazing in the morning right after I fucked her brains out. “Right now?”

“Test results are in.”

“Fuck,” she said, jolting up. “Let’s go.”

“We have to get everyone together at once before we can go through the sealed paperwork. But we should get over there as soon as possible.”

She jumped out of bed and hurried to clean up the mess that we had made while we were here. Clothes were scattered all across the room, hastily discarded in our den of iniquity. Neither of us had minded. It was easier to let everything go and enjoy how much we fucked than to consider what was coming next.

But, now, that time had come.

We put the place back together in record time and were out of the cabin. It was a quick drive back to Lubbock and to reality.

After this moment, I would definitively know that Colton was Marc’s son. I didn’t know what I would do with that information. It would be up to Vanessa if she wanted to try to change the custody agreement. But this was a day I had been dreading for a long time. A day I’d hoped would never come.

We made it back to my lawyer’s office in good time. He had already spoken to both Vanessa’s and Marc’s lawyers, and we would be reconvening within the hour. I chose to wait. I couldn’t leave, knowing that we had the results waiting. I’d spent years waiting for this moment. I could wait another hour.

Vanessa and Marc showed up separately and warily looked at each other. I wondered what they had done in my time away with Emery. I hoped it had driven them both as crazy as it had me. But they hadn’t had the benefit of amazing sex to forget about it. The way they were looking at each other, I was sure they hadn’t indulged, which made me grin.

“What?” Vanessa snapped.

“Nothing,” I said, purposely glancing between them. “Just had an amusing thought.”

“Your thought was so clear on your face. Maybe turn off the broadcast.”

I shrugged. Of course she could read me. I’d wanted her to.

Jake reappeared a few minutes later with the information in his hands, and everyone took their seats. Marc was jittery. I could tell by the way he kept fiddling with his hands. He’d done that in school, too. Vanessa looked stoic, as if her relationship with her son didn’t depend on this moment. Emery squeezed my leg under the table, and I met her gaze only briefly. I was glad she was here to ground me. I didn’t know what I would look like otherwise.

Rattled and a mess.

Neither of which I ever showed to anyone else anymore.

“Thank you for joining us again on such short notice,” Jake said, beginning the meeting. “We just received the paperwork from the laboratory that did the paternity test. This is the first time any of us will be seeing it.

“As stated before, Ms. Hendricks has claimed that Colton’s father is not her ex-husband, Mr. Wright, but Mr. Tarman instead. This allegation, if true, will begin a change in the custody agreement to potentially allow Mr. Tarman rights to see his son. If the allegation is false, the custody agreement will remain the same unless Mr. Wright or Ms. Hendricks wants to return to court to renegotiate. Is that clear?”

Everyone but Emery said, “Yes,” around the table, anxiously staring at the paperwork.

He bent back the metal brackets holding the envelope secured and then opened it. A stack of papers came out, and on the top, were the results. I held my breath as Jake read through the document. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

“The paternity test came back positive for…Mr. Wright.” Jake turned to face me with a giant smile on his face. “Jensen, you’re the father. Colton is your son.”

Vanessa exclaimed from across the room, and I heard Marc cuss. But it was all background noise to me. It was like being sealed in a vacuum.

Colton was my son.

He was mine.

My boy.

I nearly broke down at the very thought that, after all this time, all this worrying, all the arguments and debates and complications…Colton had been mine all along. I’d been so sure that Vanessa was telling the truth. She had been so sure of the truth. I had let her hang it over my head for years. Years!

But she was wrong. Or she had lied. She had lied to my face all those times. Told me countless times that I hadn’t even been in New York the month that she got pregnant. My schedule hadn’t always overlapped with hers, but I’d believed her. She’d had no reason to say otherwise. Colton had been two years old before I even knew about it. By then, the exact travel dates had been lost on me. I could see them on my work schedule and the flight schedules, but we hadn’t always had sex every time I was there. It had been impossible to determine if I was Colt’s father.

Now, I knew that I was.

Colton was mine.

Emery’s arms were around me, and I stood, lifting her into the air.

“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered through the vacuum.

“God, I love you,” I murmured back, forgetting everyone else in the room.

I set her back down on her feet, cupped her face in my hands, and kissed the breath out of her. This was the moment I had been born for. The knowledge that I had the woman I loved here with me now and that I would never have to worry about my son again. It was euphoric.

“What the fuck, Vanessa?” Marc cried, jarring me out of my moment. “Why would you drag me into this?”

Marc’s and Vanessa’s lawyers were looking at the document, but it was clear from their faces that they agreed with Jake.

“I swear, it was you, Marc. I swear,” Vanessa said. “Jensen wasn’t even in town that month. We weren’t together. You know that.”

“You just wanted the drama. Fuck!”

“I really believed it was you,” she whispered. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I did.”

“You lied to all of us, Vanessa,” I said, drawing her attention to me. “You lied to me, to Marc, to everyone. But even worse was that you deluded yourself into believing it. You’re never holding this over my head again. I’m free. Free of you.”

At those words, Vanessa completely lost it. She broke down into tears and covered her face in her hands. Vanessa had been holding onto this fact for so long, thinking it was a way to keep me. As if she had thought for a second that I would still hold a flame for her after all she had done.

But it was over. There was nothing left. And she had no more control.

“If this satisfies everyone, we’ll leave the custody agreement as it stands and deny Mr. Tarman’s request for access to Colton,” Jake said. “If we want to take this further, then we’ll see you in court, Ms. Hendricks.”

Vanessa shook her head, blubbering about how she’d sworn she knew. She’d thought this would fix it all.

“Sounds good to me,” I said to Jake.

Sure, I would love to get custody of Colton and have him live here in Lubbock with me. But I didn’t want to go to court with Vanessa over it, and I wasn’t willing to disrupt Colt’s life. He was happy in New York, and he had a great school there. I wasn’t the type of person to do something like that just to make someone else miserable. That was all Vanessa.

We filed out of the office and stood in the foyer. Vanessa was shaking, talking to her lawyer.

Marc approached us. “I see you’ve taken everything from me now. Vanessa, Colton, the company.”

“Interesting how you put that,” I said. “All I see is that you were trying to take things from me that never belonged to you. And the company was just for fun.”

Marc glared and looked ready to throw a punch. Instead, he turned to Emery and grinned. “When he gets tired of you, give me a call.”

Emery arched an eyebrow in disgust. “Not even in your dreams.”

He laughed. “Oh, be sure, he’ll tire of you. He bores easily.”

“Unless you want a repeat of that time I found out you had an affair with my wife, I would step away,” I growled. “Now.”

“Don’t even waste your breath on him, Jensen,” Emery said. “He’s trying to provoke you because he’s jealous. You have the world at your feet.”

I turned to face my girl and smiled. She was right. Of course she was right. “I want you to meet my son.”

“I’d love to meet him.”

I took Emery’s hand then and left the lawyer’s office. I knew there was more to take care of, and I definitely had to get back to the office. But first things first. I needed to set all of this straight. Vanessa might be upset about it. Frankly, I didn’t care for Vanessa’s opinions any longer. Emery was in my life, and she was here to stay.

We showed up at the hotel right after our meeting, and I took Emery up to the top floor. I knocked on the door and Nanny Jennifer answer.

“Jensen! I’m surprised to see you here,” she said. “I thought Vanessa said that you couldn’t see Colton for right now.”

“Change of plans. Just got it approved by the judge that I have full access back.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Jennifer smiled at Emery. “And you must be Emery.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Emery said, holding out her hand.

“Let me go check on Colt for you two.”

I turned to Emery. “Can you stay here for a minute. I want to talk to him first.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“Colton, your dad is here!” Nanny Jennifer called.

I walked into the suite just as Colton came running. “Daddy!”

He launched himself into my arms, and I hugged him tighter than I’d ever squeezed him before. My son. Mine! No one could ever take him away again.

“Hey, champ,” I said. I set him back down. “Remember how I told you that I wanted you to meet a friend of mine?”

“Yes. A girrrl,” Colton singsonged.

I laughed. “Yes. A girl. She’s my girlfriend, and her name is Emery.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“Yep, and I want you to meet her. I think you’ll like her. Are you ready?”

Colton looked down at himself and gave me a thumbs up.

God, I loved him.

I took his hand, and we walked together to the front of the suite where Emery was waiting.

“All right, champ, this is my girlfriend, Emery,” I said to Colton.

Colton stood very still and smiled up at Emery with the brilliance that only a child could have.

Then, I looked up in Emery’s big green eyes. “Emery, this is my son.”

“You’re very pretty,” he said with a Wright grin.

Emery laughed. “Why, thank you. It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Dad said that you were going to be my new friend.”

“I would like that very much.”

“Are you going to come visit me at home?”

Emery smiled and looked up at me with a question in her eyes.

“Yes,” I answered for her. “She will most definitely be visiting you in New York. I’m going to bring her as often as I come to visit.”

“I’d like that,” Emery said as much to me as to Colton. “I’d like to spend all my time in your lives.”

We moved back into the living space and took a seat. I picked Colton up and planted him on my knee. Emery sat next to me, and I wrapped my other arm around her.

This was our life. It wasn’t perfect. It was far from easy. But it was ours. And I loved them both more than words for being a part of it.