Chapter Fifty
Graham
A bang against my window startled me awake. I shot up in my seat to find Ella’s sweet face as she bounced up and down outside the car.
Fuck, how long had I been asleep? Hours. We were parked in the driveway of my Newport Beach home.
Leland laughed. “I’ve never seen you sleep like that before. And I’ve never seen Ella so excited to see either one of us.”
I took a moment to shake off the grogginess. My head throbbed a little, but the alcohol had left my veins and I was sober. Ella tapped again against the glass and my heart jumped into my throat.
I undid my safety belt and opened the door. She was in my arms the second my feet touched earth. “Poppy, you’re home.”
“Yep, I am.” I held her tightly to me, lifting her off the ground. “I missed you, Ella. No way I’m ever leaving that long again, not ever.”
After placing a sloppy, loud kiss on my cheek, she eased back in my arms and chided me with her amber eyes. “You promised you’d answer all my emails before you got home and didn’t.”
I put my nose to hers. “Yes, I did promise that. And I’m sorry. But I’m going to do it like I said I would.”
There was a sound behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see Lee standing there with my bag. “Aren’t you going to say hello to Dad?” he affectionately teased our daughter.
Ella rolled her eyes and moved from me to Lee. “I just saw you ten hours ago, Dad. I haven’t seen Poppy for months.”
She hugged him, kissed him, then took each of our hands and yanked us toward the house. “Why are you carrying Poppy’s suitcase? I’m packed, ready to get home.”
I laughed my way through that awkward question. “Can’t cut out on my mom, Ella. Not after she spent all summer taking care of you. That’s not a very nice thank you to her.”
“I’m sorry, Poppy. You’re right.” Her pretty features were shamefaced. “And I’ve loved being with Grandma.”
“We’re heading home tomorrow, Ella,” Lee said, and I wondered who he meant by we. We sure as hell hadn’t resolved anything about us while I’d snored in the passenger seat. “You start school next week and we’ve got to get your supplies and back-to-school clothes.”
It was noisy inside the house and I wondered who the heck Mom had over my first night home. Then I noticed the sound of a baby crying mingled with Patricia’s laughter.
My heart stopped.
A baby?
Oh no, Leland hadn’t.
Layla disappeared down a black hole.
And, fuck me, I’d never asked what happened to her baby. My gaze rocketed toward Lee and I didn’t know what was on my face but Ella began to laugh.
“They’re loud, aren’t they, Poppy? I should probably be angry with both of you for not asking me what I thought about this before you adopted them. But I’ve got to admit, they’re kind of all right.”
They’re?
Unless I was hearing things that was more than one baby screaming.
“I’ll take your bag to our room,” Lee announced, his charming self in the face of my panic and newly revived anger.
Our room.
Not happening.
I drilled my gaze into him.
“You should really go say hello to Mom,” he reminded me before hustling down the back hallway.
Ella tugged on my arms. “Come on. I’ll show you my sisters.”
Sisters?
She dragged me into the living room where Mom sat beside Lauren, our housekeeper, each with a pink bundle in their arms. Two girls, and I didn’t need to ask Leland where they’d come from.
The baby is mine.
Part of rescuing Layla it seemed entailed her offspring, too. Nothing could make me believe that wasn’t part of the plan from day one. No consultation. No discussion. Two more kids for Graham and Leland.
I hadn’t even forgiven him for the last bombshell he’d dropped on my life and now this. If he thought—
“Aren’t they cute, Poppy?” Ella said, plopping down beside Patricia. “One of them is Olivia and the other is Emily. But I can never tell them apart. Only Grandma can.”
Patricia beamed, staring down at the baby as though it were the most precious child she’d ever seen. “This one is Olivia.” There were tears in her eyes when she looked up at me. Happy tears unlike any I’d ever seen before. “She looks like you, Graham.”
I leaned forward, moving the blanket back from her face. Looked like me? Hello, Patricia, they’re Amerasian.
“I wish you had been able to be home when they were born,” Patricia gushed into my stunned silence. “Then when Leland told me you two wanted to name one of them after our Olivia, I darn near cried for a week. How could you miss this, Graham? It’s like a miracle, Ella’s mother being a surrogate a second time and the family backing out. And her letting you adopt them. I’m so happy.”
Miracle?
Ah, not quite, Mom. Try proof again how clever my husband was on the fly. Every loose end of Layla tied up, it seemed, in a neat knot…around me.
My emotions were a chaotic tornado à la Leland once again and my thoughts misfired through my mind. I didn’t have the strength anymore to fight them.
“Olivia and Emily, huh?”
Patricia nodded. “Olivia and Emily Carson Jensen. My granddaughters.”
Carson as their middle name. I should have known it before Mom said it. Then my gaze fell on them. Oh damn, they were cute. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Light skin like Layla.
They were Ella’s blood.
I could never reject them and not hurt her.
Lee’d left me with only one move. The clever, plotting…sexy…wonderful man I was married to knew me too well. My heart thudded in my chest as I watched my mother coo at Olivia.
Olivia.
“You need to work less and not miss the special moments again, Graham. They’re going to grow up fast. Just like Ella did.”
* * *
It was after midnight and took all four of us to get the babies at last to sleep. Leland, quite smartly, hadn’t left my bedroom since he’d hightailed it there.
Shooing Mom out of Ella’s room where two brand new cribs now resided, I softly closed the door behind me.
Waited.
Stared.
No sound.
Now it was time to have it out with Lee.
No matter what I felt or where we were, this required discussion.
I kissed my mom on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. For everything. You’ve gotta have earned the grandmother of the year award by now.”
She hugged me. “No, Graham. Thank you and Leland for all you’ve given me. Those girls are my heart. I never thought I’d feel this happy and such a sense of purpose again. I love you.”
That choked me up—how could it not? And shoot, I could feel some of my remaining rough edges smoothing out by how Patricia looked at me.
“I’m going to bed. You should, too, Mom.”
She yawned. “Yes, babies wake early. I do remember that.”
I watched her as she went down the hall and into her bedroom. Pausing for a moment to sort through what I was feeling and this mind-blowing day, I stretched my neck and shoulders that were stiff from having walked and bounced Olivia for an hour before she settled in sleep. Emily went out like a light for Mom, but no such luck for me.
I was half dragging as I walked the five feet to my room, opened the door, and stepped in.
My eyes went wide.
I’d expected something different from Lee.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed in those absurd pajamas he liked to wear, his hair looking like he’d nervously run his hand through it over and over while waiting for me.
His expression was tense and uncertain.
Fuck, he let me see it, and that never happened in our tough moments. He looked like he was bracing himself for a coming storm.
I shut the door, sank down in my chair, and started taking off my shoes. “I can’t believe you did that, adopted those girls, without talking to me first.”
He shot to his feet. “We did talk about it. For months. We just didn’t agree.”
“And that make it all right?”
The edges of his mouth turned downward. “It doesn’t. You’re right. I don’t deserve you.”
At last we agreed on something, but I didn’t let that peevish thought have voice. I pulled off my shirt, rose to my feet, and unfastened my shorts.
Lee stepped toward me. “Are you OK with the babies and what I named them? We can change that if you want to.”
I arched a brow. “Don’t see as I have much choice now. They’re a month old. It’ll screw them up if we change their handles now.”
He took another step nearer. “We could change it to Jensen Carson if that’s something you’d like.”
“No, they should have the same last name as Ella. They’re all blood sisters.”
“On their maternal side only.”
Did he really feel the need to say that one out loud? “Yes, I figured that one out the moment I saw they were Amerasian.”
His eyes misted up. “But they’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Patricia and Ella think so.”
I tossed my shorts aside and headed for the bed, climbing in on my side as though this was another regular night we shared. Punching my pillow, I turned on my side facing away from where Lee’d sleep.
Leland stared at me, his golden brows puckered. “That’s it? No more discussion?”
“I’m exhausted. Thirteen-hour flight home. Four-hour car ride. One hour getting Olivia to sleep. If you’re sleeping here, you better not talk.”
The light switched off and then I heard footsteps before the bed dipped. I wanted to ignore him behind me, but it felt like coming home having him in bed with me.
I could tell by how he fussed with the blankets he was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“For what it’s worth,” he whispered, “I wouldn’t have done any of it if I could have figured out another way to help Layla and protect you.”
“It’s comforting to know that lying to me is your last resort.”
A sharp bounce on the mattress; Lee shot upright to sit. “But I didn’t lie. Not ever. That night you counted lies I didn’t lie once. I made sure of it.”
Knowing the complete story, I could confirm that as accurate in my head. Accurate, but not right. I punched my pillow and tugged the blankets higher around me.
“This feels so awful,” he murmured in ragged dismay. “Can I at least hug you good night?”
“I’m not there yet,” I warned. “But I’m letting you sleep in my bed and tomorrow I’m going home with you to Montecito. For the girls. Not for you.”
It hurt to say that last sentence.
It was a lie. I was ready to be home, with him, back in our life—only not our life because now we were fathers of three—the second he slipped beneath the blankets beside me.
I’d never lied to Lee before.
It didn’t sit well.
Olivia’s screaming had exhausted me.
I’d tell Lee the truth in the morning that I wanted to be home with him, too. Home with my family…
I instantly fell asleep.