Eden was finally getting into the swing of things at Carver’s three weeks later. Her first night on the job had been far more challenging than Eden had anticipated. And rather than being assigned to April for her training like she’d initially thought she was going to be, Lena had placed her with Sara, the woman who Eden remembered running into when she’d come for her interview. From the moment they were introduced, Eden had been laden with the other woman’s derision and could not understand why. Eden had apologized more than once for running into her and had even attempted to make a joke out of it where she was the butt of that joke, but all she’d received was a glare. Sara had made that Friday evening a nightmare for Eden with her dismissive and downright rude replies in front of customers, to the way she would completely ignore Eden when she asked a question. It had been a difficult evening to be sure, but it’d made Eden stronger. Hell, she’d gone up against far worse than a prickly bitch of a waitress who disliked her for no particular reason.

Luckily for Eden, Sara had taken a vacation after that disastrous Friday and April had taken charge of her training. It should’ve been this way from the start, in Eden’s opinion. April showed her the ropes: taught her how to jot down orders so that she didn’t get any wrong; she explained the menu, the specials, and pointed out the regulars and how they preferred their meals; and she introduced her to Mickey, the bartender, and how to butter him up to get your drink orders in quickly when it was busy. It was essentially one big display of flirting—playing up the vapid, amply endowed, giggly girl who was there solely to fetch, serve, and entertain.

April and the other girls had it down to an art form. Eden, on the other hand, found it difficult to acclimate to the role, and thought maybe it was because it hit too close to home. The women at Carver’s were, in every sense, being objectified, parading around in those tight, short uniforms and seen as nothing more than a pretty face and body meant to be ogled and touched, meanwhile they were to take it with a smile and hope the men who frequented Carver’s found them adequate enough to fork over some money. Eden was far too familiar with this. The more she thought on it, the more it made her ill, because suddenly she was faced with the fact that maybe she’d picked this job because it was so close to what she was used to, so close to her marriage with Dominic.

But then, didn’t it go further than Dominic? Wasn’t her job at Crazy Pussy the beginning of it all? What did it say about her that she had begun using her body simply to get by, and then again to marry a wealthy man, and now resorting to old habits to work for scraps? It was a habit, easy, a crutch. She didn’t need Dominic to make her feel less than she was, because Eden was quite good at doing it herself. Honestly, what did it say about her? About her self-worth?

In a desperate grab for financial freedom and independence from her overbearing, demeaning spouse, she found herself back at square one. Eden sighed miserably, raking a hand through her hair. Most of the time she could push those thoughts away, and she could manage the daily grind without being bogged down by all this self-incrimination, but sometimes it got the better of her, sometimes it was just too much.

Hopping out of her car, she headed for Carver’s. She forced herself to think of the bigger picture, the ultimate prize that awaited her. A divorce from Dominic and money enough to start her own business. The papers had been drawn up, spelled out to her in very plain English, and signed by the attorney, herself, and Dominic. There would be no loophole for him to weasel out of giving her what was in the contract, what was rightfully hers. All she needed to do was withstand the next six months with him, and she would be free. The only downside was the clause that prevented her from suing him for sole custody of Liam in the future. But Eden was sure Dominic would lose interest in their son soon enough.

Saturday night was packed, but Eden expected no less. And with what she hoped was her best smile, she dove right into the job, leaving her baggage at door to be picked up once again on her way to the mansion later this evening. Confident enough that she could handle her own section, Lena had taken April away and Eden was left to her own devices. But maybe, Eden thought dejectedly, that move had been made too premature as she found herself dropping yet another plate of food—her fourth one so far—and it wasn’t even two hours into her shift. Muttering a curse under her breath, she stooped down to clean up the mess, all the while attempting to hide the rising heat in her cheeks as she felt a dozen or so pair of eyes on her. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t left her shit at the door.

“Damn it.” She shook her hands, attempting to rid herself of the tension that tightened her body, but she found it futile as her hands continued to tremble terribly. Stress, she reasoned, it was only stress. Everything was coming to a head, and she couldn’t stop the emotions from leaking out.

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

Eden spun around at Lena’s blistering tone. “I’m sorry…I’m just…” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Lena. I’m fine now.”

“Get your shit together, Eden. I don’t have time to babysit you. You told me you could handle this job…”

“I can…I’m sorry.”

The other woman softened a little, but her frown remained. “I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to do the job you were hired to do. Whatever you’re going through, get over it. Cry, slap someone, grab a shot at the bar, I don’t care, just fucking get over it and get your ass on the floor, got it?”

“Yeah…yeah, I got it.”

“Good. Now look alive, Carver is going to be here in the next half hour, and I need this shit to run as smoothly as possible.”

“You alright, Eden?” April asked worriedly, sidling up to her when Eden emerged from the backroom some time later.

“Just a little breakdown.”

April laughed. “Look at it this way, at least you didn’t spill drinks on customers. Trust me everyone here has their horror stories. Come on, let’s do a shot.” Eden wasn’t given a moment to protest as April dragged her to the bar.

Two hours later and Eden was back into her groove, decidedly tipsy because her one shot had turned into several others, but that was because Lena had stuck her at the bar, where her easy rapport with customers earned her a shot that they boisterously encouraged her to take.

“Easy there, kid,” Mickey, a lumberjack of a man with an easy smile under his grizzled face, grabbed the shot glass from her hand and poured the contents beneath the bar. “You got to water the hell out of those shots; otherwise we’ll be picking your ass off the ground in no time.” He poured her a cup of water over ice and handed it to her. “They want a shot, you take this.”

With a grateful smile, Eden took a mouthful of water before getting back to her bartending duties. Of course she couldn’t sling drinks to save her life, but at least she was more helpful here than on the floor. Thankfully, Mickey didn’t mind her being in his space; in fact, he had her man the taps while he mixed the fancier drinks.

There was a lull in the crowd a few hours later giving Eden time to clean the glasses that had accumulated and wipe down the bar. It was while she took a moment to drink from her cup of iced water that she saw him, and as Lena previously said, he was very hard to miss. The eyes of nearly every woman in the vicinity were fixated on the man who had the perfect combination of rugged and sexy stamped on nearly every inch of his incredibly built, well-proportioned physique. He was linebacker big, broad in the shoulders and chest, the navy blue v-neck t-shirt he wore fitted him perfectly, accentuating his pecs and what was assumedly a rock hard abdomen that tapered off into a waist that held boot-cut dark rinsed jeans. His arms were as big as she was, muscled, and covered from bicep to wrists with tattoos. His hair was cut short to his head, too short to discern the color, but looking at the shadowing of facial hair around his chiseled jawline one could easily make out dark hue.

Beneath slightly angled thick dark brows was a pair of deep set bedroom eyes that were as riveting as the man himself. He had a wide, full mouth that held a grin as he spoke to one of the girls on the floor. There was easygoing air about him as he made his way through the crowd, greeting customers like they were old friends and sharing in their laughter when appropriate. Too soon he was at the bar, standing just to the side of her as he engaged Mickey in conversation, and then for the briefest of moments his gaze veered slightly in her direction, and that full mouth turned up into a crooked grin. Eden silently cursed at getting caught looking before quickly scrambling to find something to occupy herself with.

“So, you’re the new girl.” She heard seconds later, his voice like a shot of bourbon going down.

Eden turned back to face him now, far more in control of herself than she’d been a moment ago. “Yeah…I’m Eden.”

“I thought Lena put you on the floor,” he stated, his steel blue eyes trained on her.

She froze not exactly sure of how to convey that she was a walking disaster as a waitress, but could sling drinks with the best of them behind the bar. It seemed Mickey had overheard the conversation, and much to Eden’s relief, spoke up for her. “She’s better behind the bar, boss man. Just look at that tip jar.” He wandered over and set a large hand on her shoulder. “She’s green, but I can teach her the ropes back here. She’ll be bringing in the big bucks in no time.”

“You ever mixed drinks?”

“No, but I’m a quick learner,” she recovered, putting a smile for added effect, although she was sure it wasn’t executed as smoothly as she wanted to believe.

“Good, at least that’ll keep you from breaking anymore of my dishes and wasting my food.” There was wry humor in the jab, and Eden’s face went up in flames as he chuckled. “Welcome to the team,” he said over his shoulder before turning to leave.

* * *

A few days later, Eden readied Liam for a walk out in the park. As requested, Dominic had appointed Jenna Liam’s nanny, but with the increasing sourness of her best friend’s mood over the last few weeks, Eden had decided to give Jenna some time to herself. It was the least she could do after having imposed on her time for so long. Jenna had readily accepted the chauffeured ride that Eden had offered and had squealed with delight when she’d been told that her day of shopping and beauty would be covered. Eden hadn’t exactly told her best friend who would be covering it, choosing instead to let her friend assume that Dominic was picking up the tab. But in reality, Eden had spent quite a lot on the spa package, the expenses had put a large dent in her savings, but she knew she could recover it quickly enough with her tips from Carver’s. The way she looked at it, this was a small price to pay for everything Jenna had done for her, and it would be well worth it if the blond haired woman retuned feeling like her old self again. It hadn’t even crossed Eden’s mind for a moment to ask Dominic for help. She did not want to owe him more than she was already indebted; she was here solely for one reason, and Eden did not want to give him reason to curtail her endgame.

Settling Liam inside the ridiculously fancy and undoubtedly expensive stroller, Eden was faced once again with Dominic’s increasing influence in Liam’s life, and she wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not. First the crib and now the stroller, these were two of hundreds upon hundreds of things Dominic had had purchased for Liam over the last few weeks. There were the abundance of clothes and shoes that were nearly as costly as Eden’s car and then there were the toys, so many of them they had a room of their own. Eden wasn’t sure exactly what it was Dominic was trying to accomplish, but she knew it was too much too fast. But then, wasn’t this the only way she knew him to be? His wealth, his power, this was the only form of affection there would ever be from Dominic Armstrong. He’d showered Eden with materialistic things at first, too, but then had deprived her of the one thing she’d craved far more from him than the endless parade of trinkets, but that craving had ebbed considerably over the years, soured even in the face of his debasement and cruelty. Now all she wanted to do was get as far away from him as possible and attempt to protect Liam as much as she could from the inevitable disappointment.

God, she was starting to sound bitter. Eden sighed, she wasn’t this person. Too much had happened in the last five years, but she couldn’t allow her resentment and bitterness to eat away at her like this. It wasn’t good for either herself or Liam. Determined to start their day off on a better note, Eden applied the brakes to the stroller and jogged to the living room to grab Liam’s diaper bag, her wallet, and the small basket she’d prepared earlier, then hastened back to the foyer. She loaded Liam in the car seat first, making sure he was well and truly strapped in before putting the rest of the items she had in the ample truck space of her car, including the stroller.

She drove to a local flower shop and spent some time picking out a few arrangements, and with the salesperson eager to help her find whatever it was she was looking for, Eden was out of there in no time. After four months of motherhood, she was damn proud of herself in being able to multitask with an infant constantly vying for her attention. Case and point, readying the stroller, taking the car seat out with Liam in tow and locking it in place, all the while carrying the baby bag and the bouquets was one hell of an accomplishment. Feeling decidedly proud of herself, Eden smiled broadly as she pushed the stroller through the open wrought iron gates of the cemetery. It was peaceful here, quiet, and as they steadily made their way to her mother’s grave, the warm summer breeze gently swept through the trees above, and Eden believed it was her mother welcoming them.

Too soon they were at Helen Mercer’s grave, and Eden was taken aback by the beautiful flower arrangement that was already there. They certainly weren’t from her, seeing as she hadn’t visited in quite some time, so she was rather curious as to who might have left them. Her mother hadn’t had many friends, and the few she’d had, Eden knew wouldn’t be so generous as to do this.

“Hi, Mom,” she greeted, smiling as she took Liam’s car seat out of the stroller and set it beside her as she took a seat. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you in a while. Life’s been crazy.” Setting down the three arrangements she’d chosen earlier, Eden raised her hand to the thick, marble headstone, tracing the engravings of Helen Parker, Beloved Mother, with her fingertips. “I brought someone very special to meet you,” she said with a watery smile, reaching for Liam. “Mom, this is Liam, your grandson.” Eden raised a hand to swipe at the tears on her cheeks before releasing a sound that was both sigh and laughter. “He’s four months now. He’s such a sweet baby boy, Mom. He reminds me of you sometimes. There’s so much I want to tell you about him, about me…just everything.” And she did; she spoke of her pregnancy and delivery, and how she’d wished that she’d had her there to share the joys along with the pains of motherhood. How she’d wanted guidance, especially in those first few precious weeks when hormones, emotions, and fatigue had run extremely high. She refrained from divulging her marriage issues and how, hopefully by the end of the year it would all be over, nothing more than a bad memory. She kept to the subject of Liam, spoke of the simple things he did that awed her and made her smile and laugh for no particular reason sometimes. Eden spoke of nothing and everything that encompassed her child and expressed how desperately she was missed and loved.

“I promise to come see you more often. I’ll bring Liam every time I come.” With a sigh Eden rose to her knees and set Liam back into the car seat. “I love you so much, Mom, and I miss you. But I know you’re in a better place and probably looking down on us. I know you’re probably worried sick about me, but I promise I’m okay, Mom. I have Liam now, and he and I will be just fine.” With a silent prayer, Eden came to her feet and commenced her trip back to her car.

Sometime later, after a long leisurely walk around the park Eden found a nice shaded spot beneath a tree to set up her little blanket. The weather had grown increasingly warm over the last few hours, so the tree provided ample shelter from the scorching sun and had the added benefit of concealing Eden as she nursed Liam. But for added protection, she’d taken his swaddling blanket out of his bag to cover herself. While he fed, Eden sat back against the tree and amused herself in people watching. There were joggers, mothers walking with their children or pushing their strollers, elderly couples walking hand in hand around the park or sitting on benches feeding the geese over by the pond. There were others, like herself, who’d found prime real estate beneath other trees and had laid out blankets for picnics.

It was while her gaze veered back around that she saw him and tensed; even at a distant Eden was instinctually aware of him. She had only moments to assess him while his long, even strides brought him that much closer to her. Eden wasn’t even sure the word jeans and casual was part of Dominic’s extensive repertoire of vocabulary, but then if one could wear a tailored suit as well and impeccably as he did, one wouldn’t bother with such menial things. Grey sharkskin suit, royal blue silk tie, pristine white shirt, and trousers that accentuated his long, powerful legs that reeked of wealth and power made him look wholly out of place. More than a few heads turned to look at him, but it seemed he only had eyes for the lone woman seated beneath the tree, holding a covered bundle in her arms.

He was breathtakingly handsome and her heart skipped a beat as he drew nearer, thudding in her chest when he finally came to stand before her. She was at a complete disadvantage seated as she was on the ground with her child nestled to her chest, but Eden would not crane her head back to stare up at him, and he instantly figured that out as seconds later she found that he’d lowered his immense frame to the blanket, not quite sitting but poised on his haunches. “Hello,” he greeted after a moment.

“How did you find me?” she fired back, angry, but not at all surprised that he’d recanted on the promise he’d made of not following her. “You told me you wouldn’t follow me.”

“We agreed that my security wouldn’t follow you,” he countered smoothly. “We said nothing about me doing the following.”

“It’s always a technicality with you,” she said reproachfully, glaring at him.

“The devil is always in the details, my pe…Eden.”

Eden looked at him for an eternal second after that, and he stared back at her evenly, not entirely open with emotion, but showing enough that she knew the utterance of her name had been done to please her. “What do you want?”

“Far more than you’re willing to currently give me,” he murmured, reaching out involuntarily to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear, his index finger lingering on a caress down her cheek. “But for now, I simply wanted to spend time with my son.”

Eden tilted her head away from his touch. “You could have waited until I got back to the mansion.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, finding interest in the picnic basket she’d packed. “I lost patience.” He retrieved a roll of crackers and went on to tug it open. “How is he?”

“Sleeping,” she said curtly. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“Not just yet, no.” And just to prove his point, he sat down on the blanket. “When was he born?”

The unexpectedness of the question surprised Eden but she quickly recovered. “March, twenty-third,” she answered quietly.

“Tell me about him.”

“I’m sure you have a folders filled with information about him.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “but not with what matters. I want to know more about him. Tell me.”

Forced to look beneath the order to the quiet desperation she heard in his voice, Eden sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you wish to tell me.”

“He was born on March, twenty-third, at five-thirty in the morning. I was induced and ten hours later he was born. He weighed just under six pounds, but he was very long. He was very colicky at first, but we got through it. The thing with the hospital…” Eden swallowed hard, looking at everything but him, “it…it was an accident,” she murmured. “It was a few weeks after I had him. I was still trying to get used to being a mother. I was exhausted and I…I would never do anything to purposely hurt him.”

“Go on,” he urged succinctly, his green eyes focused on her completely.

“I overslept and when I woke up he wasn’t breathing. But someone came to help, and he got Liam to breathe again. We took him to the hospital soon after.”

It was as the report read, and as Dominic listened to her retell the story now with her own words, he tried not to condemn her for her mistake, but still, the thought that her actions had nearly cost him the life of the child he hadn’t even known he’d wanted until he’d finally held his son, made him want to lash out at her, use this in some way to make her pay. He filed the information for later, to further contemplate when he was alone. For now he simply looked at the mother of his child, fresh faced and astoundingly beautiful and tried not to compare her actions with the woman who’d given him birth. “Tell me more.”

The situation was quite surreal, and she didn’t know how to process it. She never would’ve imagined this in her wildest dreams—this outing, Dominic and herself and their child sitting beneath a tree, the appearance of a perfect family. It was too strange and it was probably that strangeness that kept Eden from losing her head. This wasn’t normal. She and Dominic were the furthest thing from a family, and regardless of the fact that they had a child together, there was nothing between them but a sham marriage and a contractual agreement that would come to an end in a few months. She would be a foolish woman if she allowed herself to buy into this fantasy, this misconception of bliss that was creeping in.

They returned home some time later in the afternoon, with Eden arriving at the mansion first and Dominic pulling up behind her in a sleek black car that was quiet but radiated power, he parked behind her Nissan and was there to help her unload Liam, holding him in a cradle at the crook of his elbow. “Leave it,” he said in reference to the other items that remained in the car. “Someone will come get them.”

“I can do it—”

“You’re stubbornness is unparalleled,” he pronounced with scathing frustration, putting a hand on her arm to lead her away.

“Yes, and you’re still a brute. Let go of me.”

He released her only when they were the foyer. “I’ve gone from monster to brute; I’m not sure if that’s a step up or a step down,” he drawled. “In any event, you will have ample opportunity to further assassinate my character this Saturday.”

“It’s not slander if it’s true,” she retorted, glaring at him. “What’s this Saturday?”

“The Armstrong Charity Dinner. You will accompany me.”

“I’m busy.”

“Naturally, but you will clear your schedule to accommodate me. I wish to have my wife by my side, so you will be there,” he instructed with deadly calm, his eyes likes shards of glass daring her to deny him.

She couldn’t refuse him even if she wanted to. Just as she’d had clauses inserted into the contract, Dominic had also put in some provisos of his own, and it appeared he was enacting one of them now. She could deny him the use of her body all she wanted, but he required her full cooperation outside the bedroom. She was his wife in name only, and that meant several things when it came to the Armstrong name. She was to comport herself in a certain manner outside of the mansion. She was to play devoted companion and wife when she accompanied him to the events that required her by his side. There were other things, smaller things, but this one was what made Eden feel like a puppet, and Dominic relished tugging on the strings to make her jump.

It was with a great trepidation and wariness that Eden called Carver’s the following day to request a night off. She hated being that girl, the one who called out sick when she knew damn well she’d only been at her employment for a short amount of time. Lena chewed her out and demanded blood before Eden was allowed to get off the phone. Blood translated to a double shift for the next two Saturdays and temporarily stepping back into her waitressing duties so that another girl could take the night off. Later that afternoon, Eden, Jenna and Liam piled into her car and drove to the nearest boutique to shop for an appropriate dress for the event Dominic was forcing her to attend. She’d declined the use of his credit card, choosing instead to foot the bill herself. She had a specific price range in mind and was determined to stick to it, but that resolve seemed to crumble two hours later, as she had yet to find a dress that was affordable and suitable enough for this event.

“What about this?” Jenna held a frilly gold number that looked better suited for an eighties prom queen.

Eden wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, this is cute.”

It was the furthest thing cute, but won hands down on the slutty factor. “Tasteful, Jenna. I don’t need any more reason to stand out among these people.”

“Did you enjoy yourself, yesterday?” she asked, needing to take her mind off this fiasco as she riffled through the racks with increasing frustrations.

“It was amazing, Ede. I so needed that. That spa, Euphoria, it was…magical.” She sighed happily, a wide smile gracing her lip glossed mouth.

“I’m so happy you got pampered. The massage therapists are amazing. Did you enjoy the milk bath?”

Jenna laughed. “It was luxuriant. God, I felt like a housewife,” she joked. “Dominic’s been really great. First the job, and then the spa treatment and shopping spree. I should really thank him.”

Eden peered at her best friend for a moment from beneath the veil of her lashes and was surprised to find Jenna looking back at her with a benign smile. “Don’t worry about thanking him, Jen. It’s the least he could do after uprooting you the way he did,” she said quietly, lying through her perfectly white teeth. Jenna didn’t need to know that Eden had spent this money on her, and she certainly didn’t need to involve Dominic in this.

“I’m just glad he decided to make me Liam’s nanny. I get to stay at the mansion and be closer to you guys. I’m really grateful, Eden. I know you probably had to bend over backwards to get me this job.”

Eden shrugged. “It’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me.” Which was decidedly true, Eden knew Jenna would do just about anything for her and she’d more than proven that already. “We need to stick together. Anymore contact with Alex?” she hesitantly inquired. She loathed broaching the subject, but she wanted to see where Jenna’s mental state was at. There was too much history with her and Alex to sever the ties so easily.

“I’ve deleted over a hundred voicemails in the last two weeks alone. I’ve listened to a few of them. He sounded bad, like he’s been binging on something heavy. He threatened to come after me…us…he begged me to call him.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not going to, but I think maybe we should tell Dominic? Maybe he can help somehow?”

“Absolutely not,” she said bluntly, “listen to me, Jenna. Dominic is not the lesser of two evils here, he is the evil. Alex is bullshitting you, and even if he isn’t, there’s no way he will get anywhere close to the mansion to harm you or Liam. There’s too much security for him to get through, and he’s not clever enough to infiltrate Dominic’s security team.”

“But—”

“Please trust me on this, Jenna,” Eden implored, looking at her friend. “I’ll talk to the head of his security team so he can keep an extra eye on you and the baby,” she consoled, making sure the other woman understood her stance on the matter: going to Dominic wasn’t an option. Alex was a nuisance, but he was certainly one they could handle without involving Dominic in the matter.