Lulu

Something warm covered my hand. It felt good to be warm again. I let it surround me, soak into me, and I drifted back to sleep.

When I woke next, it was to the sound of voices, murmuring, deep voices, and the heat that had covered my right hand was gone. I missed it. The voices stopped. It was quiet again. I tried to open my eyes, but they still felt kind of heavy, so I stopped trying and sunk back, letting myself drift away again.

The warmth was back the next time I woke. Something was stroking my wrist. It felt nice, really nice. The heavy weight of sleep wasn’t so heavy this time. I dragged my lids open, blinking several times, and took in my surroundings.

I was in a smallish room, the walls pale blue, a vertical blind covering the window. A beeping sound that had seemed distant grew louder. I tried to move, but I couldn’t, I was stiff and sore.

I knew where I was. A hospital.

That’s when it came flooding back, hard and fast. Everything that had happened. Pierce . . . what he’d tried to do to me.

The hairs on my arms lifted. I jerked my head to the left. A bag full of liquid hung on a stand beside the bed. A tube came out from the bottom, the other end fed under the skin of my hand, attached with white tape. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get to Josh. I reached down to tear it out.

“Don’t.”

That rough, low voice moved right through me, twisted in my chest, curled warmly in my belly. I froze, and the gentle stroking started up again, brushing the inside of my right wrist. Or had it been there the whole time? My mind was still too hazy to remember. The goose bumps on my arms turned to pleasant tingles.

I knew who it was sitting beside me. I’d always known.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. So I dipped my head, eyes focused on my right hand instead.

It looked small, pale. The hand surrounding it was big, tanned, with long wide fingers. Tattoos. Lots of tattoos.

I stared down at them, and tried to make sense of it. My mind was coming up blank. Why would Hunter hold my hand? Why was Hunter even here?

I sucked in a panicked breath and tried to yank it away, but those long, thick fingers tightened, refusing to let me go.

“Look at me, baby.”

The heat curling in my belly intensified, but I shook my head.

“You’re killing me here, Lulu.” His other hand slid under my chin, and he tipped my face back gently, making me look at him. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my face.

Oh God.

He was back. My Hunter.

“I know,” he rasped. “Baby, I know.”

My eyes stung. At his words, they filled and overflowed, tears running down my cheeks. I shook my head again. “You don’t.”

“I do.”

He thought he did, but he didn’t. I remembered now, what I’d told him when he found me, but I hadn’t told him all of it. “It’s too late,” I whispered.

He gripped my chin between his thumb and finger, blue eyes locked on me, and shook his head. “It’s not. I won’t let it.” Then he leaned in and brushed his lips over mine, so gentle it was just a whisper of a touch, but he lingered, our breath mingling.

I blamed the pain medication they must have given me for my sluggish reactions, and why it took me a few seconds to wake the hell up and put a stop to it. “Please don’t,” I groaned.

“I fucked up, Lulu. I know I fucked up,” he said against my lips.

I pulled back and winced, pain throbbing through my skull. “You were going to hand me over for money. You were just going to give me to a man who has lived the majority of his life doing the shit he does, and you weren’t going to look back.” It hurt to speak, everywhere hurt, but I had to get it out. “You know why I did what I did. And I’m glad you do. I wanted to tell you every day for the last three years. But I don’t know you, not anymore. And you don’t know me.”

His hand squeezed mine. “You were bait.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Bait. I was never gonna hand you over. Once I drew Pierce out, I was cutting you free. But you freaked out, and I lost control of the situation.” He was breathing heavily. I could tell he was trying to rein his emotions in. “But, baby, I was never gonna to hand you over to that fucker.”

I shook my head again, not wanting to hear it, not wanting to believe it. Believing it made everything harder, more complicated. “No. No, you were going to . . .” He kept talking right over me.

“Now I know why you did what you did. And, Lulu, I’m not cutting you lose.” His eyes shone with a fierceness that made my heart flip around in my chest. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

No. I didn’t. Not at all. Did he think we could just brush three years of resentment and anger under the carpet and move on? I didn’t know if I could do that. I knew he couldn’t. No matter what he thought now. Yes, I loved him. I always would. But I realized, when we pulled up outside that abandoned lot and saw Pierce’s man there to take me away, how goddamn angry I was, about all of it.

I bit my lip and winced, tasting blood. Hunter growled like a slightly crazed, highly pissed-off wild animal.

“Fuck,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m gonna find that fucker and end him. I promise you that.”

I shivered, all the warmth draining from me, along with what little energy I had left. He wasn’t the Hunter I once knew. He was a hell of a lot more dangerous. I didn’t know how he made his money. Aunt Sara said they were P.I.’s, but I didn’t know if that was true or not. What I did know was they carried weapons, had ways of contacting criminals like Pierce. And whether I was bait or not, they had obviously been in similar situations before. Scary, dangerous situations that could end with people losing their lives.

Hunter came from the world I wanted to escape. Had been in that world his whole life. He’d worked for Pierce once, had crossed that line. Maybe he was one of the good guys, maybe he’d left that part of his life behind. I didn’t know for sure, but he was still in that world. I didn’t want that for me, and I didn’t want that for my son. “I can’t deal with this.”

“You don’t have to deal. I’m gonna deal for both of us.”

I didn’t want to talk about us either. “I stuck a pen in his cheek,” I blurted. I don’t know where it came from, or why I said it. It just kind of poured out of me, like I was purging it. I had no room inside me for it. I had too many nightmares already; I didn’t need this as well.

Hunter was silent several beats. “What did you say?”

“Pierce, he had me on the floor, he’d pulled off my tights. I had his pen. I hid it. I grabbed his hair, held him steady, and shoved it in his face,” I shuddered. “That’s how I got away. I shoved a pen in his face.” The more I said it, the more I started to freak out. I started to breathe erratically, panic making it hard to draw a deep enough breath. “I wasn’t going to let him rape me. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.”

Not again. Never again. The words thundered through my head, and for a moment I worried I’d screamed them out loud.

Hunter exhaled roughly. “Thank fuck,” he rasped, hand tightening around mine. “Thank fuck, baby . . . I thought . . .” He ran his thumb over my cheek. “You did good. You did real good.”

It was too much, having him here, treating me like I mattered, like nothing had happened. There were questions behind his eyes, about Pierce, about what happened, questions I wasn’t ready to answer. “Let go,” I whispered. I tried to shove him away, but my arms felt like spaghetti.

He ignored my pitiful attempts to push him away, those big, warm hands moving over me, giving me comfort. And it was working. It felt good, so damn good. That just made me freak out more. I didn’t want his comfort. I couldn’t afford to believe in him. “Let me go,” I said again.

“Lulu . . .”

“Let me the hell go,” I shrieked.

He did, instantly. But those beautiful blue eyes stayed fixed on me, searching my expression. I don’t know what he saw, but it made him curse repeatedly.

The door opened and the nurse walked in. “The police want to speak with you, honey, but they’ve agreed to let you have some visitors first.”

I didn’t have a chance to reply before the door was pushed wider and Van walked in. His gaze landed on me, scanned me from head to toe, then swung to Hunter. The look he gave his brother was intense, communicating something I had no hope of understanding. Hunter’s big body stiffened in his seat a second before I spotted movement behind Van . . .

Sara walked in.

Her eyes were round with fear and worry. She had Josh cradled in her arms.

Oh God.

Hunter

My eyes swung from my brother, to the door, then to Sara walking in behind him.

She was carrying a little boy.

I looked back at Lulu, at the warmth, the softness transforming her eyes when she saw him, at the way her lower lip quivered as she attempted to smile, lifting her arms out to him.

The way she refused to look at me.

Van moved in beside me.

What the fuck was going on?

“Mama’s okay,” Lulu whispered. “It’s okay, baby. I’m okay.”

Everything inside me seized, locked solid.

Mama?

I watched in stunned silence as Sara brought the child over to Lulu. Both women had tears running down their faces.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Sara said.

Lulu squeezed her hand. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

Sara kissed Lulu’s forehead and placed the boy carefully on her niece’s lap, his little legs surrounding Lulu’s waist. Lulu leaned in, burying her nose in his dark hair, breathing him in. “It’s okay, Josh,” she said softly. “It’s okay now.”

I started at the pair of them, my brain still struggling to comprehend what the fuck I was seeing, what this was. Then Van’s hand squeezed my shoulder. I turned to my brother. As soon as his eyes met mine, it hit me all at once, like a motherfucking hurricane, destroying everything in its path. Washing away everything, leaving only the truth.

Lulu had a son.

A son with dark hair and bright blue eyes.

A little boy that looked like me.

Josh wasn’t her son—he was our son.

My gut twisted. I had to lock my fucking knees so I didn’t go down.

I turned back to them, watching as Josh leaned back, lifting a chubby little hand to Lulu’s cheek. “Mommy. Owie.”

Lulu blinked rapidly. “Yeah, baby, Mommy has an owie.”

His little face brightened. “Kiss.” He leaned in and planted a wet kiss to his mother’s bruised cheek.

“Did you kiss Mommy better?” she whispered.

Josh nodded his head, his dark curls bobbing, then he leaned in, resting his head on her chest and popped his thumb in his mouth. Lulu brushed her hand over his hair, kissing him again.

“Lulu?” Her name was torn from my throat. My voice was guttural, question and demand combined.

She still wouldn’t look at me. “Not now,” she whispered.

I was breathing heavily, so many emotions firing through me. My hand dropped to the bed, not touching them, but resting beside Lulu’s hip, a centimeter from Josh’s leg.

Mine.

The word roared through my head.

They were mine, both of them, and because of Pierce, I’d been forced to give them up. I’d been without my woman for three fucking years. Didn’t even know I had a son.

Rage exploded though like a gale force wind, and my fingers curled into a tight fist. Pierce would pay with his life for that. I let my hand drop away. I needed to get the hell out of here, before I lost my shit, before I scared them both.

Turning, I walked out and kept on walking.

“Hunt, wait up.” Van’s voice echoed down the hall after me.

I spun to face him. “You knew?”

He shook his head. “I only found out when Sara called the office about Lulu. She thought Lulu told you while we had her locked down.”

I gritted my teeth. “You should have told me.”

“There wasn’t any time. I thought she’d tell you when she woke. I sure as hell didn’t expect you to find out like that.”

I started back down the hall.

“Where are you going?”

“I need some air.” I kept on going until I was outside, sucking in oxygen, my head spinning.

I tilted my head back, the sun beating down on my face. For a moment, the anger subsided and I let the emotion trying to fight its way through, loose. An emotion I was almost too afraid to believe in, but couldn’t contain another moment.

Joy.

Despite everything that had happened, despite all the pain and lies and heartbreak, it built and grew, took root.

For a long time, too long, I’d felt like I was standing in a storm, clouds so black and low and heavy I could barely see my own hand in front of my face. For the first time in three years, the clouds were parting and the light, the warmth was breaking though.

I had my Lulu back.

And there was a little boy back in that hospital room with my eyes.

The man who carried the title of father in my life had been an abusive asshole. He’d hated me from the minute he found out I was in my mother’s womb. The man who planted me there, even worse, a monster in the shadows, no face to put to the pain and agony he inflicted on my family.

I’d carried that anger and hate inside me all my life, had never known what it was to truly be loved until I found Lulu. Then I’d lost her and all that anger had returned, along with a need for revenge that consumed me, became part of me.

But that anger that I’d lived buried under, it didn’t come close to how I felt about Lulu . . . or that little boy.

To be what they needed. To be what my own father never was.

It was so much bigger.

Lulu

I woke when Van stood and opened the door.

After Hunter walked out earlier, I spent time with Sara and Josh, trying not to think about what would happen next, the conversation I was going to have to have with him.

Van had followed Hunter, but returned a short time later and stayed.

He stayed while the police questioned me. He remained when my aunt and son left. He also didn’t say a word. Hunter’s older brother was an intimidating guy. Just as tall as Hunter, the same striking blue eyes and dark hair, but his skin was darker, his coloring obviously from their Hispanic father. I’d never met the man, and I was glad of it. But I’d seen photos. Even in his pictures, he’d exuded an unyielding hardness and a cruelty that caused a prickling unease just looking at them. Van and Hunter both had that same hard exterior, whether inherited or due to the tough lives they’d led, I didn’t know.

But neither one of the King boys was cruel. Their father hadn’t passed that on. I didn’t know what Van was thinking, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself. The whole time, he sat silently in that corner, texting, making phone calls, going about his business.

I hadn’t been able to summon up the courage to look at him. I faked sleep for the last hour.

If I looked at him, maybe I’d see exactly what he thought about me. Right then I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want it.

I heard him approach the bed, standing there for few moments. Making sure I was asleep? I’d obviously fooled him, because finally he left, the door clicking shut behind him.

I had no idea what time it was, but the blinds were open and it was dark outside. Jude, a big guy who also worked at Hunter’s agency, had shown up when it was still light to take my aunt and Josh home, promising me he’d keep them safe. The guy was huge, and extremely intense, and I believed him. I trusted him immediately. That was rare for me—these days I trusted no one. He picked up my son and cradled him in his big arms in a way that told me it wasn’t the first time he held a child. He’d placed his hand on Sara’s shoulder and, after telling me he’d bring them back to visit the next day, steered her out the door.

I didn’t understand fully what was happening, but for now, it seemed the men from the King Agency were taking care of my family and me. I wasn’t stupid enough to turn that down, no matter how uncomfortable it made me.

Yes, I was lying in a hospital bed, my body battered and bruised, but for the first time in a long time, I was safe. Van had stayed, guarding me, so I remained that way.

But the weird thing was, I was more terrified now than I had been when I was on the run. I may not know what the future held, but I did know I would have to tell Hunter the rest of my story.

I heard the door open and close and I stilled.

If Van knew I was awake, he might take it as an invitation for conversation.

Footsteps moved up beside me and stopped. “You’re a shit actress.” Hunter’s voice was low and rough and slid over me like a silk sheet. “We need to talk.”

We did, but I didn’t want to, so I kept up my shit acting, and didn’t move a muscle.

I felt him move closer, and when he spoke again, he was right there. “I’m not going anywhere, Lulu.”

Shit.

“Look at me.”

I had no damn choice. It wasn’t like I could get up and walk away. I released the breath I was holding and rolled to my back. Then wished I hadn’t. The look aimed at me was not only intense and determined, it was kind of scary. Okay, a lot scary.

I blinked up at him, trying to find the right place to start, the right words, but he started talking before I could think of a single word to say.

“The night before the police came for me, I remember how you were. I knew there was something up with you, but I let it slide, thought you’d talk to me about whatever was bothering you when you were ready. You always did.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “That night, you climbed into my bed, and you fucking clung to me, and still I kept my mouth shut. I waited.” He didn’t try and touch me, he kept that short distance between us, body held so tense I thought he would erupt out of his skin any minute.

“Hunter . . .”

“I failed you, Lulu.”

Because of me, he’d gone to prison and now he was blaming himself? I thought this couldn’t get any harder, but then he started talking again.

“It happened that night. I know it did. I let you lead. Knew you needed it. Gave it to you. You had your eyes locked on me the whole time I was inside you. I would’ve had to have been blind not to see it. You loved me, more than anyone ever loved me in my entire life, and you hid none of it that night.” His jaw got hard and he hissed out a pained breath. “You were trying to tell me, and I failed you. I was your man. You needed me, and I wasn’t there. You were terrified, and you were fucking willing me to see.”

He was right. I remembered, too. I’d wanted him to question me, to force me to tell him, and at the same time terrified he would. “Stop,” I whispered.

“We made him that night. We made our son.”

A hot tear streaked down my face. “Please, stop,” I tried again.

“We made that beautiful little boy.”

I shook my head, trying to block it out. I couldn’t listen to this.

“Because of Pierce, I didn’t get to watch your belly grow round. Didn’t get to put my hand on you, feel him moving. I didn’t see him come into this world. Wasn’t there to help you, support you. That all changes now, you understand? That’s over. You and Josh, you’re mine. I take care of what’s mine.”

I was jerking my head from side to side in denial, blood thundering in my ears. “No . . . no.”

“This is happening, Lulu. I know we’ve got a lot of shit to sort out, but this is happening.”

“No . . .” Goddammit, why couldn’t I just say it?

“Jesus, we have a son, Lulu,” he said, something like awe in his voice.

Say it. Just say it. I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. Nothing, nothing would come.

His expression changed, something flickering in his eyes. “Lulu?”

“I . . . I . . .” I don’t want to say it. Please, don’t make me say it.

He stared at me, expression shifting. “He is he mine. Isn’t he?” he rasped. “It’s not a hard question.”

I had to give it to him straight. Nothing, nothing would sugarcoat what I had to say. “I don’t . . .” My voice came out shaky as hell. “I don’t know.”

His eyes drifted closed and his fists clenched tight at his sides. When he opened them again, they were blue flames. “Your aunt gave me his birth date. I’m not dumb, I can do the math. You were mine when you got knocked up, right before I went down. Do I have that right?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Now not only my voice was shaking, my whole body had joined the party.

“You were fucking around?” He spun away, shoved his hands in his hair, and strode across the floor to the window then turned back. “Who?”

Oh God.

Memories I’d kept buried until yesterday—until I sat in that chair, in that shitty abandoned apartment and felt that bastard’s hands on me again—flooded my mind. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it out loud. I never had. Not once. That made it easier somehow, keeping it locked up, pretending it wasn’t real, that it never happened.

“Tell me,” he barked, and strode back toward me.

“I can’t . . .”

“Fucking tell me.” He got in my face, and I jerked back.

“I . . .”

“Who?” he roared.

I slammed my eyes shut. I couldn’t look at him, not when I said it. Not when I said the truth out loud. “Pierce. It was . . . Pierce.”

The room went electric, then deathly silent, the temperature going subzero in less than a second. “What the fuck did you just say?”

His anger washed over me, through me, and to my surprise, my own came roaring to the surface. My eyes snapped open, firing just as much heat back at him. Hunter was still close, in my space, and I shoved at his chest. “You heard me. It was Pierce.”

He looked ready to tear the room apart. “That’s why I got sent down? The guy you were screwing behind my back, your fucking stepfather, got jealous and wanted me out of the way?”

“No.”

“No?” he growled. “That’s how it sure as fuck looks to me.”

“Look again, asshole.” I shoved at him again. He didn’t budge, not an inch. The anger pumping through me was good. It was better than the fear and disgust, the pain I’d felt that night, hovering just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed all over again. “You think I’d willingly sleep with my stepfather? My mother’s husband? That I’d let him put his filthy hands on me? A man who I’ve despised for almost as long as I’ve known him? A man who blackmailed me into betraying you?”

I thought he’d looked scary before. I was wrong. That’s when I saw it, when he started to work it out. “The way I found you at that park.” He released a shaky breath. “You’re saying that wasn’t the first time he tried to hurt you like that?”

I didn’t answer, just held his stare.

He jerked back like I’d slapped him, eyes drifting shut for a few seconds. “Baby, no.” He didn’t sound like himself, voice low, so damn raw.

I collapsed back on my pillows, staring at the ceiling, humiliation, disgust, shame all battling inside me. “It started when I was fifteen.”

Hunter moved back in close, but I kept my hands clenched tight together. I didn’t want comfort right then.

“I was looking for one of the maids. My mom needed her for something, so I went looking. I finally found her in one of the spare rooms. Pierce was on top of her and she was struggling. He turned and saw me, screamed at me to stay where I was. Catrina, the maid, scrambled off the bed crying. That’s when Pierce threatened her not to tell anyone. He backhanded her and she fell. Her head hit the edge of the dresser. She died instantly.” I noticed how my own voice had changed. With each word, I sounded more robotic, more detached. The more I talked, the more the emotion leached away until I felt almost numb. Numb was good. “Pierce was afraid I’d talk, so he started taking me everywhere he went. He kept me chained to his side, even convinced my mom I should be home schooled, that I could learn more from him than any classroom.”

I stared out the window. “Then one day, something changed. I don’t know why. He just started looking at me different. That was the first time it happened. I was so scared of him and my mom was sick, so I did what he said. I kept my mouth shut.”

I turned back to him and forced myself to keep on going. “It didn’t happen as much when I got older. I wasn’t as easily managed. I was smarter, knew to make sure we were never alone, where to hide if I knew we would be. Then I met you. One day you were just there and everything changed. When Pierce found out about us . . . he lost it. He knew he was already losing control of me. And he hated it. So he figured out a way to get rid of you.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t have any choice. I knew what he was capable of. He told me to report back to him after I’d talked to the police, after I’d lied and said I wasn’t with you that night, demanded I see him in person. My mother wasn’t home. After he made me sign over my trust fund to him, he demanded I tell him what I said to them, all of it. I did, but after he wouldn’t let me leave. Then he . . . he forced me to the floor . . . and he raped me.”

I slid my gaze back to Hunter, shocked that I’d said it, and though I shouldn’t be, shocked at how saying it out loud made it so much more real. I’d lived with it for a long time, but I’d had no one to talk to, no one to tell, and now it hit me, hard. There was no feeling of relief at getting it off my chest. Instead, it felt like someone had dumped something heavy on top of me, and now I was suffocating.

“No.” The word exploded from him. “No,” he said again, shaking his head, face twisted in pain. His breath was hissing in and out as he battled with his own emotions. He bent at the waist, hands resting on his knees, like he’d just had a hard run, or was about to throw up.

“Hunter . . .”

“Fuck,” he groaned. He moved suddenly, took my hand, and I noticed he was shaking, too. His whole body seemed to vibrate. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t process what I was feeling and take in what he was sending out. It filled the room, heavy and thick. I’d never felt anything like it. “Fuck,” he whispered again.

I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me go. He went to his knees, head dipped, and kissed my hand.

I moaned. “Please . . . I can’t . . .”

“He’s mine.”

“What?”

Hunter lifted his head, intense gaze locked on me. “Josh is mine. Don’t give a fuck about DNA or any of that bullshit. That boy is mine. You’re both mine. And that motherfucker will pay for what he did to you. I promise you that.”

All the emotion I was trying to keep on lockdown came back full force, knocking the wind from my lungs.

He kissed my hand again. “I’m gonna take care of you now, Lulu. No more running, baby. No more.”

I closed my eyes and bit my lip, trying to use the physical pain of it to pull it back together, because right then I wanted what he was offering, more than anything. I wanted to be looked after. I wanted someone to take care of Josh and me, even if it was just for a little while. It was wrong. He didn’t owe us anything, not now.

I knew Hunter would look out for Josh, make sure he had what he needed, but I didn’t know if he truly understood what he was saying. Right now emotions were high. He was talking about possibly raising the son of the man who set him up, who he just found out raped and blackmailed his woman.

At some point, that would get to him and would tear us apart again.

But for now, I’d let him take care of us. I’d been doing it so damn long, and right then, I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore. I didn’t have the strength to fight him, either. I just . . . didn’t.

Not only did I need to feel safe, to know Josh was safe, but I knew Hunter needed to be the one to do that for us. I got that.

So just for a little while, I’d let him.

Long enough to get back on my feet, but not long enough for my son,—or me, to get attached.

It was selfish, but I’d take this for myself.

Just for a little while.