Thirty-Two

Emery

Kimber’s contractions went on forever with no end in sight. By the next morning, I was worn out and had barely slept. I couldn’t even imagine what Kimber was feeling.

Luckily, she had finally managed to get some sleep, which was my chance to find the Starbucks downstairs and drink the entire store dry. I let Noah go first though. He’d been there longer than me, and I knew he needed to eat something even if he claimed he wasn’t hungry. As a doctor, he was used to the weird hours, but he needed to be Kimber’s rock. I’d take care of him for her.

While Noah was gone, my phone pinged. Heidi and I had been texting on and off all night. I swiped my phone and checked the screen, expecting another text from Heidi about the guy she had hit on all last night. But, instead, it was a message from Jensen.

Coffee and doughnuts?

It was as if he had read my mind. I wanted those things so bad. My stomach grumbled. But did I want the added struggle of Jensen right now when I was sleep-deprived?

He texted me again.

It’s just coffee and doughnuts. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want, but I thought you could use some sustenance.

Noah walked back in the door at that time with his own cup of coffee. “Hey, I saw Jensen downstairs. I think he’s waiting for you. So, you can go ahead. I’ll take watch.”

I ground my teeth. Of course he had presumed to show up without checking with me first.

You’re already here?

Guilty.

Fine. I’ll be down. But I’m not a person right now.

I left Noah to watch over Kimber and then headed back down to the first floor. My stomach noisily growled again. I couldn’t remember what I’d last had to eat. A candy bar or something in the middle of the night. I’d been so shaken, and I hadn’t even realized it until I’d gone to find something to help me power through the wee hours of the night.

Jensen was waiting in the lobby, holding two coffees and a bag of doughnuts. He looked…beat. He probably hadn’t slept all night either. And this was the first time I’d ever seen him with stubble. Jensen and clean-shaven went hand in hand. But, fuck, it was definitely sexy on him. Like I wouldn’t mind finding out exactly how he could use that in the bedroom. I was sure it would leave a trail of wonderful marks up my inner thighs.

Damn sleep-deprived brain was yelling at me, Sex, sex, sex.

I shook my head and tried to put everything back in perspective. I was standing on quicksand. If I kept struggling, I’d be swallowed up even faster. But, if I stayed still, maybe, just maybe Jensen could pull me back out.

“Rough night?” I asked when I approached him.

He grimaced slightly at the comment. “You could say that.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Jensen passed me the coffee, and we moved to a table inside Starbucks, which was blissfully quiet at such an early hour.

“Noah said that you’re going to be here for a while longer.”

“Looks like it.”

I reached into the bag and smiled when I saw an apple fritter and a cinnamon twist inside. My two favorite doughnuts.

“Thanks for these.”

“I thought that you might be hungry.”

I nodded. For the first time ever, there was awkwardness between us. We had one foot in the water and one foot on solid ground. Not knowing where we stood or what would come next seemed to be killing both of us.

“I know I said that we didn’t have to talk,” Jensen said, breaking the silence.

“Too much to ask for, I guess,” I mumbled.

“And we don’t have to if it’s too much, but I stayed up all night, thinking about what you said.”

“Which part?”

“Me not trusting you…or anyone,” he clarified. His eyes darted up to mine, and I could see the hours of anguish and self-deprecation that radiated from him. “I don’t think that I ever realized until last night that I absolutely do not trust anyone other than myself. Not one person. Not even my family.”

I nodded, having found out firsthand the truth of that statement.

“I wish I could say that I don’t know how that happened to me, but I do.” He sighed and glanced away, as if he didn’t want to continue, as if the next words would rip through him. “Colton isn’t my son.”

I opened my mouth, stuttered incoherently, and then closed it again. I shook my head in confusion, trying to understand how his own son couldn’t be his. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Colt is Marc’s son,” he said so calmly that I knew it must have been killing him to admit it. “I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my family. The only people who know are me and Vanessa.”

“Not even Marc?”

“Especially not Marc,” he growled low. “I’m a better dad than he could have ever been. I’d spent two years with Colt. He was my son, and I couldn’t lose him. Not to anyone.”

My heart ached for him. How could he possibly live with the fact that his son wasn’t really his? How had he kept that secret locked up for all of these years?

“What happened?” I asked, suddenly desperate for him to tell me the story. To finally have an explanation for why he was so guarded.

“Vanessa and I had been married for almost two years when she found out that she was pregnant. I had been living in Lubbock, taking over the company for my father after his death. I’d barely been in New York. We weren’t even trying. I was still too devastated by his death to think about that. When she called and told me she was pregnant, I was ecstatic. Maybe I should have been more cautious.” He shrugged, as if he had played this over and over again in his head before.

“But you weren’t.”

“No. I never suspected once that she and Marc were together. I was too grief-stricken and dealing with the company to consider what was going on with her when I was away.”

“You were dealing with all of that, and she was banging someone else on the side,” I said, furious. “What a bitch.”

Jensen looked off in the distance, the memory hitting him fresh once more. “As I told you, I moved back to New York. As far as I know, their relationship stopped after that. I don’t know if I believe it for sure, but I think Marc was worried Colton was his kid and cleared out. His dad wasn’t doing that well, so he moved back to Austin around the same time that I got to New York.” He took a long sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair.

“What a creep,” I grumbled. “So, how did you find out?”

“I was there when Colton was born. I took him home from the hospital. I changed diapers. I fed him when Vanessa was sleeping. I was there every single second that I wasn’t working. Colton is my son in every way that matters.”

I smiled at that statement. I loved the thought that Jensen had never treated his son any differently.

“Marc was in town on business for Colt’s second birthday. We all went out to dinner together.”

“And you had no idea?”

“None.”

“How could Vanessa go out to dinner with him?” I gasped.

“I think she thought it would be fine. I really don’t know. The next day, I found her sitting in Colt’s bedroom, crying. I asked her why she was crying, and she said she couldn’t keep lying to me. Then, she told me about her affair with Marc. It must have been weighing on her for a long time for her to actually break down and tell me.” He set his cup down and sighed heavily. “We probably could have survived that. It would have taken a long time, but we could have made it. But then she told me that Colt was Marc’s, and I lost it.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“No, I mean, I actually lost it, Emery. I rampaged throughout the apartment. I broke furniture. I found Marc and beat him to a bloody pulp.” Jensen clenched and unclenched his fist, remembering the bloodlust. “I never told him it was because of Colt though. He thought it was because of Vanessa, which is probably why he didn’t press charges.”

“Still…I don’t blame you, Jensen.”

And I meant every word. How could I possibly blame him for what happened? Vanessa and Marc were to blame. They had taken everything from him. Even his son. A son he had raised for two years, thinking Colt was his. No wonder he never told anyone. How could he ear the shame? The sense of loss?

I reached out and took his hand. He glanced up at me with surprise in his dark eyes. He must have thought that I would turn on him, like everyone else had in his life.

He deflated before my eyes. As if he had been so pent-up over the whole thing that finally telling someone else the truth had drained him. He tightened his fingers around my hand, and we stayed like that for a few minutes in silence.

“So, that’s the whole story,” he finally said, drawing back. “I know that you’re upset with me, and you have every right to be, but I do trust you. Or I want to. I want you in my life, but I know that we have a ways to go. But, now, you know the whole story. I feel like our train got off the rails somewhere or took a wrong turn, but I want this to work. I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have given you my mother’s necklace if I didn’t want that.”

He pulled the diamond necklace out of his pocket and let it dangle between us.

“This belongs to you.”

“Jensen,” I whispered.

He took my hand and gently laid the necklace into my palm. “It’s a promise. I’m going to make this right. One way or another.”

This was a lot to absorb.

He wanted to prove to me that he trusted me. That he could trust.

It didn’t make up for what we had gone through, but it was a start.

I closed my hand around the necklace. He smiled brilliantly, the hours of anxiety from the past day falling off of his shoulder. He leaned forward and brushed his lips to my forehead. Slowly, I let a smile stretch across my face as I put the necklace back around my neck and tucked it under my shirt.

I’d given him hope…and now, I had some, too.

He stood up to leave and give me space when his phone started ringing. He gave me a sheepish look and then glanced at the screen. His face paled.

“Who is it?” I asked. I did not like that look on his face.

“Marc.”

“Why would he be calling?”

Jensen shook his head as if he didn’t know, but I could see on his face that he did. And it was bad.

He sank back into his chair and answered. “Hello?”

Marc’s response was so loud that I could hear it through the other line. “You son of a bitch!”

“What do you want, Marc?”

Marc responded, but I couldn’t hear what he said, then Jensen said, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I have a right to know!” Marc shouted back.

“It’s been almost seven years, Marc. This is fucked.”

“What’s fucked up is you lying to me for that long! I’m getting on a plane right the fuck now. I’ll be in Lubbock tonight, you motherfucker.”

“Marc, you cannot get near my son.”

“He’s not even yours!” Marc screamed.

“I am his father!” Jensen said, raising his voice in fury.

“We’ll fucking see about that.”

“Colton is my son, and I’ll be damned if I let you fuck with his head by walking into his life. What you’re going to do is irresponsible and reckless. And there’s no way I will let you near him.”

“Well, you don’t get to decide that!”

“Like hell I don’t.”

Jensen slammed his phone down on the table and fumed. “Fuck,” he muttered. He put both of his hands into his hair and pulled. His teeth were gritted. His body tense. He looked as if he were ready to erupt.

“What’s just happened?” I asked softly, though I feared I already knew the answer from that conversation.

“Vanessa told Marc.”

My heart stopped beating for a split second. I couldn’t believe that Vanessa would go to such extremes.

“Fuck, I should have known. I went to see Colton this morning, and we argued. She threatened me by saying she would tell Marc, but she has said that a million times before. I told her it was an empty threat. Apparently, she took that to heart. I guess, she was so upset that I was going to introduce Colton to you that she decided that the best route was to inform his real father and get me out of the picture.”

“You cannot stand for that! You have to do something!”

“I’ll get my lawyers on the situation. They knew this was a possibility and we’re prepared for it,” he told me. But he sounded like he’d been hit by a truck when he said it. “I just…I have to meet with Marc tomorrow when he comes into town. Before he can see Colton, he’ll have to get permission. My lawyers will file paperwork so that neither of us can go near Colton until this is resolved.”

“Oh, Jensen,” I said, my heart breaking for him. “You won’t be able to see him at all?”

It took him a full minute before he could respond, “No.”

“What do you need from me?”

“I can’t ask…”

“You can.”

“I just…I can handle this, Emery. I can stand up to Marc again. I can face down Vanessa for the hundredth time. I can fight for Colton, like I have been doing since he was born. I need…want…”

“Jensen,” I whispered, reaching out for him, “I’m here for you if you need me.”

“I hate to ask it of you when your sister is about to have her baby.”

“The baby will come soon, and then they’re going to need their space. Kimber will understand. I want to help.”

“I need you,” he told me.

“Okay. What’s the plan?”