CHAPTER NINE
Cat
I’D JUST GOT Annie into the bath when my phone started buzzing with a call. I left her in the tub and stepped into the hallway, grabbing my phone from the pocket of my jeans and glancing down at the screen.
My heart sank right down into the bottom of my sneakers.
It was Justin.
Briefly I debated not answering it.
Tonight was the night of the party at the Knights’ clubhouse—my debut with Smoke as a couple—and I had to bathe Annie and put her into bed before the sitter came, then get ready myself. I was in no mood to talk to my abusive ex.
Smoke had wanted us to go earlier in the evening, when there were apparently kids around, so Annie could go, too, but I didn’t want that quite yet. I needed to check out the place first, before I brought her into it. He hadn’t argued, had simply gone ahead and organised a sitter for her before I’d even broached the topic.
Now I wished I’d done what he said and gone early—then I wouldn’t have to deal with this phone call.
Still, avoiding it would be cowardly, so I hit the answer button. ‘What do you want?’
‘Hey, don’t be like that.’
Justin’s smooth tones were warm and silky, like melted chocolate. To think I’d once loved his voice. What a lie it had been.
‘I only want to talk.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Come on—don’t play dumb. This is about Annie.’
‘And?’
‘What? Your boyfriend didn’t tell you?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said reflexively. Then I realised what a mistake that was. Smoke was supposed to be my boyfriend. Crap.
‘Yeah, like I ever believed that for a second.’
There was a bitterness I recognised in Justin’s voice. He’d never liked my friendship with Smoke, and that had been the source of most of our arguments. Justin had wanted me to stop seeing him, but I’d refused. I wasn’t cutting Smoke out of my life just because he couldn’t handle the fact that my best friend was a guy.
‘What do you want?’
I ran a hand through my hair, feeling exhausted. The past few days had been shitty. I’d been trying to find work to replace the shift at Lucky’s, but hadn’t managed to turn anything up, and rent was due at the end of the month—only a week away. I didn’t have the money. Or at least I had the money for rent, but if we wanted to eat, then that might be problem.
‘Like I said, this is about Annie. Thought I’d be a gentleman and let you know personally that I’m going to be suing for full custody in the next couple of weeks.’
He sounded so pleased with himself I wanted to punch him.
‘Unless you agree to give me full custody yourself and then we can save all the messy court drama.’
My heart clenched tight. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’
‘Oh, come on, Cat.’
His voice had softened, taking on the warm and tender note that had once managed to reach inside me and undo all my defences. The note that told me I was cared for. That I was loved.
‘Being a single mom is hard. You’re working two jobs... You’re tired every night. How is that good for Annie? Having such a tired mom all the time? And that apartment is a dump—not to mention dangerous. Mine is big, and there’s security, and—hey, you know how much she loves swimming, right? I’ve even got a pool.’
His voice poured over me, smooth and rich, lulling me.
‘If she was here, you wouldn’t have to worry so much. You wouldn’t have to work so hard all the time. The pressure would be off.’
I closed my eyes, horrified to find that if I wasn’t careful I was going to burst into exhausted, emotional tears.
He was right. Being a single mom was hard and I worried so much. There was no break, no respite. Sometimes I wished I could just have ten minutes when I didn’t have to worry about Annie and whether I had enough time for her. Whether I had enough money to feed and clothe her. Whether I could actually be the mother I wanted to be for her.
‘It wouldn’t mean you’d never see her,’ he went on, obviously knowing he’d hooked into my deepest fears. ‘We’d work out a visitation schedule. Hell, you could even have her overnight a couple of times a week. Wouldn’t that be better for you? You could actually spend time with her when you’re not tired and worried and thinking about all the stuff you need to do.’
He knew me well. Knew what I was afraid of. Knew what I was desperate for. At first it had been so good to have someone know me like that. To love me the way I’d always wanted to be loved.
Then he’d shown me what a lie that was and how stupid I was to trust him. Just like he was lying to me now.
Never again.
I forced away the tears, swallowing back the lump in my throat. ‘And if you get angry again, Justin?’ I had to concentrate to make my voice sound strong and unaffected. ‘What happens then? Will you hit Annie the way you hit me?’
There was a hard silence down the other end of the phone.
‘That’s not going to happen.’ The warm note had vanished from his voice like it had never been there. ‘I would never hit her.’
‘The way you’d never hit me?’
‘I’ve dealt with my anger issues,’ he said calmly. ‘Not that it would have ever happened if you’d done what I said and stopped screwing that friend of yours.’
Ah, this was the Justin I remembered. The asshole.
I said nothing—mainly because there was nothing to say. He wouldn’t have listened anyway.
‘Well? Last chance, Cat.’
‘Why?’ I asked suddenly. ‘You never wanted her before. You never wanted her in the first place. Why do you want her so desperately now?’
‘Because she’s my damn daughter, and I want what’s mine. That’s why.’ He sounded impatient now. ‘Are you going to give me full custody? If not, I’ll see you in court.’
My jaw was tight, my heart burning with anger. ‘No. I’ll never give you full custody of her. Never, ever.’
He gave a snort of disgust. ‘Stupid move, honey. Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way, then.’
The call was disconnected abruptly.
Fuck. I didn’t even have the satisfaction of hanging up on him.
My fingers were white around my phone, but I couldn’t afford to give in to the urge to throw it at the wall because I literally couldn’t afford to get a new one if it broke. I had to make do with shoving it hard into my pocket and cursing viciously.
It was difficult to go into the bathroom and continue bathing Annie like nothing had happened, but I managed it, and luckily she was too young to know that there was anything wrong.
Fifteen minutes later, all dry and dressed in clean pyjamas, Annie was ready for a bedtime story when the doorbell rang.
For a second I froze, the horrible thought of Justin coming over to take Annie away from me right now popping into my head. Then I remembered. The party. It would probably be either the sitter or Smoke.
Leaving her with a picture book, I crept into the hallway and went to the door and looked through the peephole.
Smoke was in the hall outside, in his jeans and cut, and he was literally the best thing I’d seen all day.
I undid the chain and pulled the door open, grinning stupidly. ‘You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you till later.’
He didn’t smile back the way he normally would have, and his gaze was fierce on mine. ‘Thought I’d come and drop my stuff off.’
‘What stuff?’ Then I noticed the big duffel bag he had slung over one shoulder. ‘What’s that for?’
‘What do you think? I’m moving in.’
My mouth dropped open—to say what, I had no idea. Because at that moment Annie came charging down the hallway, screaming, ‘Smoke!’ at the top of her lungs.
The fierce look vanished and a heartbreakingly beautiful smile crossed his face as he stepped past me.
‘Hi, kiddo,’ he said, opening his arms as Annie flung herself into them.
I shut the door and leaned against it, stunned by his announcement and by the fact that watching the pair of them together made my heart ache like someone had hit it with a large baseball bat.
He hadn’t smiled at me. He’d saved it for Annie and that was okay. It really was. But seeing them together after that phone call with Justin hurt for reasons I didn’t want to examine.
You should never have said that he wasn’t her father.
No. I shouldn’t have. Not when what was happening right in front of me proved what a lie that was.
Smoke had picked her up and was carrying her down the hallway.
‘Can I read you a bedtime story, or do you want Mommy to do it?’
‘You!’ Annie said excitedly, then patted his shoulder. ‘What’s that big bag?’
‘That? It’s a unicorn. It was too big to carry, so I put it in the bag.’
Annie giggled, delighted. ‘It is not!’
‘No, it’s not. It’s only boring stuff like clothes.’
‘I like clothes.’
‘They’re not for you, kiddo. They’re for me. I’m going to be staying for a while.’
I watched Annie’s face light up at this as they both disappeared through the doorway into her bedroom, belated shock moving slowly through my system.
Staying for a while...
He hadn’t mentioned moving in when he’d told me his plan on the way back from Lucky’s that night. All he’d said was that he wanted me to go to the party.
Panic turned over inside me and I didn’t know why.
Ignoring it, I went down the hallway and into my bedroom, deciding I might as well get ready. He’d be with Annie awhile. I would wait to talk to him about this moving-in business once she was asleep.
Pulling open my closet, I grimaced at the lack of decent things to wear hanging in it. What the hell did you wear to a biker party anyway? The one and only party I’d been to had been the one where I’d caught Smoke getting that blow job, and none of the women at that party and been wearing anything at all.
God, I was so not going naked.
Pulling out a selection of things, I laid them on the bed, discarding my one and only little black dress as too dressy and the denim mini as too slutty. There was the plain black pencil skirt I wore to work at the call centre on occasion, but that seemed a little...boring.
This isn’t a fashion show. You’re not your mother.
I pulled a face, remembering my mom getting ready for the few parties Dad used to take her to. She’d always been so excited, thinking it meant something. Thinking that finally he was going to make her his old lady and everything would be different. She’d dress up in the few designer dresses she had left—the remains of her old, socialite life—and get herself looking beautiful.
But it never made any difference. And she always came home alone.
I always thought I’d never end up like her, and yet now here I was, a single mom, trying to find something to wear to a biker party. Even the fact that I was going as someone’s old lady didn’t change it—not when I wasn’t a real old lady.
I was just like her. Struggling to make ends meet, to feed and clothe my kid. The only things I had going for me were that I wasn’t an addict and I wasn’t in love with a biker.
‘Are you ready?’
I almost jumped at the sound of Smoke’s deep voice coming from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, his arms folded, the ink of his tats dark against his skin. That breathtaking smile he’d saved for my daughter was gone. The fiercely intense look was back again.
The same look he’d given me that night he’d kissed me.
I’d never felt shy around Smoke before, but I was now.
My mouth dry, I glanced down at the clothes on the bed. ‘No, obviously, I’m not ready.’
I pushed aside the black dress, fiddling about with the black skinny jeans that were my favoured alternative.
‘Annie must have gone down quickly.’
‘She was tired. She said you were shouting at someone on the phone just before I arrived.’
Oh, shit. That kid had bat ears.
‘Someone from work.’
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him about Justin. Maybe it was because Justin had made me feel so helpless and I didn’t want Smoke to know how badly affected I was.
‘Bullshit. Annie said you were talking about her.’
Busted.
I let out a breath, smoothing the fabric on the bed. ‘It was Justin. He was trying to get me to give him sole custody voluntarily.’
I didn’t even know Smoke had moved until I felt heat beside me and a powerful hand had my jaw in its grip, turning my face to his.
Black eyes pinned me. ‘And you said what?’
‘What do you think? Of course I said no.’
But he must have heard the catch in my voice because that fierce look suddenly softened. ‘What else did he say, Cat?’
His thumb brushed absently along the line of my jaw, striking sparks along every nerve ending I had. I tried not to notice, tried not to shiver.
‘He made like it would be a good thing.’ My voice thickened. ‘He told me it would be better for Annie if she didn’t have a mom who was working all the time and who was so tired. Who had no time for her kid because she was always worrying. And he said how his apartment was safe, and he has a pool, and you know how much she likes swimming—’
I broke off, my eyes prickling, and tried to pull away again, not wanting Smoke to see how much Justin’s words had slipped beneath my skin. How much they’d made me doubt myself.
But Smoke didn’t let me go. ‘There’s no better place for Annie than with you,’ he said with quiet emphasis. ‘She doesn’t need a fucking pool. All she needs is love, and you do that better than anyone.’
My heart swelled up tight in my chest. ‘Sometimes I can’t help thinking that maybe she’d be better off with him. He has money and—’
‘Quiet,’ Smoke interrupted, with so much authority I fell silent. ‘That prick’s got nothing Annie needs. If he was any kind of decent father, he would be in her life, but he’s not. And if he was any kind of decent man, he wouldn’t have fucking touched you in the first place. But he did. Which makes him and his opinions worth shit.’
I opened my mouth to tell him how much I’d needed to hear that that, but he put his thumb across my lips and pressed down lightly, silencing me.
‘Don’t worry, kitten,’ he went on softly. ‘You don’t need to worry—especially not about money. I’m here now, and I’ll deal with it.’
I had issues with that, but for some reason my brain wouldn’t work. I couldn’t repress the helpless shiver that chased over my skin at his touch either.
A black flame leapt in his eyes, hot and dark, and for a second I had the mad urge to open my mouth and suck on his thumb. Bite it.
Maybe he saw that, too, because I swore I caught the flicker of a feral kind of smile on his beautiful mouth.
‘Black pencil skirt. Green blouse. Black stilettos. Stockings.’ His hand fell away, releasing me. ‘Now, go get ready. The sitter will be here any minute.’