“Wait, do you mean to tell me she told you the baby died?”
“Yes. Which was obviously a lie, and something I fully intend to get to the bottom of,” I say darkly, feeling and reveling in the familiar coldness that had deserted me before.
I have every intention of finding the truth, and then I will make everyone involved in this mess suffer. They’d not only neglected my child—she’s bloody half-starved and undernourished—but she’d been left to find her way to me, something I have no intention of overlooking.
“Well, she spoke about someone called Aunt Carrie, if you need somewhere to start,” she says equally darkly, turning me on even more with that cold bloody glint in her eye. “That bitch is mine when you find her. Got me?”
Oh yes, I bloody well do, my little mama bear. I’ve got you, and I bloody intend to keep you.
“I know this must be difficult for you, what with Ben and the baby and, well, the plain fact that Madeline is mine—”
“Do yourself a favor, Jasper, and do not finish that sentence, unless you want to sleep on the sofa for the next three years of your life. The kid stays, and that’s final. Now come on, we have a lot of shit to do tomorrow and two kids to introduce. Christ, I really do not envy you that task. Ben can be a real little bastard when he feels threatened.”
She’s trying to joke around, bless her heart. The woman does not deal well with awkward situations.
“Ash—”
“No. Please, let’s just go to bed and face all of it in the morning. I can’t deal with everything right now without freaking out, and I really don’t want to freak out right now.”
I sigh and take her hand, flinching when she pulls away and walks up the stairs, her back stiff, her body sending out danger signals. She doesn’t want me touching her. Not yet, anyway.
Well, fuck that.
I wait till she’s changed and under the covers before dropping my clothes and crawling in behind her, pulling her in to my body.
“You can be angry and hurt, I understand, but you will never turn away from me. Not now, not ever. You’re mine.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Breakfast went…not as well as my misplaced sense of hope had fooled me into believing it would. Luc, while he’s trying, is as awkward and uncomfortable as all get out.
And my little darling brother is being his usually bratty self, thanks to the suspicion that Maddy might steal his precious Luc’s attention from his royal highness.
“You stop being such a snot-nosed punk and be nice, or I’ll kick your scrawny butt, Benjamin Munro!” I hiss, plonking down a glass of juice with his breakfast. “Maddy is here to stay, so you might as well get used to it and try being a big brother instead of a douche.”
That earns me a glare and a giggle from our newest recruit. Luc, I notice, is struggling not to laugh when Ben sticks his tongue out at me and rolls his eyes dramatically.
“She don’t understand that big brothers tease little sisters.”
That catches our attention pretty darn quick; even Luc manages to crack a smile and give him a look of paternal pride. I, on the other hand, am no dummy. Benjamin is most definitely up to something. I recognize the signs.
Too bad for him my pregnancy hormones have turned me into a hard ass, and I am so on him if he so much as sniffs at little Maddy.
“I’ve never had a brother. What should I do?”
Gosh, this kid and her accent. It’s nothing like Luc’s, in no way smarmy or stuck up, but it’s not exactly normal English as far as I’m concerned.
“Nothin’ yet, just don’t be a baby when I tease ya or this one’ll scalp me. So, what did you do if you didn’t have no one to play with?”
“Okay. And I like reading. I’m up to seven-year-old books now.”
Ben scowls, totally unimpressed, and shakes his head, muttering about boring girls and men needing to be patient with their women.
“Seriously, kid, don’t let him lead you around by the nose. We girls have to stick together.”
*********************************
Really? Two weeks ago I was a sane, normal, albeit quirky young woman, and now, thanks to the terrible trio, I can’t get a word in edgewise without being overruled and outvoted.
I’d tried glaring my husband into submission every time the gang got another of their cuckoo ideas into their thick gourds, but the man obviously never wants sex again in this lifetime.
“No, absolutely not.”
“But love—”
“No. You know how I feel about this.”
After he’d set Frank and some Ivan guy on the job, we’d discovered that Maddy’s mom is still alive and safe back home in some tiny village in England.