34. Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-four
Shira
My son was tap dancing on my organs. Given who his father was, it shouldn’t have surprised me he had the power to beat me up from within. His jabs kept coming, making it impossible for me to take a full breath.
Firm hands took me by the shoulders, and Adrian’s urgent voice was next to my ear. “Christ, are you okay? Is it the baby?”
“I’m okay,” I wheezed. “He’s just going a little crazy right now.”
“He is?” One hand let go of me to hover over my stomach. “Is it…can I…?”
At the doubt coloring his words, I looked up at him. His brow was ridged in consternation as he stared at my belly.
“Here.” I took his hand and placed it where Beanie was kicking. The instant Adrian made contact, Beanie doubled his efforts, knocking the wind out of me again.
“Holy shit,” Adrian breathed. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. That’s him. That’s Jonah.”
“Yeah,” I quivered. “He’s on fire this morning. He doesn’t usually hit me quite so hard.”
Adrian seemed like he was in a daze for a moment, feeling his nephew for the first time. When I gasped again at another painful jab, he unfroze and took me by the elbow.
“You need to sit down. Roman will have my head if anything happens to you on my watch.” He escorted me over to my dining room table and gently pushed me down in a chair. Then he crouched in front of me, eyes like his brothers’ sweeping over me before landing on mine, filled with concern. “What can I do to help?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine, I promise. He’s just really active this morning. Probably telling me to chill out, which is a good idea.”
His brow pinched. “Christ, Roman’s going to kill me. The last thing I intended was to get you riled up.”
I chuffed. “Did you think giving me the cold shoulder for three days straight wouldn’t make me react?” Feeling my heart ramp up again, I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then I started again, calmly. “Maybe you did. If you were someone less important to Roman and Beanie, I would have let it go like I have most of my life. But things have changed, and I can’t allow that anymore. What would my son think if he saw his mother allowing herself to be treated that way? What if he internalizes it and allows it to happen to him? I’m sorry, Adrian, but I can’t let this slide.”
He grunted, almost falling back on his ass before catching himself on the table. “You’re right. I was trying to follow Roman’s orders, but I screwed up, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Roman’s orders?”
He turned his head and reached up to scratch the side of it. “He…uh, told me not to talk to you while I was here.”
“What?” I cried. “He told you not to talk to me? Why would he do that?”
Before he could respond, his phone rang. He didn’t even look at it before he said, “That’s him calling for a report.”
“Answer it.”
Adrian slipped his phone out of his pocket and sat in the chair next to mine. Roman was requesting a video call, so Adrian answered, holding the phone close to his face so Roman wouldn’t see his surroundings.
Roman skipped a greeting and any pleasantries, getting straight to the point. “How is she?”
Adrian glanced at me, the corner of his mouth hitching. “She seems well.”
Roman groaned. “Give me more than that. Was she dressed? Still sleeping? Did she look in the bakery bag?”
“Dressed, yeah, but as far as I know, she hasn’t looked in the bag yet. Remind me again why I’m not allowed to talk to her? It feels off to be in her house and not have a conversation with her.”
“You know why,” Roman intoned. “You can talk to her when I’m there. I don’t trust you not to be an asshole on your own.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow as if to say, “See? Told ya.” And he had. I hadn’t quite believed it. Now that it was confirmed, I didn’t know what to think.
I leaned closer to Adrian so Roman would see me too. “Don’t you think it’s rude for Adrian to barely even say good morning to me? I have to say, it’s given me a major complex.”
Roman’s face disappeared from the screen, and all we could see was the ceiling. The silence that descended went on so long it seemed the call had been dropped.
“Roman? You there?” Adrian asked.
Movement, then Roman’s flushed face came into focus. “You’re with her and still at her house.”
“Yes,” we replied in unison.
“ Fuck .” He yanked at the side of his hair, and I could practically hear the strands screaming for mercy. “What the hell, Ade? Couldn’t you have told me she was there? And, Shira, never thought you had it in you to team up with my brother against me.”
“We were having a conversation when you called,” I informed him. “Do you know how crappy it’s made me feel having Adrian ignore me every day?”
His sigh was so heavy, his head bowed. “I messed up. Shit , Shira. I thought he’d be in and out without interacting with you, and on the off chance you ran into each other, I didn’t want him to hurt your feelings.”
Adrian’s throat rumbled. “You think very little of me.”
“No, I just know you can be a dick, and you have a history of not being very fucking kind to the woman next to you. This was my misguided attempt at protecting you both so your relationship didn’t get further sullied.” Roman’s gaze latched onto me, steady and intense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think this through. My mind has gone in several different directions lately when all I want is to be there, focused on you and the baby.”
A wicked grin spread across Adrian’s face. “Speaking of the baby, he just kicked the hell out of Shira. Your kid is going to be a brute. I’m pretty sure he bruised my hand.”
“Your hand?” Roman’s gaze darted between us. “He touched you?”
I had to laugh. “I put his hand on my belly when your son started going wild.”
He nodded. “As long as it was your choice.”
“Of course it was. Adrian might’ve hurt my feelings, but he wouldn’t hurt me,” I assured him.
Adrian had gone stiff beside me. “I hope that goes without saying.”
“It does, it does,” Roman rushed out. “I’m sorry. This is unexpected, and I’m being a dick. Being so far away is wearing on me.”
“I get that,” Adrian conceded. “If it’s any consolation, Shira handed me my ass right before you called. I’d say she’s doing just fine.”
Roman’s mouth twitched. “You did? What happened to killing him with kindness?”
“I tried that. It failed.” I grinned at Adrian. “So I handed him his ass.”
The three of us talked for a few more minutes until Roman had to head to a meeting. Once we hung up, I invited Adrian to join me for breakfast, and this time, he accepted. Though, when I tried to get up, he scowled at me and told me no fucking way.
So Adrian brought breakfast to me, splitting the pastries between us. He made me coffee too, but only after looking up online if I was allowed to have caffeine.
I could only laugh. The Wells brothers had their differences, but they were definitely cut from the same cloth.
We were eating for a few minutes before Adrian sipped his coffee then spoke. “We were abandoned by the people who were supposed to love us the most. Our mother was there one day, gone the next. I was a child at the time, but when I search my memories, I can’t find any warning. She left without a goodbye and never came back.”
He set his mug down beside his plate. “Our father never picked up the slack. He was addicted to his job, his focus always on getting the next fix. For him, that was making billion-dollar deals. I’m not sure he loved us at all, so I understand why my mother left him, but not why she left us.” He shook his head. “Roman stepped in. He shouldn’t have had to, but he decided taking care of us was his job. He made appointments for us, signed permission slips, set up carpools so we’d have rides to the activities he’d arranged for us. He started doing all this when he was twelve, and to be frank, he’s never stopped.”
“He’s a caretaker,” I whispered.
“He is,” he agreed. “So, I wasn’t surprised he jumped in with both feet when you told him you’re pregnant. That’s who he became after our parents abandoned us. Me, on the other hand…I grew wary. It takes time for me to trust anyone new in our lives—and that’s when they arrive without baggage. He’d told me a lot about your background, what he’d thought was true at the time anyway, so when he gave us the news, my instinct was to protect him since I knew he wouldn’t protect himself.”
“That makes sense.”
“I was wrong about you, Shira. I knew that before you told me everything you went through. I’m sorry I’ve treated you in such a way you felt you had to expose your past for it to stop. It’s not fair for me to judge what your marriage was or wasn’t from the outside.”
He scoffed, brushing his hands together. “I run a sex club, so I know a thing or two about judgment. I’m disappointed in myself for being so close-minded. I know better. That isn’t who I am. It won’t happen again, and you can trust your son will never see me setting you aside or ignoring you. He’ll be safe around me. You both will, I promise you.”
“Thank you.” I believed him, not because of what he was saying, as lovely as it was, but because he was here. Roman’s order for him not to speak to me might’ve been wack, but he trusted Adrian to be here for me. That meant a lot to me, and it made it easy to forgive him and let go of how we began.
I stuck out my hand. “Hi. I’m Shira.”
His brow crinkled as he looked at my hand, but he quickly understood what I was doing and slipped his palm against mine, squeezing.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Adrian.”
“There. We started over. A clean slate.”
He cocked his head. “That easy?”
“Why not? We’ve both said what we needed to. Now we can move on.”
“Yeah.” Something clouded his gaze, a thought or realization. “He chose well. He might not have meant to make the choice, but he did, and he did it right.”
It took me a few beats to understand he meant me. He thought Roman had done well in choosing me as the mother of his child.
That was lovelier than anything I could have hoped for.