Owen
OWEN
My leg bounces uncontrollably as I try to rein in my emotions. The table is set for three; does that mean he’s bringing her with him? Surely not.
I told him this was to be a one-on-one business meeting. I was planning to use it to gauge the kind of man my girl is married to and chose to have a baby with. My mouth goes dry and nausea overwhelms me at the thought of them together, but I push past it, determined to block the image of them together out and remain professional. The man cannot know my feelings for her; he cannot know she’s my weakness.
The sound of footsteps approaching has me snapping my gaze up. And there he is, the Mexican drug lord with business links to a notorious human trafficking Mafia family.
His eyes sear into mine with hatred, yet his face remains impassive. I rise from my seat to greet him, but my blood turns to ice and I still, my hand outstretched toward him when the clicking of heels invades me.
She’s here.
The bastard brought her here.
“Carlos, there’s a boutique across…” He pulls out a chair for her, and her footing wavers as our eyes lock. Her chest rises rapidly and mine follows suit. A flush travels up her face, and her breath hitches.
“Mi amor, please.” He motions to the chair, and she slides onto the seat, using his hand to help her while I scan her heavy bump. She must be due any day now.
She’s filled out, healthily so, and I’ve missed it all.
Carlos watches our exchange with no expression, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he hadn’t realized we were connected, but I know better. I know enough of him to know he’s a calculating piece of shit who has orchestrated this whole meeting, even if it was me who reached out.
“You look beautiful, Laya,” I say without thinking, and I almost want to castrate myself. So much for acting blasé.
Her cheeks pinken even more, and she glances around the room, refusing to look at me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. I want her eyes on me, solely on me, like they once were.
Carlos sits beside Laya, and I flinch when he rests his arm across her shoulders. “My wife always looks beautiful, don’t you think, Mr. Stevens?”
I stare back at him. His eyes dance with jest as he strokes over her exposed shoulder. No doubt her olive skin is smooth to the touch. My mind wanders with the way she felt beneath me, my inked skin pressed against her flawless tone, a contrast so stunning it made it even more difficult for me to contain myself.
My gaze trails over the softness of her neck, the one I left my marks on, and now there’s not a blemish in sight. Just how she should remain, deserving better, just not him.
Then I stare at her necklace, the one I gifted her before I broke her heart. When I took what she gave me and then destroyed her, but she still has it hanging loosely around her neck like a trophy of my love. The emerald in it sparkles like a beacon of hope. She still loves me, I know it.
After way too long, I swallow thickly and respond, “She does.”
His calculating eyes drill into me, and if I wasn’t the man I am, my balls would have shriveled from the threat. Then, like a switch has been flipped, his lip twitches as if he realizes how difficult her presence is for me.
Laya clears her throat. “I thought you said this was a business meeting?” She turns her head to stare at Carlos, and I want to take hold of her delicate chin and force her attention on me. Jealousy unleashes into my bloodstream at the way he touches her so freely, the way her hand rests on his thigh when it should be on mine, the way his eyes slide over her body like she’s his when she’s fucking mine!
His lip curls into a smile. “Mr. Stevens asked for a meeting, and here we are.” He waves his hand in my direction, and I take a sip of water, trying to tamp the raging storm of fury inside me.
Carlos lifts his hand toward the server and orders drinks while Laya glares at me with annoyance in her bright-green eyes. “What do you want, ?” The anger in her snipe is obvious.
I take aim at her heart, knowing how compassionate my girl is. “Your family misses you.”
She rolls her eyes and, Jesus, if my cock didn’t twitch with a need to spank her for it.
“As soon as we settle in our new home, Laya’s family is welcome to come visit.”
I narrow my eyes at the pompous prick. The amusement in his gaze causes me to clench my fists beneath the table while every cell inside me screams at me to slam his good-looking face on the woodwork and crush it with my thick palm.
“You’re welcome too,” he tacks on, then takes a slow sip of the scotch I hadn’t realized had been delivered to the table. The curve of his lips as he does so sends fury through my bloodstream.
“You’ve been doing a lot of moving around. Why is that?” I raise an eyebrow toward Carlos, ignoring his digs, then his hand stops moving on her shoulder. His mouth clamps shut, and I swear I hear him grind his teeth.
Resolve settles over his face, and I will her to see what I see in him. The way he clearly changes to accommodate her. “I needed to find the perfect place for mi amor and my son.” His free hand now rests on her swollen stomach, and I swear to Christ I want to rip it off and force it down his filthy throat. He’s no place touching what’s mine, impregnating what’s mine, raising what’s mine, and yet here we are. A son.
Laya shifts in her seat, and I cannot decide if it’s my presence making her awkward or the prick’s touch, so I tell myself it’s the latter to make this exchange more bearable. “We’re settling soon. Carlos has somewhere picked out, ready for the baby coming.” The hope in her voice sends a pang of pain through my heart because my beautiful girl is so full of expectation for her and her baby, yet there is none with a man like him by her side.
Slowly, I lean forward and steeple my hands on the table, ignoring the prick and speaking directly to Laya, giving her no choice but to give me her attention. “And where exactly are you moving to?” She darts her eyes down toward the bracelet on my wrist, the one she wove with her fingers and, more importantly, with her heart. I wear it like a medal, a part of something crafted for me. Only me.
Just as quickly, she darts her eyes away, a flush coating her innocent cheeks.
“It’s a surprise.” His smug face lights up, and I keep from pummeling it. But one day, motherfucker.
One day real soon.
My eyes once again latch onto her necklace, a reminder of her love for me. Even after I broke her heart. My girl has simply lost her way, that’s all, but I’ll guide her home.
Laya clears her throat again, and guilt hits me. She’s uncomfortable, and rightly so. She’s sitting between the man who holds her heart and the one who holds her captive. I stare at her, trying to convey my thoughts through my gaze. I’m her future, I always was, yet she refuses to give me her attention, and I swallow harshly at the realization that she’s shut me out. My shadow is rejecting me, and while it’s painful, I refuse to acknowledge the ache.
She’s mine, she always has been.
Her cheeks heat, and I follow the flush down to her rapidly rising chest. It gives away how much my presence affects her. Look at me, baby girl , I plead.
She clears her throat and pushes back in her chair, and the scrape of it against the floor echoes around us. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to use the restroom.” Then she rises from her chair, and I watch her ass sway as she turns and walks away. The way she’s always been so ignorant as to how she draws attention in a room has always astonished me, and nothing has changed. She’s still the sweet girl I fell for when I shouldn’t have.
“That’s my wife you’re eye-fucking.” My focus snaps toward Carlos, who sits with his legs parted and his arm over the vacated chair, a smug smile on his cocky face. “Tell me, Mr. Stevens, why is it you reached out to a colleague of mine?”
He drags a finger over his lip. “Nico was insistent on me meeting with you. Why is that?”
“Because I commanded it. Tell me, Mr. Andreas, did Nico insist on you bringing Laya too?”
His lip rises. “No, that was my doing.”
“And why is that?”
“I need my wife to be assured I have no issues with your past, because it’s just that. The past.”
I throw my head back on a mocking laugh, then stare straight back at him. “If you believe that, then you’re a fool.”
He gives no reaction, and it irks me. The prick is a mask of indifference.
“I do believe that. My wife and I have a common interest. We want to raise our children as a family unit, unlike our own turbulent upbringings, and we’ll both do everything in our power to achieve it.”
The confidence behind his voice has me fighting to remain calm, and the way he talks about children as if they have a future together beyond this one child has me seeing red, but still, somehow, I remain seated. Something tells me Carlos would be happy for me to explode, to give Laya the perfect excuse to keep me away. I glance around the room. He’s brought at least six men with him, and a sudden awareness comes over me. This is exactly what he wanted. He wanted me to lose my shit, to make a scene, to go to war for her. That way, he had a reason to keep her away from her family, to keep us at a distance.
With that knowledge in mind, I decide to push back. “That’s right, you were brought up in the cartel, right?” His glare on me intensifies. Now he knows I’m just as aware of his background as he is mine. “Your father was killed alongside two of your brothers by a rival family, and you witnessed the whole thing. The Garcia family took you in, and now you intend to rebuild your father’s empire, creating a legacy in blood just like him. Does Laya know her son will be heir to a ruthless drug lord and calculated killer?”
The man looks fit to combust, all premise has fallen, his true self revealed, and I revel in it. He sits forward, leaning over the table. “Our son.” His eyes drill into mine. “Mine and Laya’s.”
I lean back in my chair, my stare not leaving his. “We’ll see.”
His eyes widen slightly, taken aback at my repute. “Is that a threat, Mr. Stevens?”
I lift an eyebrow, then lean forward. The stare-off between us feels catalytic. At any point, one of us could explode and the room would become a bloodbath, but not yet. “It’s a promise. A storm is coming, Carlos, and when the dust settles, you’ll be nothing but ash. But don’t worry, I’ll look after Laya and our son.” Then I settle back into the chair as if I didn’t just threaten to destroy him and take his family away in one fell swoop.
At the sound of Laya’s approaching footsteps, he pushes back on his chair and stands, then leans over the table.
“I promise you this, whatever you have planned, she will find out, and she will hate you for it. Ask yourself this, can you live with her hating you because of your jealousy, Mr. Stevens, my son’s hate too? Because if you can, go ahead and bring your storm. Her heart will always remain mine, our son’s too.”
He throws down a wad of cash on the table, then turns toward Laya. Her eyes dart from mine to his while he pastes on a smile I can only assume is reserved solely for her, and fuck me if she doesn’t smile back at him while he glides his arm around her waist and steers her out the door.
They get into the SUV, and though I feel her slipping away once again, I know the next time we meet will be our forever.