Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frankie
“Where is he?”
My head snapped up at my brother’s voice, my heart rocketing into my throat. “Jamie?—”
“Absolutely not, Frankie. He’s not welcome here. Not after what he did. How he left—how he left you…” His eyes picked up where his words left off: at my stomach.
I rolled my shoulders back. “I can handle this?—”
“I’m back here,” Chandler’s voice boomed.
Jamie whipped toward the back, too quick for me to grab him. Crap. I really needed to start telling people things, but this…I wasn’t ready to share that Chandler was back because I was afraid. Even after he’d continued to show up after a week of the cold shoulder, bringing me coffee that I couldn’t drink and blueberry scones that I devoured only to throw up later, he still showed up.
And after he learned about the baby, well, he wasn’t a stalker like I’d teased. He was my shadow. From dawn to dusk, he was by my side at the shop. At the store. Grabbing dinner. We didn’t talk about us or that kiss, only candles and the baby.
The very first thing he’d done was declare that he’d make the pumpkin spice batches in the back while I manned the store out front. Of course, I wanted to argue. No one else made my candles. No one else had ever made my candles. Okay, maybe my family and friends had made one or two here and there for fun, but not like this. Not for my business.
But the alternative was that this season, I’d be selling the scent of pumpkin spice puke. So, I caved. For the business , I reminded myself every time I heard him utter a curse from the back, adding another wax burn to his hands. Or every time he carried out a fresh batch of capped candles in nothing more than a t-shirt stretched full of muscles.
And that was another problem.
The way I wanted him was now on steroids.
Every day I drooled over his tipped smile, his broad shoulders, and the tight curves of his ass. I considered offering him another pleasure arrangement at least a dozen times a day, always remembering just in time what trouble that kind of decision-making ended up in the last time.
It wouldn’t be just pleasure. Not this time. Not the way he fed my pregnancy cravings nor the way he put pregnancy audiobooks on blast so both of us could listen. Not the way he rubbed my lower back at the end of a busy day when I started to hunch over my desk. And not the way I saw the ultrasound photo was now the background on his phone.
It was a mess. I was a mess. I was afraid of all the things he made me feel—all the things he promised to give me—and that was why I hadn’t told the rest of my family that he was back. And after her slip about my pregnancy, Lou buried herself in the renovations at the inn and excused herself from the entire narrative .
But the secret could only last so long. I guess I was hoping it could last just a little longer.Like a kid who’d stolen a bag of cookies, I wanted to hide and devour all these moments myself without sharing them with anyone, afraid the second I did, he’d be taken away.
“Collins, I want you gone. What you did?—”
“Stop, Jamie?—”
“Frankie, stay back,” Chandler warned, and I halted just at the curtain. The pumpkin spice fragrance stretched the very tips of its fingertips under my nose, and my stomach started to churn. No. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will it away.
“No, she can be here. She should hear this.” My brother stalked toward Chandler, whose eyes were only on me. “She doesn’t need you in her life, let alone controlling?—”
“I’m not leaving.”
Jamie grabbed him by the collar. “The hell you aren’t.”
“Jamie!” I didn’t think. I pushed into the room to stop my brother from being crazy and gasped a huge lungful of pumpkin spice.
Oh no.
It was like a wave. An instant tsunami of nausea that crashed over me.
I groaned and grabbed the counter as I started to double over, catching the panic on my brother’s face as he let go of Chandler.
“Dammit.” Chandler’s curse reached me a second before his strong arms did. The next thing I knew, Jamie was shouting and my feet were lifted off the ground, Chandler carrying me with surprising speed to the front of the shop.
I heard the bell at the door.
I felt the fresh, clean breeze swipe over me.
“Breathe, baby. Just breathe.” Chandler’s voice soothed me even as my brother threatened him .
“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, Collins, but I swear to God, if you don’t put her down?—”
“What I’m doing is getting her away from the smell that makes her sick—that makes her vomit the very soul from her body,” Chandler growled over his shoulder and then loweredme onto the wood bench in front of my store. Ignoring my brother for a second, he asked me, “You okay? Do you need my shoes?”
That made me laugh.
“No,” I murmured. “Just need a minute.”
His face tensed, and he nodded. If I would’ve known he was going to then stand and face my brother on his own, I would’ve told him I needed something else.
“I don’t understand,” Jamie said low, his fist balling at his side. “What’s going on?”
“The pumpkin spice makes her sick. That’s why I’m in the back making the candles because she can’t stand the smell.”
Jamie growled. “My sister can speak for herself.”
“Yes, she can,” Chandler growled. “She can also stand up for herself and protect herself and make decisions for herself, and yet, you’re still here acting like she can’t.”
Oh boy.
My brother winced at that, the barb instantly deflating some of the vengeance from his expression. Only then did it seem like Jamie realized what Chandler was wearing—a wax-splattered apron over his jeans and t-shirt—and what it meant. A billionaire burning his hands to make candles for my business. For me.
His protective bluster cracked and crumbled as his gaze shifted to me. “Frankie…”
“I’m fine, Jamie,” I said. Promised .
He would always protect Lou and I like this; it was who he was. More father than brother. But what Chandler said hit him hard.
I could stand up for myself. Defend myself. Just like I could take care of myself and manage this pregnancy on my own. But that didn’t stop either of them from showing up, because they cared. Because they love— no.
I pulled in a deep breath and sat up tall. I couldn’t go there. That was way off the deep end.
Jamie looked back at Chandler and muttered grimly, “Hurt her, and I don’t care how much money or where you disappear to…”
“Your sister has my location on her phone at all times. If I hurt her again, you have my permission to hunt me down, take all my money, and do your worst.”
Jamie tried to hide how pleased he was with that answer with a grunt and a grumble, stepping around Chandler to bend forward and kiss the top of my head.
“I’m here if you need me,” he said low.
“I know.” I smiled at him.
He made some kind of noise directed at Chandler before walking away, and I could only assume it belonged to that mysterious man language of grunts and groans and growls because Chandler just nodded at him like he understood what it meant.
Once Jamie was gone, Chandler knelt next to me and dragged a hand through his hair, the dark strands now more often troubled than tamed.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” I took another deep breath to be sure and then stood. “I’m sorry about my brother.”
“Don’t be,” he said sincerely. “If I were him, I’d want to kill me, too.”
My breath hitched, and suddenly, the need to know overwhelmed me. All week, it slinked through my mind like a beast in the shadows. I thought the longer I held out, the more it proved that I could co-exist—I could co-parent with him and not need anything more.
But today, now… I didn’t need him. But I wanted him. The truth hit me like a wrecking ball, and I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I wanted to know what happened because I wanted him to stay.
I wanted what he kept promising to give.
“Chandler.” I reached out and laid my hand on his chest, my throat tightening around the words.
“What is it?” He pressed his hand over my own.
I released all the air from my lungs and let out the question I’d held inside for far too long. “I want to know,” I murmured softly, watching his eyes widen and flicker with surprise. “Tell me why you left that morning. Please.”
“Okay.” He took my hand and brought it to his lips. “Let me clean up inside first.”