Chapter 15 #2
“Right, you’re new to all this. But this guy… He was smooth. I’ve since learned the term ‘love bombing.’ Do you know what that is?”
“Not really. Love isn’t my thing.”
“You’re really selling yourself, Mr. Remington.”
He chuckled. “I’m a major project in that regard.”
She gave him a side-eyed smile. “I love a good challenge. Anyway, so love bombing is when someone tells you everything they know you desperately want to hear, keeping you right where they want you while they’re off doing God knows what with other people.
And when you find out it was all a game to them, the shock and hurt are…
Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend it. ”
“That sounds awful,” he said with a wince. “I’ve heard of that happening to our clients, but I hadn’t heard it called love bombing. That term fits the crime.”
“It is a crime, you know? I truly loved him. Would’ve done anything for him, but none of that mattered.
It was all a game to him. The worst part is that it happened less than a year after I lost my mother.
And into that nightmare stepped Marlon, to console and comfort me, to hold me when I sobbed over the rotten guy and to pick up the pieces and put them back together.
He was a really good friend to me during those awful months. ”
“I’m sorry you went through that. Despite everything I see and hear in our practice, I’ll never understand why people treat each other that way.”
“I haven’t thought about it in years, but at the time, it nearly broke me.
Marlon and I were close, but I only slept with him twice and cried both times because he wasn’t the one I wanted.
I felt terrible about that, but I was honest with him.
He knew better than anyone what I was going through.
The sex was about comfort more than anything, and from that came the best thing to ever happen to me. ”
“Funny how that happens, huh?”
“I know. When I first found out I was pregnant, I was so shocked that I could barely function for days. I was always careful about birth control and couldn’t figure out how it happened.
One of my friends told me he probably messed with the condom or did something to try to trick me into staying with him when he knew that wasn’t what I wanted. ”
“That’s even more messed up than what the other guy did.”
“Right? When I confronted him about how I could’ve gotten pregnant when we used a condom, he immediately jumped on the defensive.
But he has this ‘tell,’ a twitch in his eyebrow when he’s lying, and that eyebrow was dancing all around when he swore up one side and down the other that he’d never do something like that to me.
He told me that day he had no interest in being a father, and I should ‘get rid of it.’”
“He said that as soon as he realized his trick wasn’t going to work to make you want him.”
“Exactly. He was outraged when I told him I was keeping Ty and that we didn’t need anything from him but to leave us alone, which he did for many years.
He’d send an occasional gift to Ty and ask to see him once or twice a year, but that was the extent of it.
I don’t think his family even knows he has a son, which is fine with me.
I liked it better without him involved, but he’s asked me for money in the past and I gave it to him to make him go away, but this time he was much more aggressive and insistent. ”
“What do you think brought that on?”
“The new contract with D&G. It’s the biggest deal of my career, and when it got a lot of publicity, he came around, looking for his piece of the pie.”
“Damn. That takes some nerve.”
“I gave him money a few years ago when he was in danger of getting evicted and then again when his truck was about to get repossessed. I told him then that I was done bailing him out, so I couldn’t believe he was outright asking me for money again after barely contributing a dime to Ty’s upbringing for seven years.
I told him to fuck off and leave me alone, and that’s when he started making noise about suing for joint custody, which I know he doesn’t even want. ”
“It’s blackmail, Cres. Plain and simple.”
“I realized that right away and reached out to Julian after he did such a great job with Marlene’s divorce.
She sang his praises. Of course, once I had a lawyer on the case, Marlon made himself scarce, except for showing up outside the house and at Ty’s school, which he knew would freak me out even as he didn’t respond to Julian’s messages about trying to mediate our dispute.
I shouldn’t have punched him that day, but I was just so freaking mad.
I hate that Ty saw me lose it with him. That never should’ve happened. ”
“Ty probably understands the situation better than you think.”
“He does. Even though I’ve never come right out and said it, he knows his father isn’t a good person and that’s why we don’t see much of him.”
“He’s the most delightful kid I’ve ever met.”
She raised a brow, her expression skeptical. “How many kids have you actually met?”
“A few. Don’t forget, I have much younger siblings.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
“There’re eleven years between me and Roman. He was a pretty cool kid, too, but there’s something special about Ty. He’s like an old soul or something.”
“I’ve been saying that about him from the beginning. He has this baked-in wisdom that surprises me every day.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. He gets it.”
“How something so perfect could’ve come from Marlon Beckett is a constant source of amazement to me.”
“Did you hear from Kaidan today?”
“Yes, we’re hoping to meet tomorrow after she has a chance to review the files Julian sent over.”
“Ask her to come here. I’d rather you guys stay close to home until the LAPD finds Marlon.”
“Ugh, I hate that it’s come to that.”
“You’re safest right here with the system armed, although…” He glanced toward the big windows in the back that looked out on a dazzling view of the Hollywood Hills during the day.
“What?”
“Those windows stress me out.”
“Why?”
“A number of reasons that I don’t need to share with you and add to your concerns.”
“Do you have the gun on you?”
“It’s in my bag.”
“I really don’t want guns in my house or anywhere near Ty.”
“He’ll never know I have it unless I need it to save his life or yours.”
She shuddered. “God forbid it comes to that.”
He reached for her and held her close. “It won’t. Kaidan’s guy is outside, and the LAPD is on the lookout for him. He’d be a fool to come anywhere near here.”
“Thank you for being here. I feel safer with you around.”
“It seems that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, and I’m still trying to figure out how you did that to me.” The scent of her hair and her soft skin brushing against his cheek were driving him mad.
Laughing, she said, “Let me know when you figure it out.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
“Is your family mad for punching out of work?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked my messages, but I’m sure they’ve had some things to say about it.”
“Because it’s out of character for you.”
“Dramatically.”
“Kind of like it was out of character for Julian to take Isla to her ex-husband’s wake?”
“Just like that.”
“Are you beginning to understand how these things happen?”
“Not at all. We should have some control over ourselves, shouldn’t we?”
She pulled back to look at him, placing her hand on his face. “Control is highly overrated.”
“So I’m discovering.”
“Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
Her eyes went wide. “Are you listening to yourself?”
He grinned at her. “Not really. What do you want me to do?”
“If you really, really, really don’t want this, will you…” She looked up at him, seeming to force herself to make eye contact and finish her thought.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked softly.
“Go. Go now, before it’s too late.”
She was giving him an exit ramp, one he ought to take before it became impossible to disentangle himself from her. But the thing was, he couldn’t bring himself to move or do anything other than stare into her bottomless blue eyes and want her.
“Carson.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not going.”
“You noticed that, huh?”
She nodded. “You really should. You said this isn’t what you want.”
“I know,” he said as he leaned in to kiss her. “It’s not at all what I want.” Another kiss that drew a sigh from her. “And yet… I can’t seem to…”
She arched her neck to give him access. “What can’t you seem to do?”
“Leave you. I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have to be sure, Carson. I can’t take the risk of getting my heart and Ty’s broken.”
“I’m not sure of anything other than that I want you like I’ve never wanted anyone or anything in my entire life.
” He punctuated the unprecedented statement with the hottest kiss in history that had them straining to get closer to each other, until a flash of light from the backyard had him launching off the sofa toward the door. “Call 911.”
As he ran through the door to the yard, the alarm went off in a screaming siren that would scare the hell out of Ty.
He flew around the corner of the house to the side yard and slammed into an immovable object.
Pain sliced through his midsection, shocking and immobilizing him.
His legs collapsed under him. What the hell?
A second searing pain slashed through his shoulder.
In the second before he lost consciousness, he saw Marlon Beckett standing over him, holding a bloody knife.