Chapter 12
Jonas
That went well.
If well is synonymous with horribly .
But she didn’t have her brother waiting inside to come beat me to a bloody pulp. She didn’t call the sheriff before she came outside.
She didn’t wake me up with that hose she offered me.
Probably could’ve been more horrible.
The worst part, though?
I’m glad to see her.
Glad that she’s strong. Thriving. Happy with her friends and family.
I saw the way she was smiling at her— our little boy at the wedding yesterday.
The sight of her robbed me of my ability to breathe. My heart quit beating. My entire life stilled to one singular thought.
My friend is even more beautiful than I remembered .
And she hates me.
As she should.
I sink onto the porch swing and drop my head in my hands, belatedly remembering that I have deer shit on my face.
“Maybe you should’ve called first,” a surprisingly familiar voice says from the side of the house.
I jerk my head up, start to smile, and then groan and drop my head again.
“Aw, you’re usually so happy to see me,” Begonia says.
I don’t have to look up to know she’s doing the uber-pregnant-lady waddle across the small lawn to reach me.
But no matter how happy I am to see her, my shoulders and jaw are tense as an overtightened spring. “How far behind you is my mother?”
“She doesn’t know where you are,” Hayes answers.
Shit .
They’re both here.
I blink in the morning light to make sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me.
No, they’re definitely both here.
My bright, happy, sunshiny sister-in-law is massively pregnant and glowing. Her white skin is clear of makeup, as always, and her hair hangs in bright pink waves at her shoulders.
She must’ve found pregnancy-safe hair dye.
Or Hayes did. He’d move heaven and earth to give her anything she wants, and I know he was looking for it.
And speaking of Hayes—my tall, crotchety older brother is beside his wife. Where Begonia’s in a colorful shapeless dress, Hayes is in his usual casual pants and a light blue button-down.
I don’t ask how they found me.
There’s not a person on any of our staffs that Begonia can’t charm information out of.
I also don’t ask how she got permission from her doctor to travel. She’s carrying twins and all I’ve heard for the past three months—ever since they shared the news at the beginning of her second trimester—is she’ll go into labor early so we need to be careful about everything .
Hayes probably brought the doctor with them.
And I suddenly wonder what Emma looked like when she was pregnant.
Did she glow? Or did she get sick?
Did she love it? Did she hate it? Did she sing to him while he was growing inside her? What books did she read to him? Did she use special belly butter like Hayes says he’s been getting for Begonia?
The enormity of what I’ve missed slaps me in the face once more.
“I’m not leaving,” I inform them both.
“Maybe you can not leave but also not make a giant scene by getting arrested before you figure out how to make amends for what sounds like a pretty uncomfortable situation?” Begonia says.
“We can’t keep your mom from those alerts she gets on your name in the news, even if we can keep her at bay for the time being by promising we’re taking care of you. ”
Hayes doesn’t smirk, but the affectionate glance he shoots at his wife says he’s amused at her diplomatic way of putting things. Although, he’d agree even if she suggested we all needed to work out my problems by going deep into the forest and doing a rain dance naked under the trees.
Which I’m pretty sure was a joke the last time she told us she and her twin sister used to do that at summer camp as kids, but I’m never completely certain with her.
“This sucks,” I mutter.
The chicken closest to me in the fenced-in pen squawks in agreement.
Or possibly it’s saying this is your own fault, dumbass .
“It’ll suck a little less once you get breakfast and wash the shit off your face,” Hayes says.
Begonia grabs my arm and tugs. “C’mon, Mr. Oh, No, My World Has Had a Hiccup and That Never Happens . We have a lovely little house just outside of town that Hayes freaking bought because he’s ridiculous. She’s not going anywhere, and even if she does, she’ll come back eventually.”
So they’ve seen the report on Emma that our family’s private investigator put together for me while I was plotting how to escape from my security detail.
Or else Hayes ordered his own report from his own people.
Movement at the side of the house catches my eye, and there they are.
His security team.
Which means mine’s probably also nearby to rotate in and out.
I need a little more protection than Hayes and Begonia do. Now that he’s no longer single and prominently involved at the top of Razzle Dazzle’s management chain, he gets to live a pretty quiet life.
As he prefers it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at summer camp?” I mutter to Begonia while she tugs harder. The two of them together manage Razzle Dazzle’s summer camp division.
And they love it. Begonia because she loves everything, Hayes because nobody’s beating down his door to demand updates on how the camp is impacting the bottom line for Razzle Dazzle and its stock price.
“Your mother threatened to come live with us if I didn’t take early maternity leave,” my sister-in-law reports.
“I would’ve had to actually murder her if she’d murdered Begonia, and I’d rather be around to watch my kids grow up,” my brother adds.
I suck in a breath.
I have missed so much of my son’s life already.
I know how it happened. I know why it happened. But if I’d been here sooner?—
“Too soon, honey,” Begonia says brightly. “C’mon, Jonas. You need to look and smell human again before you can charm the pants off of your lady friend.”
Emma’s watching us.
Not only can I feel it, I catch movement in one of the upper windows.
“I want to meet my son,” I whisper.
“You will,” Begonia insists. “But shower and food and not getting arrested first.”
She’s incredibly optimistic on that first point. She’s also completely correct on the other three.
I follow them around the house to an SUV parked next to the garage and duck in quickly, hoping the neighbors haven’t seen. Between the twisty roads and the boulders and the pine trees, there’s a good amount of privacy in Emma’s neighborhood.
But I still want to make sure she gets security cameras installed.
“You seriously slept with her and didn’t say goodbye?” Hayes mutters to me as Begonia chats with their lead security agent about a craving while the other agent steers us around the sharply curving mountain roads.
I wince. “Wasn’t the plan.”
“What was the plan?”
“For Mom’s minions to not show up and drag me away in the middle of the night.”
He snorts.
Begonia glances back at us.
Hayes reaches across the space to pat her knee. “Just pineapple, or did you want kiwi and guava too?”
Her nose wrinkles. “Actually, I think I want fresh tortillas. Like the ones Francoise perfected when I was craving burritos. But only tortillas. No beans. Or lettuce. Although, I think I could eat pineapple on the tortillas. If it’s cut the way Francoise cuts it.”
“I’ll fly her out.”
“ Hayes .”
“Contacting her now, Mr. Rutherford,” his lead security agent says.
“ Nikolay .”
Nikolay ignores her and types something on his phone.
“That’s completely unnecessary,” Begonia insists, and she turns her arguments to the two security guards.
“You didn’t contact her again after you left?” Hayes murmurs to me, going right back to where we were.
Biggest regret of my life.
Even before I found out our night together had unintended consequences. “She’d gone viral for her wedding imploding?—”
“We saw.”
“And I thought she was better off without having my name attached to hers.”
“Ah, the old you were doing her a favor excuse.”
“Be nice,” Begonia chides, clearly listening while still arguing over not needing to have her favorite chef flown in just to make tortillas. As if Francoise wouldn’t come on her own if she knew Begonia had asked for anything. “As I recall, you tried the same on me.”
I look back, but I can’t see Emma’s house anymore.
We’ve already taken too many curves.
Also?
I’ve confirmed that there’s no mountain view from the front of Emma’s house either.
This isn’t her dream house.
At least, not the dream house she told me about in Fiji.
Hayes and Begonia are both watching me now, waiting for an explanation beyond whatever they’ve seen in private investigator reports.
“She was exactly the friend that I needed when my life was the biggest pile of shit that it had ever been, and look what I did to her,” I say.
“Jonas Rutherford, you are a good person ,” Begonia says. “You’ll work this out.”
“You think everyone is a good person.”
“Her standards have improved,” Hayes assures me. “She’s right. You’re a good person. You’ve definitely fucked this up, but you’re a good person.”
“And you know it pains him to admit that,” Begonia adds.
“He’d claim a serial killer was a good person if you asked him too,” I reply.
Hayes shakes his head. “Not this week. Maybe last week, but I’m also suffering from improved standards. And I still think you’re a good person.”
I’m not a good person.
Last week I would’ve agreed with him.
But now?
Not a chance.
“Did you have a plan when you came out here, or are you winging it?” Hayes asks.
Leave it to my big brother to point out the flaw in my every action over the past three days.
I flip him off.
Affectionately.
Begonia laughs, then groans and grabs her belly.
Hayes lunges forward in his seat. “Contraction?”
That would be bad. She’s only about six months along. Still massively pregnant, but only six months along.
Twins and all that.
And once again, I wish I’d learned all of these things about pregnancy from Emma.
Not from my sister-in-law.
She shakes her head at Hayes. “I have to pee . I laughed, so I have to pee.”
“Four minutes,” Nikolay reports.
“I can’t wait to have my bladder back.”
“I can’t wait to get my head back on straight,” I mutter.
She grabs my hand and squeezes. “The thing about mistakes, Jonas, is that they give you the best opportunities to learn and grow and do it better. You’re going to be okay.
Emma’s going to be okay. Actually, I think she was already okay, but that’s not helpful, is it?
But don’t worry. We’ll work this out, and everyone will be happy. You’ll see.”
I’m usually happy to share in her enthusiasm.
But also, I usually haven’t left a woman after sleeping with her and gone radio silent while she carried, gave birth to, and raised my kid.
I thought my divorce was a disaster.
That was nothing compared to what I’m facing here.