Chapter 15 #2
“We have publicists and marketing experts to help handle the messaging,” I tell her, but it’s to reassure myself as much as to convince her. “We also have security teams that can operate so quietly in the background that you’ll barely realize they’re there after a while.”
“That is not a normal statement in my world.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
She falls silent and looks back at the mountains for another long minute, then pulls out her phone.
My pulse kicks up.
Will she show me pictures?
She hasn’t even said his name in front of me.
Is she letting me in?
She scrolls the screen, mouthing to herself, and I realize she has notes.
She brought notes to talk to me.
She’s nervous.
I make her nervous.
That’s a punch to the gut.
Hayes makes people nervous. He glowers and grumbles and doesn’t like talking to people. He’s bigger and bulkier than me. Sometimes awkward. My grandma always said we’d be mistaken for twins if he didn’t wear his features so harshly.
But I’m the people person. Love crowds. Love people. Love putting them at ease.
It’s a gift.
And it’s not working for me right now.
Emma slides a glance my way, then back to the phone. “If I say no, if I refuse to let you see him, how long until you have an army of lawyers at my door?”
Not a surprising question, but my instant, overprotective instincts that roar at the idea of her facing a room of Rutherford lawyers catch me off-guard.
“If anyone in my family sends lawyers after you, I’ll disown them and go public with every dirty secret I know about them. No matter which family member it is.”
She blinks, and her lips form a soft O .
Pink.
They’re a light, glossy pink.
Sleeping with her wasn’t an accident. It was the most natural thing in the world to share a night of comfort when we were both raw and vulnerable from our lives flipping inside out.
And for the past two and a half years, god only knows what she’s thought of me for leaving her the way I did.
She bites her lower lip again while she studies me, and fuck .
Not the time for my dick to notice her lips. The way her cheeks are softer than they were in Fiji. That pointed chin. Her slender neck and sharp collarbones, but again, not as sharp as they were in Fiji.
“If you start a Harry and Meghan war with your family, I get dragged into it too,” she says quietly. “I cannot be the mother my son deserves if I’m dealing with all of that publicity again.”
“They won’t send the lawyers. We can keep this quiet.”
“How can you be sure?”
“My family has their problems, but at the end of the day, we have each other’s backs. I tell them to leave the lawyers out of it, the lawyers will get left out of it.”
She narrows her eyes.
I hold up my hands. “Until we need formal paperwork, and then you lead. Nothing formal unless it’s what you decide you need for yourself.”
I hold my breath while she studies me like she’s looking for the catch. Like she thinks this is an act and she’s waiting for me to break character.
“I don’t want the spotlight again,” she says slowly.
“I don’t ever want to relive even a fraction of the fallout of that viral video.
But make no mistake. If you hurt my son, if this is a game to you, if you’re lying about your intentions, if you try to take him away from me, I’ll go public and use every resource I have to make you pay, and I won’t regret it for a moment.
No matter what else it costs me. I will do anything to protect my son and give him the childhood he deserves. Are we clear?”
Mama Bear has entered the conversation, and it takes me three attempts to swallow the lump of emotions clogging my throat.
And there’s not a chance I’m acknowledging what the sight of the broken and wounded bride I once knew turning into a ferocious warrior is doing to my heart and other parts of my body.
“Crystal.”
She looks down at her phone again, scrolling as she reads.
“You can come to my brother’s house on Saturday.
He’s having a small family cookout. You’ll be introduced as a friend in town.
You will not tell Bash that you’re his father.
Any security you bring with you has to be minimal, and they have to keep their distance.
If you make Bash uncomfortable, you leave.
If any of my family thinks you’re making Bash uncomfortable, you leave.
If you cause harm to any of my brother’s cats, you leave. ”
Bash . The birth announcement she emailed me welcomed Sebastian Nathaniel Monroe to the world, but she calls him Bash.
I want to deserve to call him Bash.
“Okay,” I agree without hesitation.
She doesn’t look up from her phone. “If you have to pee, pee in the woods. You may not ask my brother any awkward questions about his adult entertainment days. If my father offers you a piece of his artwork, accept it as the gift it is. What you do with it after you leave is none of my business, but you’ll act grateful in his presence. ”
I wonder how many of these demands are demands she thought of, and how many she had help with. “I can do that. Anything else?”
She looks up from her list and studies me again.
There’s more. There’s so much more she wants to say. It’s hanging between us, but it’s written in a language I can’t read.
Yet .
“That’s all for now,” she finally says. “If anything changes, I’ll text you.”
“Thank you.”
The wariness is back. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, but I still don’t trust you, and I know you could attempt to ruin my life if you wanted to. Please don’t make me regret this.”
I step toward her, and she shies back.
So I go completely still. “I’ve made mistakes. I’ve hurt you. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t. I’d explain why I left, but it still boils down to I was wrong . I have a solid reason why I didn’t come sooner, but again…I was wrong. I’ll do better, Emma. I’ll be better. I promise.”
She still doesn’t believe me. I can see it in every little nuance of her expression.
But she’s given me an in.
I’ll take it.