Chapter 35
Liam
“Your surprise is showing up here?” I sit on the sofa in the suite’s living room. “Who is it? Room service?” I flex my fingers.
Roxy doesn’t pace. She doesn’t wring her hands. She does something worse. She fidgets like she’s bracing for impact. This does not look like a surprise I’d welcome.
She takes my hands and folds her smaller palm around my fingers, guiding them open and shut like she’s rewiring my nervous system. Like she’s reminding my body it doesn’t have to fight today.
“You will not like it at first. But it’s time.”
I sigh and let her flex my fingers for me. “You’re not helping.”
A knock hits the door, and my pulse kicks up a notch.
“Just try. That’s all I’m asking.” She cups my face and kisses me, like she’s steadying me before a storm.
I’m on my feet as soon as I see him. “Father,” I growl.
Sterling Stone stands in the doorway. He looks older than he should. Smaller. Not weak, because Sterling is incapable of weak, but… worn.
“Liam,” he rasps.
My first instinct is ancient and violent. Shut the door. Walk out. Pretend this isn’t real.
Roxy doesn’t let me.
She steps back beside me and threads her fingers through mine. A quiet claim. A quiet anchor.
“Come on, let’s sit.” She gestures to the sofa.
I take a seat. Because she asked. I’m sure she didn’t want to hurt me with this… Whatever this is.
Father remains standing for a beat too long. Then he lowers himself into the seat opposite us.
“Sterling, thank you for agreeing to join us this morning,” Roxy starts. “There’s one thing Liam and I deserve to understand.”
My father nods.
“Why did you need Liam to marry a Lock?” Roxy asks, and I take a breath.
Of course she would use the one tactic I’ve never considered: asking directly.
“That’s between me and your father, Roxy,” my father says, his features set in stone.
“Respectfully, Sterling, I disagree. Since we’re the pawns in your game, I think we deserve to understand the rules.”
My father’s jaw ticks. Roxy asked the question, but his gaze locks with mine. It’s not the look that used to make obedience feel like survival.
It’s different. Softer. Broken. Beseeching.
“This will destroy our relationship,” he says.
I let out a humorless breath. “That ship sailed, Father.”
“Ten years ago,” he starts, and my heart trips.
Roxy scoots closer, shoulder to shoulder with me. She doesn’t speak. She just stays.
I feel her warmth through the fabric of my shirt, and it keeps me from lunging across the table.
“We were so worried about you. You used to hang out in that garage with the keeper’s boy, and then you started running away with him. Out of the country. No security. No planning.”
“We were volunteering,” I push through my burning throat.
“You could have been altruistic without putting your life in danger,” my father counters, the worry lacing his words.
Something cracks within me. Not forgiveness. But recognition.
How he must have felt when I started forging my own way in the world.
A feeling he couldn’t understand. One he didn’t know how to reconcile. One that was so far from his point of reference, he only saw the danger.
I don’t know why I never saw it before. A father’s worry.
My mind flashes to the child still growing inside Roxy. My blood. Taking off into the world, convinced they’re invincible.
And my chest tightens with a panic I didn’t know existed.
“Continue,” Roxy says.
“I met Victor at a casino. He was a dangerous man, even back then.” He winces and looks at Roxy, “Sorry.”
She snorts. “No apology needed.”
“He wasn’t yet a businessman.” The contempt in his voice is palpable. “But he had connections in Latin America.”
Roxy gasps.
My throat tightens. My skin itches. I reach for my collar to loosen my tie and realize I’m wearing a T-shirt.
“He was supposed to scare you,” Father says, shaking his head. “A warning. A lesson. That’s all.”
“But I didn’t even go that time.” The words burn.
“The irony.” He sighs. “We had begged you not to go before, and you still did. This time you stayed.”
“And Noah went.” The words barely dislodge from my throat.
“I tried to call it off.” Father sighs, shaking his head.
“You ordered the kidnapping?” I’m not sure why I need him to spell it out for me.
Roxy squeezes my hand. Calming me. Grounding me.
He nods. “Nobody was to get hurt… I never meant for him to die.”
“His name was Noah,” I roar.
“My father has been blackmailing you?” Roxy asks, her voice breaking.
“He threatened to tell Liam about this. I paid Victor a lot over the years, but it was never enough.”
“You wanted to protect me?” I snap, the sound half a sob, half a snort.
“We both know our relationship suffered after the events—”
“That’s one way to put it,” I scoff.
“Hate me all you want. Victor would have destroyed the family. Your mother… her charity… everything would have been tainted by the events. By my mistake. A mistake that cost that boy… Noah, his life.”
I think of Noah’s father. The pain he’s been living with.
I think of my unborn child. The visceral need to protect them at all costs.
I look at my father. A man who wanted to protect me at all costs.
And finally, I see the monster and the man in the same breath.
A man who loved me.
A man who destroyed someone else’s child because he loved me the wrong way.
I wait for the familiar contempt. For the need to make him suffer. For that impulse to hurt him.
Ten years of rage tilt into something heavier.
Grief swallows me. For the tragedy that could have been prevented. For the life that could have been saved. For the families that paid the consequences. Mine. And Noah’s.
“I was wrong.” His voice drops.
I swallow, and it feels like swallowing glass. “I hate you. But I needed to hear it.”
“I wish I had made different choices back then.” He stands up.
I wait for the familiar urge to punish him. To make him bleed for what he did. But the urge doesn’t come the way it used to.
Not because I forgive him.
Because I’m tired.
Because I’m going to be a father.
Because I don’t want my child to grow up in a house where hatred is the loudest language.
“Me too.”
He hovers for a moment before he walks away.
Roxy’s hand is still in mine. Warm. Reassuring. Real.
“I’m sorry,” Roxy whispers. “Do you want to go to the police?”
“No,” I rasp. “I don’t want the need to avenge Noah to rule my life anymore.”
She climbs into my lap and wraps her arms around me. “I saw what you do there with Alf. You’ve been honoring Noah’s memory in the most meaningful way. He would be proud of you.”
I close my eyes, holding her tighter. For the first time in a decade, the anger doesn’t feel like oxygen.
She does.
“Fuuuuck,” I roar, my fingers gripping Roxy’s hair. She is breathtaking with her lips around my cock.
Sleep clings to my brain, but my body is wide awake. My balls tighten, my cock pulsing, warning me I’m seconds from losing control.
I push at her shoulder. “I’m close,” I grit out.
Thunder snaps her eyes to me, a gaze full of want, and she twists the base of my cock with her hand, sucking eagerly.
“Roxy,” I groan as I spill ropes of white into her mouth.
She swallows and looks at me with triumph. Her eyes hooded with lust, she licks the corner of her lips. Fuck, she’s stunning.
She climbs up and kisses me. “Good morning.”
“The best.” I deepen the kiss, tasting myself on her tongue. “You can wake me up like this every fucking morning.”
“Maybe on the weekends. I’m a busy woman, after all.”
I swat her ass, kiss her shoulder, and force myself out of bed.
Roxy’s mouth was the perfect lie. A perfect distraction.
But my father’s revelation lingers in the back of my mind. Noah’s name presses against my ribs, like a bruise I can’t stop touching.
And yet Roxy’s here. Alive. Laughing. Trying. Loving me like I’m not ruined.
Nothing I do will bring him back. I will carry the guilt, but I won’t let it stir me. I’ll let it be my reminder.
To choose better. To be better. As a man. As a husband. As a father.
“Where are you going?” she protests.
“I want to show you something.” I pad across the room and get the newspaper at the front door of our suite.
“You want to read me the business section? That’s my love language.” Sitting up, she props herself against the pillows.
Naked. Comfortable. Mine.
I flip to the society section, and wince at the picture before I hand it to her anyway.
She snatches the page. “Who even reads newspapers nowadays?” She scans the article, and her eyes widen. “What the hell? Did you do this?”
“Maybe.” I smirk.
“You announced we got married last weekend? In the society column for all the world—well, high society—to see?”
“Yes.” I sit at the foot of the bed.
“There was no wedding.”
“I know. I’m the groom.”
She narrows her eyes. “According to this, you’re my husband.”
“Only if you want me to be.”
“What’s your game here, Stone?”
“You hated the wedding prep. I didn’t want to play our fathers’ game. Now, your father gets what he wants. And we can get a marriage certificate or not. Have a wedding or not. It’s up to you.”
She glances at our photograph in the papers, courtesy of Photoshop, and then at me. “It’s up to me? There are two people in this relationship, Liam.”
“Almost three.” I lean forward and kiss her belly. “Okay, I want you to be my wife. Yesterday would have been too late. If you’re game, I’ll call my lawyer to file for a marriage license.”
Her lips stretch into a slow smile. “That is the best proposal ever, Romeo.”
A fucking full circle, and here we are, and I’m the happiest bastard in the world. “Is that a yes, Foxy?”
“Yes.” She scrambles to her knees and crawls to me. “A hundred times, yes.”
We kiss, and my cock demands attention immediately.
I pull her closer, but she resists. “As much as I would like to celebrate our marriage, we have a busy day. Get dressed, husband.”
Husband. It hits like a vow.
“So you want me to walk around with a boner all day?” I groan when she jumps out of bed and rushes to the bathroom.
She turns in the doorway, her naked curves calling me like sirens. “Maybe I can allow a shower quickie to help you out with that problem.” She wiggles her behind, laughing.
I bite her shoulder gently. “You allow? It’s cute you still believe you have a choice here.”
“Stop talking.” She crooks her finger, luring me in. “We don’t have time.”
“I don’t want another surprise.” I drag my feet through Central Park, which is buzzing with strollers, dogs, vendors, and laughter.
“You will like this one.” She tugs at my arm.
“After yesterday, Thunder, I’m not so sure I trust you with the word ‘surprise’.”
“I’ll make it up to you tonight.” She licks her lips.
I pull her to me, cup the back of her neck, and seize her lips. “Or we can go back to the room, and you can make it up to me now.”
She laughs, weaves her fingers through mine, and continues marching.
“This will be us soon,” she says, her gaze on a playground teeming with parents chasing small humans.
I pause, letting the picture sink in, grounding me in what matters. Right now. Here. Not in the past that I can’t change.
“I can’t wait,” I rasp.
Roxy grins at me. “You will love this surprise.”
We exit the park and cross the street. She leads me into a familiar building. “We viewed an apartment here, didn’t we?”
She pulls me into the lobby, smiling. We take the elevator while she keeps grinning. “Patience,” she drawls.
“You have the keys?” I frown when she unlocks the place.
“I borrowed it from the agent. I told her we would like to get a feel of it alone.”
“We would?” I follow her inside.
The sun brightens the open-concept living room. It looks even better than I remember. I can see us here.
Roxy moves with purpose. I trail behind her to the kitchen.
“I saw it when we came here first. How much you loved it.” She traces her fingers down the marble counter.
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t like the circumstances back then. I was scared, cataloging cons instead of seeing pros.”
“So?”
“I think this is a perfect place for us.”
I look around, seeing it. Me. Her. Our child. “Let’s make an offer.”
“Already ahead of you.” She bites her lip. “One of those situations when it’s easier to ask for forgiveness, not for permission.” She throws the words I used when we were working together back at me.
“Okay, but I’m paying,” I say.
“No, you’re not.”
“What?” I round the counter. Stepping between her legs, I plant my hands on the smooth surface, caging her. “Are you going to sell the Gullwing again?”
She swats at my chest. “Too soon for that joke.”
I kiss her forehead. “You will insist on sharing the cost of everything, won’t you?”
“Look at that, you’re trainable.” She wraps her arms around my neck. “My first-quarter profit share is coming soon.”
I kiss her. “I married well.”
“That you did.” She grins.
“I love you, Thunder.”
“I love you more.”