Chapter 18 Kick
KICK
Isabel ran toward me, and the world narrowed to the space between us.
I caught her in my arms, pulling her against my chest so hard I worried about the baby. But I couldn’t let go. She was shaking, her entire body trembling as she pressed her face into my shoulder, and I wrapped myself around her like I could absorb the fear right out of her.
“I’ve got you,” I said against her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Her fingers dug into my back. She didn’t cry. She just stayed there, breathing in ragged bursts that slowly steadied.
Over her head, I watched Baron Van Orr standing on his own porch, staring at the men who had gathered in his driveway.
His face had gone pale. Not with fear—Baron wasn’t capable of that—but with the dawning realization that he’d miscalculated.
That his money and influence couldn’t buy his way out of what he’d done.
Tryst stepped forward, and the other Viejos moved with him. Men who had known Baron for decades. Men whose respect he had cultivated his entire adult life.
“Baron.” Tryst’s voice carried across the space between them, calm, measured, and devastating in its quiet authority. “We need to have a conversation…”
Baron’s jaw tightened. “This is a family matter. My daughter—”
“Your daughter is standing in the arms of a man who loves her.” Tryst spoke softly. He didn’t need to shout. “A man who came here with his brothers and his friends to bring her home. You don’t get to call this a family matter when you’re the one who made it something else entirely.”
I felt Isabel shift in my arms, turning her head to watch her father. I loosened my grip enough to let her breathe but kept my hands on her, needing the contact as much as she did.
Thomas spoke next. “I’ve known you most of my life, Baron. We built our businesses together. Raised our families in the same circles. This isn’t you. What happened to our friendship isn’t you.”
“You don’t understand what she’s done,” said Baron. “The choices she’s making. She’s throwing her life away on a—”
“You know you’re wrong, Baron. Stop this.
Now,” Tryst interrupted. “She’s an adult.
She’s made her choice, and from where I’m standing, it’s a damn good one.
” My uncle stepped forward and put his hand on Baron’s shoulder.
The gesture was one of an old friend reaching out to another. “Let it go. Be the father she needs.”
Baron’s expression shifted. The hard mask slipped, and I saw the grief underneath.
Isabel lifted her head. She looked at her father, and I watched her spine straighten.
“You have one chance.” She sounded hoarse but certain. “What I told you inside, I meant it.”
Baron said nothing.
I took Isabel’s hand. “Let’s go.”
We’d taken two steps when Baron stopped us.
“Wait.”
Isabel’s grip on my fingers tightened, and she turned around.
“I want to speak with my daughter.” His eyes moved to Isabel. “Alone.”
Every instinct I had screamed no. After everything he’d done, after the way he’d treated her, leaving her alone with him felt like handing her back to the enemy.
But Isabel squeezed my hand, and when I looked at her, I saw something I hadn’t expected. Confidence.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can do this.”
“Isabel—”
“Because of you.” She turned to face me fully, her hands coming up to rest on my chest. “I’m strong enough to do this because of you. I already stood up to him before you got here. I said things I’ve been holding inside my whole life. Whatever he wants to say now, I can handle it.”
I searched her face for doubt, for fear, for any sign that she was pushing herself beyond what she could bear.
I found none.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I cupped her cheeks in my hands and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right here.”
She nodded, then walked toward the porch, where her father waited.
I watched her climb the steps to where Baron held the door open, then both of them disappeared inside the house that should have been hers.
I moved to follow.
Tryst’s hand closed on my arm. “No.”
“I can’t—”
“You must.” His grip was firm. “You’re showing her that you believe in her. That you trust her to fight her own battles.”
I stared at the front door, every muscle in my body coiled to move.
Snapper appeared beside me. “He’s right.”
“I know he’s right.” I spoke through clenched teeth. “That doesn’t make it easier.”
“Nothing about loving someone is easy.” Snapper began. “But the hardest part isn’t fighting for them. It’s stepping back when they need to fight for themselves.”
The minutes crawled by. Each one felt like an hour.
Bas paced near the SUV, his jaw tight, his eyes flicking to the house every few seconds. Press stood with his arms crossed, watching the windows for any sign of movement. The Viejos had moved to a cluster near the circular drive, speaking quietly enough I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
I didn’t move an inch. I kept my eyes on that door and waited.
My mind constructed a hundred scenarios, each worse than the last. Baron apologizing just long enough to get her guard down. Baron threatening her with something I didn’t know about. Baron finding new ways to twist her thoughts until she believed leaving with me was a mistake.
Snapper moved closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough—a reminder that I wasn’t alone and my family had my back.
Five minutes. Ten. The door stayed closed.
When it finally opened, Isabel stood alone in the doorway.
She looked at me across the distance, and something in her expression made my chest ache. Not pain. Not grief. Peace.
“Kick.” She motioned to me. “Come inside.”
I hurried up the steps and took her outstretched hand.
Baron’s expression was unreadable when he walked past me without speaking. I turned and watched him descend the porch steps toward the Viejos, who closed ranks around him. Based on Tryst’s body language alone, I was sure they intended a reckoning of their own.
“Where’s he going?” I asked.
“To face what’s coming, I imagine.” She squeezed my fingers. “I’ll tell you everything. But not out here.”
She led me through the front door.
The foyer was dusty, the crystals of a chandelier overhead clouded with neglect. But beneath the years of abandonment, I could see what this place had been. What it could be again.
“Welcome to Miremont.” Isabel’s tone was soft. “The only place that felt like home until the day I met you.”
I gathered her close and held her. When she finally raised her head, she was smiling through her tears.
“Come on.” She took my hand again and led me into what must have been a sitting room. Dust covers draped the furniture, and pale light filtered through grimy windows.
“He told me the truth,” she began. “Finally.”
I waited, letting her share in her own time.
“Miremont was never sold. It was always mine—left to me by my mother’s family. He withheld it, telling himself he was protecting me from my own incompetence.” Her laugh was hollow. “He let me grieve this place for five years while it sat here, empty and waiting.”
“Jesus, Isabel.”
“There’s more. My mother’s family left me an inheritance. Ten million dollars, held in trust until I turn thirty. I had no idea it existed. He never told me.”
Ten million dollars. Hidden from her for years while Baron controlled every aspect of her life, while he threatened to cut her off, while he made her believe she had nothing without him.
“He’s releasing it early,” she continued. “He has the discretion, apparently. And my trust fund—I’ll have control of that as well.” She shook her head. “I went from having nothing to having more than I know what to do with in the span of one conversation.”
“Why now? What made him do such an about-face?”
“I guess he finally realized he’d lose me for good if he didn’t.
” Her expression shifted. “I think me standing up to him broke something open. Or maybe it was seeing all of you out here, ready to fight for me.” She wiped at her cheek.
“He said he was sorry. I don’t know if I believe him yet.
But he’s trying. And I told him if he ever tries to control me again, the door closes permanently. ”
“You’re free,” I said.
“I’m free.” She stepped into my arms, her face pressed against my chest. “And the funny thing is, I don’t need any of it anymore.
Six months ago, I would have done anything for his approval, for access to that money.
Now, I just want you. This life we’re building.
” She looked up at me, and the happiness in her expression made my heart swell. “The rest is just extra.”
I kissed her forehead, then her lips.
“Show me our home,” I said.
While smaller than Baron’s estate, the rooms were more open and spacious.
Warmer too. Beneath the dust and neglect, everything was solid—hardwood floors worn smooth by generations of footsteps, window seats built into deep casements with cushions faded but still intact.
The kitchen had tile work that looked hand-painted, the colors still vibrant beneath a layer of grime, and a fireplace large enough to cook in.
The air smelled like old wood and dried flowers, with something underneath that might have been lavender. Cobwebs hung in corners, and dust motes floated in the air. But it was all solid. The structure was sound. This was a home that had been waiting, not dying.
“Miremont belonged to my mother’s family.” Isabel ran her fingers along the wooden surface of a sideboard. “And now, it’s mine.”
She turned to face me.
“Ours,” she said. “If you want it to be.”
I looked around the room. “Is this where you want to spend our life together?” I asked.
She held her breath. I could see the hope in her eyes, fragile and fierce at the same time.
“Because I think it’s perfect.”
The breath rushed out of her, and she laughed and threw her arms around my neck. I lifted her off her feet, spinning her once before setting her down.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really. We can restore it together. Make it ours.”
She kissed me, quick and hard, then grabbed my hand again. “There’s more. Come on.”
We continued through the house. There was a library that was mostly full, but had a few open shelves, and a sunroom with windows on three sides overlooking what must have been gardens once. There were six bedrooms, all on the second floor, each with a fireplace and views of the vineyard hills.
Finally, she led me into an upstairs sitting room near the back. The furniture was draped in white sheets, but above the fireplace hung a portrait that stopped me in my tracks.
The woman in the painting looked out at me with dark eyes and a half smile that made my heart stutter. Her hair was the same color as Isabel’s, swept up in a style from another era. She wore a deep-green dress and pearls at her throat. She was beautiful.
“That’s you,” I breathed.
Isabel squeezed my hand. “That’s my grandmother. Ana?s.”
I stared at the portrait, at the face that could have been my Isabel’s. The resemblance was uncanny. The shape of her eyes. The curve of her mouth. The quiet strength in the set of her shoulders.
Ana?s.
The name settled into my chest and stayed there, warm and certain.
It was perfect for our daughter.
But I didn’t say it. Not yet. That moment would come when the time was right, when we knew for certain.
For now, I just stood beside the woman I loved, in the house that would become our home, looking at the face of her grandmother, and held the name close to my heart.