Chapter 4
Ana could only remember a few times in her life when she’d felt as embarrassed, humiliated and panicked as she did right now.
Cole’s presence charged the air with electrifying tension, and the hard gazes of his brothers twisted invisible knives shoved into her years ago because of how she’d handled their breakup. “Um… ”
“We know you’ve recently expanded your store and moved the location into the hotel. That couldn’t have come cheap,” Alec said.
“It didn’t. I’m afraid I’ll…need to make payments for the amount I owe, but I’ll figure it out,” she said in a rush. “I will pay you.”
“No need,” Alec said.
“No need? I’m not following,” Ana said, her pulse pounding through her veins as if she ran a marathon.
“Ben, take a seat while we go over a few things.”
Ana said a quick prayer that Benji would cooperate and not cause more trouble than he already had.
Getting him here had been problematic. He hadn’t wanted to get out of bed this morning and dragged his feet to the point she was ready to break down and rage because she felt so frustrated by his behavior. So helpless in this situation.
Her job was to protect her child. And he was a child. His actions and behavior proved as much.
But when it came to changing his attitude from this angry, hormonal, belligerent monster, she was at a loss. Yelling didn’t work. Taking away his phone or video games never seemed to have the impact one might think.
Once they’d gotten home, she’d discovered he’d added a passcode to his phone. One she didn’t know and of course he’d refused to reveal.
She’d read enough books on raising boys as a single mom to know she battled hormones and peer pressure, but the sheer amount of anger Benji blasted out in all directions?Why was he behaving this way? Where did it come from?
Benji flopped into the spare seat and glared at Alec. Ana winced, and when she shifted her attention to the eldest Blackwell brother, she saw disproval flash over his expression before it turned unreadable once again.
Gage stood to her right, but she noticed something catch his attention. That something had to be Cole because a slight turn of her head allowed her to watch Gage walk to the door and take Cole’s place so that Cole could move to stand leaning against the wall between Alec and Brooks who sat at their desks.
Cole had silently ordered his brother to guard the door so that Benji couldn’t just up and run. It was smart but also aggravating. She knew a power play when she saw one. The brothers had teamed up to take on her son, and witnessing them working together made her realize just how hard it was to do everything on her own.
“So let’s hammer this out,” Alec said. “Ben, you took something that didn’t belong to you, and you damaged it. Your mom has offered to pay for the repairs, but we don’t think that’s fair. So instead we’ve agreed that you will work off the money you owe us.”
“Work it off. Like, for free?”
“If you’re asking if you’d earn a wage, the answer is no. Your earnings would go toward the debt as compensation. Are you involved in sports or after-school activities?”
Ben’s face flushed a bright, ruddy red with his anger.
“Basketball,” Ben bit out.
Ana nodded that it was true, her mind reeling with the change in direction. She was stretched thin financially, and while she could take money from the nest egg she’d managed to scrape together, the repairs would empty the account. No emergency fund, no secret stash. She’d be scrambling to get by just like she was in the early days when Ben was a baby.
Alec glanced from Benjamin to her before he sat back in his seat and frowned. He studied Ben a long moment in silence, and she grew more nervous due to the man’s expression.
“You know, we sponsor the basketball team because Coach is one of my best friends from high school,” he said with another glance at Analise. “I don’t remember seeing you around when they did the car wash here last week. But you’re saying Coach will confirm you’re on the team?”
Her body turned ice cold. Surely Benji hadn’t….
Benji didn’t answer, and Ana turned to look at him, noting his face was red once again. “Benj-ah, Ben?”
The silence lengthened, and her worry increased.
“No,” Ben said finally, “‘cause I quit.”
The air left her lungs, and a wave of disbelief passed through her. “Practice just started. When did you quit?” How had she not known this?
“When I realized I suck and wouldn’t get to play,” Benji said, sliding her a disgust-filled glare.
“When?” she demanded.
Benji shrugged his shoulders. “A couple weeks ago. I don’t know.”
She huffed out a breath that did nothing to quell the anxiety she felt. “So we can add lying to your list of offenses. Where did you go all those evenings when you said you had practice?”
Benji smirked. Smirked!
Her fists tightened to the point of pain, and she fought off a dizzying wave of embarrassment.
In her peripheral, she noticed Alec laced his hands over his stomach and steepled his fingers. Brooks sat there with a fierce frown on his face, and Cole seemed to split his attention between her and her son, unnervingly silent yet watchful.
Judging, no doubt.
And who could blame him? She felt like a fool. All she could do was sit there and drown in the fact she knew almost nothing about her child. She’d been too busy working over the years to provide for them and live independently of her controlling parents while trying to keep a roof over their heads. Painfully long days working multiple jobs as she built her dream from the ground up. First as a pop-up, then to a tiny fixed location by renting vendor space and then moving into a lease of her own before finally scoring the opportunity of a lifetime with Rhys’s hotel.
Benji’s grades had suffered last year, declining because he said the subject matter was difficult. But was that why?
She wasn’t one of those parents that expected straight As. She expected him to do his best, and if his best was a C in a subject he found difficult, then she would accept the C wholeheartedly and proudly and encourage him to keep at it.
But once again, he’d lied to her, deceived her, played her, and she’d discovered it while surrounded by Cole and his brothers. That rankled.
She wasn’t foolish enough to think her child wouldn’t keep secrets from her. She certainly had at his age. But hers were secret crushes and copying someone’s homework when she hadn’t gotten hers done so she didn’t get a bad grade. Not…stealing cars and doing God knows what.
At a loss, at least momentarily, Ana glanced at Cole and found her gaze captured and held by Cole’s deep ocean blue. His eyes were such a dark blue; they sometimes looked black. Like…an angry ocean churning its depths.
All the Blackwell siblings carried the same dark hair and tall, lean builds, but Cole was the bulkiest and most muscular of the four brothers present.
The boy she’d known had grown into a man with laser sharp vision that stripped her emotions bare and left her floundering.
She finally tore her gaze from him, unable to handle the censure she felt and just as quickly found herself under Alec’s perusal.
As the oldest of the nine siblings, Alec had carried the weight of keeping his brothers and little sister together under one roof after their parents’ deaths. That stress now appeared in the tiny lines around his eyes and between his eyebrows, and the hint of gray dusting his temples even though he was only three years older than Cole, who was thirty-five to her thirty-three.
Alec carried himself with a quiet, observational stealth, but maybe that confidence had been ingrained into him as the one in charge of such a large household.
“Ben,” Cole said in a low voice that brought them back to the present. “Your mother asked you a question. Where were you when you lied and said you were at practice?”
“I don’t answer to you.”
“Yes, you do,” Alec said. “We are your bosses for the foreseeable future until you work off your debt to us so let’s be clear— You do answer to us.”
Sudden pain seared her palm. Ana forced herself to release the fist and jabbing pressure of her nails biting into her skin and took a steadying breath. “Gentlemen, I-I appreciate your concern, but as that took place before the incident last night, I…give Ben permission to answer me later in private.”
A muscle spasmed in Alec’s strong jaw, and the tension in the room skyrocketed to even higher levels. They’d pressed Ben to help her discover the truth, and here she was throwing it back in their faces. Neither Alec nor Cole appreciated her undermining their effort, and their expressions showed it.
But they questioned her son, and Benji was hers to deal with and handle. At least where that question was concerned.
“Lying will not be tolerated,” Cole said.
“No, it won’t,” Alec said. “We work as a team here. And by taking you on, regardless of why, that means you’re going to be part of that team and held to the same standards.”
“In other words, you’re expected to grow up and be a man,” Cole growled. “Your mother may tolerate your crap, but we won’t. You will be here after school and on weekends, on time, every time. No excuses.”
“What if I’m sick?” Benji asked.
“Like your school, we’ll accept a doctor’s excuse that can and will be verified,” Alec said. “The only other reason is if your mother needs you, but she must make the request personally to one of us so there’s no doubt that it’s coming from her. No other excuse will be tolerated. Is that understood?”
Ana waited, her gaze shifting from Cole to her son. Benji’s face burned hot with his emotions, nostrils flaring with every angry breath.
“You can’t make me work for you,” Benji said, his tone full of snark.
“We have witnesses, photos, and we’ve tried to cooperate with you so that you don’t get into trouble with the law. You’re right. We can’t make you. This is your choice, Ben,” Alec said. “Us or jail. Which is it?”
“Think before you speak, Ben,” she said, cutting herself off before she added the ji to his name so as not to anger him even more. “Do you want to go to jail? Because I can’t get you out of that.”
Ben remained silent a long time. He looked as though he fought back tears, but she couldn’t be certain. Anger rolled off her son.
“What do I have to do?”
“You will work with the four of us across our various businesses,” Alec said in no uncertain terms. “And you’ll keep any complaints to yourself while you do it. Your actions are what brought you here. Nothing else.”
“My mom will pay you so I don’t have to work for you.”
Analise winced at the whiny, entitled tone and stretched out a hand to place it on Benji’s arm in the hopes of silencing him. He yanked away from her touch with such a violent motion that all four men stood or straightened to their full height as though ready to jump to her defense.
The silence that followed was deafening as Benjamin received the full weight of the men’s stares in addition to her own. But in that moment, that second, Benjamin seemed to realize he was outnumbered, and he’d be held accountable by these men.
“Your mom paying us is no longer acceptable. It’s all on you, Ben,” Cole growled. “Now watch yourself when you speak and have contact with your mother before we decide to teach you some manners. Understood?”
Ana’s pulse raced at the intensity and anxiety of the moment. The promise she heard in Cole’s words and the affirming stares the Blackwells gave her son made it clear Cole wasn’t the only one upset with Ben.
Maybe their behavior at such a time would be considered intimidation by some, but she reluctantly acknowledged that Cole and his brothers had done what she had been unable to do these last two years. She’d defended herself plenty of times, scolded Ben about yanking away the way he sometimes did. But hearing it from them?
In those seconds, they’d made Benjamin pay attention.
And while it broke her heart to admit it, the lack of positive and corrective male influence in her son’s life had never been more obvious than in that moment. The sight gutted her and left her reeling.
All she’d ever wanted to do was give Benji the best life she possibly could. But she hadn’t been able to give him this.
Not a father. Not even a grandfather. Nor even a brother to stand shoulder to shoulder, side by side. She’d failed him in so many ways.
Boundaries were being set. Clear guidelines that couldn’t be argued when Ben inevitably tested them. Like a moment ago. Benji needed to know what they’d accept. And what they wouldn’t.
They’d made it blatantly obvious they would not tolerate disrespect and had the wherewithal to enforce it, whereas she’d taken more and more of the abuse because Benji just wouldn’t stop no matter what she said or did.
She forced herself to breathe. To gather her emotions. The moment rocked her to her core, and she both hated and loved the Blackwells as a result. Even while it made her question her parenting skills because she couldn’t get the same result.
“You won’t be quitting this,” Alec said in a firm tone. “You do not get off the hook except by working off the damages. It’s a commitment we expect you to take seriously. You don’t work, you break the agreement, then you find out what the inside of a courtroom and juvie look like. Understood?”
Benji didn’t look at Alec, but after several long, agonizing seconds, her son gave a tight nod.
“I’ll put together a schedule,” Gage said, joining the conversation from his position at the door. “Split his time among the four of us.”
“Five,” Cole added. “Make sure you leave some hours for him to man up and work for his mom. He owes her the most.”
Ana met her son’s gaze as Ben slid her a glance. He quickly looked away. Did she actually glimpse a bit of guilt? Remorse?
Acknowledgement that these men were calling him on something she’d said all along?
“Are we done? Can I go now?”
Benji sounded sullen and ill-tempered. Ana stared at her son, disappointment piercing her on Benjamin’s behalf and her own.
Her mind flashed to when he was a toddler. Benji loved snuggles, and his infectious grin would light up the room. She’d believed those days impossibly hard as a single mother at the time, but now she’d give anything for the simplicity of them. For a cuddle and kiss to heal whatever hurt he held locked up so tight inside that he hated everyone and everything.
Alec stood and motioned for Benji to join him. “No. Come with us. We’ll show you around and get you started.”
“I have to start now? Today?”
“Jail, Benji,” she snapped, face hot with embarrassment. Had he not heard a word that had been said?
“Yes, now. Let’s go,” Alec ordered.
Everyone seemed to move at once. Benji shoved himself from his seat. Gage opened the door. Alec and Brooks brought up the rear, cutting her off and trapping her in front of the chairs before she could follow behind Benji.
The door closed and she hadn’t even made it halfway across the short expanse of the office.
The soft snick of the door latching sounded loud in the room, magnified in her ears due to her complete and total awareness of Cole’s presence behind her.
He, too, had moved when the others had, and now her every inhalation carried the scent of him. Sandalwood, mint, and spice filled her head and blasted her senses. Her pulse raced, and her mind flashed with backseat whispers, sky-high Ferris wheel kisses, and all those times when the only thing that mattered was being together.
“We’re not done, Ana.”
She quickly took the remaining three steps to the door only to watch Cole’s hand appear in front of her. He placed a palm against the panel to hold it closed even though she froze at the low growl of his voice and didn’t twist the knob.
Ana felt the heat of his body at her back and replaced memories of their past with facts from the present. “I…need to get back to work.”
“We’re not finished. I want answers.”
She fumbled with her bag and finally managed to face him, taking extraordinary care so that they didn’t touch. “About what?”
He leaned closer, and she found herself instinctively placing a hand on his chest to press him back and regain some breathing room. He wrapped his free hand around hers and held it despite her attempt to pull away once he took hold.
“Where is Ben’s father?”
“Not in the picture,” she said. “And that’s all you need to know.”
She eyed his long fingers and big hand encompassing hers, a silent gasp filling her lungs.
Chemistry had never been an issue with them.
“Promise me something.”
She looked up, taken aback that he’d make such a request from her considering how she’d ended the last promise she’d made to him.
“Promise me you’ll tell me if Ben ever hurts you.”
She blinked at him, shocked at first and then…furious. “He would never… How dare you imply that he would.”
This time he didn’t fight her withdrawal when she yanked her hand away.
“You have a right to be angry with Benji. You have a right to be angry with me,” she said, her voice trembling despite her effort to keep calm, “but you do not have the right to suggest my child is a danger to me or anyone else.”
“He’s already proven he’s a risk by stealing and crashing the limo. How can you not see it, Ana? Whatever is going on in his head is eating him alive. He needs hard work and healthy outlets to wear himself out so he doesn’t implode and make you a casualty. Anyone with eyes can see that.”
Hearing the truth hurt. Knowing Cole was right hurt worse. Was she such a bad mother that she couldn’t see Benji’s actions for what they were?
He cried for help, but what was wrong? Why wouldn’t he talk to her?
She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. Couldn’t form them or the denial she wanted to make for the sake of her pride if nothing else. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll…check into counseling for him.”
“Do that. But you are not going to leave this room until I have your word that you will tell me if he ever lifts a hand to you.”
“That won’t happen.”
Cole’s expression darkened at her denial. His gaze shifted low, and he slid his palm from the door, deftly snatching her phone from the outside pocket of her purse.
“Give me that. What are you doing?”
Cole evaded her attempts to get her phone back.
“Adding my number so you can contact me when it does.”
He turned the phone toward her face long enough to get past security, and once he’d entered his information, she watched as he slid the phone back into the pocket of her bag.
“Where will you be around five?”
“I…the hotel. My boutique. Why?”
“I’ll drop Ben off when he’s finished here,” Cole said. “We’ll talk more then.”
“We have nothing left to say.”
“We’ll talk more then.”