Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
I shook my head, hating he was worried about something like that. “You are perfectly fine.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but he walked over to me, and for the first time in a long time, my son slipped his hand into mine. It wasn’t something Cam did anymore. Holding my hand was for babies. Or at least, that was what he had said the last time I tried to hold his hand. Now, he needed my assurance. I was his safe place, and the fact that he was reaching out for that security made my guilt gnaw at me.
We started to walk around the sofa, and Blaire’s gaze found mine.
“Thank you,” I said to her. “We need to go talk about things. It was nice to meet you.”
“It was nice to meet the both of you too,” she replied.
We were almost to the door when I heard heels hitting the marble floor. Pausing, I looked back, and Blaire appeared.
She looked at Cam, then back to me. “Finlay men can be … difficult, but … when they love, it’s forever.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Because Dean Finlay did not love me. She misunderstood the situation.
I simply nodded and opened the door to step outside. Free of the confines of the penthouse I would never spend another happy moment in again. That door was closed to me. I prayed, one day, I could find a way to move on.
thirty-four
dean
The whiskey in my hand had been my friend for the past forty-eight hours. I stood, staring out the window of my living room, while Rush sat on the sofa, waiting on me to respond to his questioning. I didn’t have an answer for him. He was going to be waiting awhile.
“Dean?” He said my name again.
I glanced back at him. “Can’t you let me wait in fucking silence?” I asked him.
“I’ve given you silence, and your time is up,” he said. “This isn’t just about you. It doesn’t only affect you. There is a kid. Your kid. According to Blaire and Dr. Moses, he looks just like me at that age. That means, I’ve got a brother. A kid. One who not only looks like a Finlay, but also got your talent.”
These were things that I had thought of already. The first time I had seen Cam, I’d thought he looked familiar, and then I’d thought it was because of the photos in their apartment. Now, I knew. He did look like Rush had at that age. They had the same smile. How the fuck had I missed it? Then, there was Cam’s talent on the drums. It was uncanny. It wasn’t average. He was gifted. He loved the drums the way I had once loved them. It was what he wanted to do most in life. I had been the same.
Fuck! He was nine years old.
“Nine years, Rush. She took nine fucking years away from me.”
Rush didn’t say anything, and I turned to look back at him.
“Why do I feel like you’re taking her side? First Blaire and now you,” I said accusingly.
Rush shrugged. “I didn’t meet her. But I trust my wife. She’s an excellent judge of character. Plus, she made some damn good points.”
“Fuck her points!” I roared. “If this is my kid, he has lived a life of poverty. He didn’t grow up in a mansion on the beach. He lived in God knows where when he was born. He has known hunger. My kid has been hungry. He’s had a hard life. He didn’t get the life I gave you!”
The anger began to rise up again as I thought of what kind of life a teenage girl would have put my son through. While I had been living in luxury and the best money could buy, he had been living without everything.
“I grew up in a home with a mother who was mentally and emotionally damaging. The only love from a parent I got was from a rock star who was often stoned or drunk when I was around him. I had everything money could buy, but what I really wanted was a fucking mom. One who tucked me in at night. One who was there to hold me when I cried. One who I could depend on. I didn’t get that, Dean. But … my brother did. Poverty or not, the kid has a damn good mom. I’m not just going by Blaire’s assessment of her either. I’m going by what the private investigator you put on her ass two days ago told us. He praised her, Dean. He said she was an excellent parent. So, be mad at her. Be furious if it makes you feel better, but remember, you fucked a seventeen-year-old girl. A foster kid at that. And you don’t remember it. She had no one. She was a kid. Yet here she is, ten years later, with your son. He’s healthy, happy, and fucking talented.”