To Forgive & Hold Safe (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 4) (20 page)

A few weeks came and went in a flash.

Work was a pain in the ass today with some hot-shot businessman’s wife having a fit about one of my servers checking her out over breakfast.

By the time lunch rolled around, Hannah had called me to cancel our daily lunch date because of a last minute order.

My day had gone from bad to worse when Chris walked in and made a bee-line for me.  There was no escaping the man this time.

“What do you want?” I growled out.

“We need to talk.”

My eyes narrowed on him.  “You fucked my wife, what’s there to talk about?”

The heads of the few remaining lunch patrons turned toward us.

Chris stepped back, his voice cracking when he spoke next.  “You know.”

“Oh boy, do I ever.” My blood boiled.  “What other reason could I have for being pissed off at you?” 
Now this I have to hear.

He looked around and saw that some people were still looking our way.  “Can we speak somewhere a little more private?”

“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” I could be liable for a hell of a lot more than just yelling at the man if he pushed me over the edge.

“I’m done tip-toeing,” the man said.

Give the man what he wants and move on.

Derek took over as I led Chris to my office.

He refused the seat I offered him, and I shut the door with a little more force than necessary.

“So what do you know?” he asked.

“Does it really matter?  Let me ask you a question, Chris. Did you ever love her?  I mean, for a married man, there had to have been something about Candace that made you want her more than your own wife.”  At least the man had the decency to look guilty.  “Tell me… What did you do when you found out that Karen was yours and was being raised by another man?”

The man’s face grew red with fury.  “Leave my baby girl out of this!”

“That’s right, Chris,
your
baby girl.” I walked toward my desk.  “I have something for you.  You had your assistant drop them off at her parents’ house and they finally came my way a few months ago.”  Opening the drawer, I pulled out all five journals, letting them drop to my desk with a loud thud.  “They make for great, kinky reading.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy them since they’re all about you two.”

“Ben-”

“Don’t Ben me.  We’re not old friends.  You were an ex-boyfriend of my dead wife’s, her boss, her lover.  Were you ever really out of her life?”

The man shook his head.  “I should have never left her to begin with.” The man’s eyes teared up. “I loved her, Ben, so much.  I-”

“I don’t want to hear your apologies or excuses.  You’ve had three years to come clean and you haven’t.  Fuck, you had a hell of a lot longer than that if we’re being honest here.”  I took a deep breath, giving him a hard look.  “Take them, read them, they’re yours.  They don’t belong to me just like Candace and Karen never did.  It’s too bad I wasted so much of my life thinking I was happy when I was clearly about to suffer the biggest heartbreak of all.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but-”

“What?”

“She did love you,” he said.  “She loved us both.”

A snort escaped.  Was he for real?  “You must be delusional.  You don’t love someone and fuck around on them.  Get your head out of your ass for one second and take a look around.”

The man remained silent.

After a long minute, he picked up the journals, tucked them under his arm.

“I have one request of you.” I sighed.  “I know that you haven’t changed and the fact that you’re standing here in front of me with no wedding band around your finger tells me that life hasn’t been all that kind to you over the last few years.  I need you to move on.  As for your business meetings, you need to take them elsewhere.  You’re not welcome in my establishment.”

The man nodded.  “Is that all?”

“No.  I saw the way you honed in on Hannah.”

“I didn’t know she was taken.”

“Fair enough.  But what you said after knowing she was mine indicates that you’re still an ass.”

“I’m sorry.  I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but I need to say it.  Candace’s parents were the ones that said I needed to talk to you.”

“You talked to them?”

“I bumped into them about a month ago.  Her old man looked as if he was ready to throttle me.  They told me that they knew what their daughter had done and urged me to be a man for once.”

“So that’s why you’ve been in here,” I said, piecing the puzzle together.  The man nodded.  “Fine.”

“I’ve seen you visit them,” he said.  “I can’t bring myself to walk up to their graves.”

“What is this?” I turned away from him, irritated.  “For all intents and purposes, we’ve cleared the air, Chris.  Be a man, go see them, cry your eyes out for all I care.  Lord knows I’ve done more than enough of that when I shouldn’t have.”  I headed toward the door and held it open.  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a business to run.”

“Ben-”

“I said get out!”

By the time my shift was done, I sped home like the Hounds of Hell were on my ass.  I walked through the threshold and slammed the door behind me, ignoring the unfamiliar car that was parked in my driveway.

“Well that wasn’t the kind of ‘glad to see you’
I was expecting.” My head snapped in Hannah’s direction.

Much like the vehicle, I hadn’t noticed her standing there until she’d spoken.

Marching past her to the liquor cabinet in the den, I poured myself a generous amount of scotch, downing it and enjoying the numbing burn as it slid down my throat.

Hannah’s arms surrounded my torso as I tilted the glass down from my lips.  “Bad day?” she asked into my back.

I groaned my response.  After a few seconds, my eyes widened.  “Who’s car is in the driveway, and why are you here?  I thought I was picking you up later.”

“Mine, and I took an early day because I was desperate to see you, why?”

“You got a car?”  I put my glass down on the cabinet and turned to face her.  “When?”

“Today.  I can’t expect you to drive me around all the time.  Let’s face it, I needed to get back behind the wheel.”

“I wish you would have told me.” I grabbed her face in my hands, trying to gauge where her head was at.  This had been a big step for her, what with the anxiety that riddled her every time she tried to get in the driver’s seat. “We’d decided that I’d go with you.”

“I wanted to do this on my own.”  She gave me an apologetic look before it was chased away with a look of excitement.  “What do you think of it?”

Aside from it being a black SUV, I hadn’t really paid that much attention.  “Let me go look at it.”

A hand grasping the back of my shirt stopped me before I could move away.  “Hold on, mister.  You’re not getting away without my kiss first.”

My lips met hers for a quick peck.  “Like magic. You can always make my day better with one of your kisses.”

“And you look like you could do with a good one with this mood you’re in.”  She wrapped her arms around my neck.  “Come here.”

The moment her lips captured mine hungrily, the world faded away.  Chris?  Gone! My problems?  Gone!  It was just Hannah and those luscious lips of hers that brought me more than pleasure.  They brought me comfort, brought me home.

She pulled away first and I leaned my forehead against hers.  “Hi, sweetheart,” I said huskily, then grinned.  “Let’s go check out your new ride.”

“I gave you a kiss like that, and all you want to do is check out the car?”  She huffed melodramatically.  “Men!  You may be a sweetheart, a sex God, and one hell of a boyfriend, but you men are all the same aren’t you, all for the toys?”

I stepped out onto the front step and realized a Range Rover Sport sat in my driveway.  “Oh, baby…” I looked at her.  “We’ll do more than just check out the car.  I’ll help you christen the back seat.”

Hannah’s face took on a beautiful shade of pink before she gave my side a slight shove and jumped off the front step, then turned to face me.

“Baby, the only thing that back seat will be seeing is cracker crumbs and spit-up.  This is a no-sex zone.”  She gestured toward the car as if she were Vanna White.

“Awe, come on!”

She leaned up against the driver side door as I stepped toward her.

It wasn’t until I looked into the vehicle and saw a car seat that her words hit home.  My heart pounded a tattoo, my head started spinning, my legs felt like jelly, and then, my ass hit the pavement.

I could hear Hannah crying hysterically as my senses came back.

Cracking my eyes open, reality came crashing down on me.  A smile spread over my lips and my hand reached up to cup her cheek.  Hannah’s head shot up and her eyes connected with mine.  In that moment, I lost it, and not with the reaction either of us was expecting.

What started off as a small chuckle quickly turned into a full out belly laugh.  My girlfriend’s brows furrowed and when my giggles continued, she knocked my hand away from her, sat back on her knees and crossed her arms over her chest.  “I don’t think any of this is funny.”

“Sweetheart.” I stifled another giggle and reached up to cup her cheek once more.  She let me. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Her agitation was building.  “For fainting?  For damn well near giving me a heart attack?  Or is it the fact that your child has some superpower that can ratchet up someone’s nausea a notch or a hundred in point-two seconds?”

“Baby?” My smile was still firmly in place.  “Calm down.”

“Don’t you ‘baby’ me, Benjamin Carpenter.”

My fists twisted into the front of her shirt, stitches tore, and she landed on top of me with an “oomph” escaping her lips.

“Now listen here, woman.” I rolled us so I lay over her.  My hand found its way beneath her shirt and stopped over her stomach.  “The fact that you’re pregnant is amazing, and I can’t be more thrilled.  Fuck, Hannah, you caught me off-guard and I passed out.  I’m sorry I scared you.”  I leaned in and kissed her hard, feeling her body lose some of its tension.  “Move in with me.”  I pecked the corner of her mouth.  “This weekend.”  I pecked the other.  “I don’t care whose house we take, sweetheart, my home is wherever you are.”

My lips caressed hers in an all too short tender kiss before I pulled back to watch her gaze soften.  “Now that’s a reaction I’ve always wanted.”  She nuzzled my nose.

“Yeah?”

She nodded, her smile brilliant. “Baby?”

“Hmm?”

“You think we can get up now?  This asphalt isn’t exactly comfortable on the back.”

“Shit!”  I hurried to my feet and pulled her up, crushing her into my chest before taking her hand to steer her toward the house.

“Didn’t you want to look at the car?” she asked.

“Not now.  I have something more important to do.”

She giggled at my urgency to get us inside.  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Make love to my beautiful pregnant girlfriend.  Nice and slow.” I opened the door and let us in.

“Make it dirty and hard and we have a deal.”  She groped my manhood through my pants as I turned to latch the door.  “Knock this nausea back a notch and pound it out of me, will you?  We can have it your way all night long.”

Grabbing her shoulders, I turned us so her back hit the door and my body crowded hers.  “I love it when you talk dirty.” I crushed my mouth to hers in desperation.  She jumped up and wrapped her legs around my waist, shocking me with the hard, quasi painful bite to my lower lip.  I growled and pulled back, licking where her teeth had snagged.

“Hurry up, Daddy! Mommy’s hungry and she’d like for you to fill her up with your-”

My hand connected with her ass as I pulled us away from the door. “Sweetheart, we’re not getting up those stairs right now,” I announced, walking us backward until she was against the wall at the bottom of said stairs.

Her legs loosened and I lowered her so she could stand.

Pants undone, my knees met the floor where I pushed Hannah’s small sundress up over her waist.  My hands roamed the sides of her hips and stopped at her tiny waist, my thumbs rubbing her belly.  I spread tender kisses over her stomach just as the front door opened.

“We just dropped by to-” Mike’s words froze.  “Whoa!”

My hands removed themselves from Hannah and set her dress to rights as I groaned out a “Seriously, guys, don’t you ever knock?”

Mike’s sarcasm was potent.  “Seriously, a Range Rover is nice but it’s nothing to get that excited about.”

I got up to my feet with a grin and pulled Hannah into my side.  “It’s what’s in the back seat that’s got me all fired up.  Go ahead, look.”

The couple ran off while my girlfriend and I waited.

Here it comes.

Mike came barrelling through the door, white as a ghost, with Nicole latched to his back.  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Nicole jumped off of him and tackled my woman to the wall with a large hug, squealing with excitement.

I shook my head and grinned at the spectacle that was my woman and Mike’s.

My best friend’s color came back and the man grinned.  “I’m going to be an uncle?” For some reason, his reaction was even better this time around than when I had told him that Candace and I were expecting.  The man took two large steps and crushed me in a hug.  “I’m so happy for you guys.  You are happy, right?”  He pulled back.

Hannah made her way back to my side.  I had yet to answer my best friend.  “You are happy, right, Ben?” Hannah asked with hesitance.

I turned her to face me.  “I’m happier than I could have ever hoped to be.” I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and took my time kissing her with slow languorous strokes of my tongue.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how he got her knocked up in the first place,” Nicole said, and Mike laughed.  “And I thought my husband was insatiable.”

Hannah and I pulled away from each other and looked at the both of them.  Mike’s arms were wrapped around his wife.  “I’ll show you insatiable when we get home, woman.”

After a quiet dinner with Mike and Nicole, Hannah and I had called it an early night. That’s when I realized that Hannah hadn’t answered my earlier question about us moving in together.  Cuddled into my side, my fingers combing through her hair, I said, “Sweetheart?”

She sighed peacefully.  “Hmm?”

“Will you move in with me?”

She lifted her head, the look in her eyes was one of concern.  “Are you sure?”

I nodded.  “We can live here…or your place.”  My hand found its way to her stomach.  “I’m even up to buying something new for the three of us.”

Hannah’s features darkened.  “I can’t live in that house, Ben.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Yes, I want us to move in together.”  She kissed me softly.  “But we have to tell our parents.”

“Fuck!” My palm connected with my forehead.  “Your dad is going to kill me.”

She laughed.  “He’s always wanted grand-babies.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“So, why the worry?”

“I always thought I’d be married before that happened.”

“Good thing we were both married before, then.” She winked at me.

My eyes rolled.  “It’s not funny.”

“It is, a little bit,” she said.  “And Daddy would never beat on a woman, let alone a pregnant one, so just stand behind me and stay real close when we tell them.”

“Shouldn’t we wait?” I asked.  “I mean, how far along are you?  God, I’m already off to a bad start.  Instead of grinning like a fool, I pass out.  Instead of asking how you were feeling and how you found out, I jumped your bones like a caveman-”

“Baby,” she grabbed my face, “passing out aside, you reacted just the way I wanted you to.  I love you, Benjamin.”

God, did I love her!