His big hand covered my mouth and his head dipped so he was all I could see. “He and his ass**les tortured me. He sold you, his f**kin’ daughter, to pay off a goddamned debt for f**kin’ blow. Even if you weren’t his daughter, Sylvie, that… shit… is… whacked. Who does that?” he asked and he didn’t wait for an answer even though he pulled his hand from my mouth and wrapped it around my jaw. “No one but people who are serious as shit f**ked in the head. You could have no f**kin’ clue when you left me that night what would happen to us the next f**kin’ day. Where we were, what we knew, you made the right decision, Sylvie. You were a good person, a good daughter, tryin’ to do right and you made the right decision. It was him, baby. All f**kin’ him. Do not take that shit on. You do, it’ll f**k with you forever.”

I stared in his eyes and I did this a long time. Long enough for the shakes to subside and I took in a deep breath.

“Okay,” I whispered.

His body relaxed at my side. “Okay.”

“So,” I started to recap, “I give you Phoenix and living in an oven for a few months out of the year. You give me a fab pad with a pool but the rest, can we agree to wing it? See how it goes.”

He waited a beat before he muttered, “I can live with that.”

I grinned at him and muttered back, “Good.”

I saw his return grin before he bent his neck and touched his mouth to mine.

He lifted his head and whispered, “Gotta get rid of this condom, baby. Be back.”

I nodded against the pillows. He bent his neck again to touch his lips to my throat before he started to roll off the bed.

But he stopped and looked back at me.

“Just to say,” he began, “this house and all it is, all that’s in it, it’s about me, it’s about givin’ good to my kids. Absolutely. But make no mistake, Sylvie, no way in the back of my head while I was buildin’ all this, buildin’ my life, I didn’t think I wished I was giving it to you.”

After he dropped that bomb, he finished rolling away from me.

I had no retort, mostly because I’d stopped breathing.

I took in a deep breath in order to jumpstart my oxygen intake and rolled three times to the other side of his massive bed. I swung my h*ps around, put my feet to the floor and got out, reaching down. I pulled on my panties and cami and wandered to the windows.

Seriously, his view was f**king fantastic.

I felt him enter the room, heard his bare feet padding on the floor then I felt his arms wrap around me from behind.

I relaxed into him.

Then I asked what I’d wanted to ask since I got there.

“How’d it go with Chelle and the kids?”

His body grew tight for a second, as did his arms before he sighed and relaxed.

I did not take this as a good sign.

“Head’s up, Kara is gonna like you, probably rabidly. She’s determined to like you. She’s thrilled past anything healthy I got a woman in my life.” This was surprising news so I turned in his arms while he was still talking, curled mine around him and looked up at him as his chin dipped so he could look at me. “Mostly, this is to stick it to her mother. I do not get what’s goin’ down between those two but I figure what she fakes for you in order to hurt her Mom will eventually become genuine and not a way to f**k with Chelle. It’s just that, now, that’s where she’s at.”

“Oh… kay,” I agreed slowly, not getting this either. Then again, my stepmonster mostly ignored me and I returned the favor. We existed in the same house. She gave an effort that was all show when she thought she’d get something from my father in return. Usually, even when I was really young, she went her way and I went mine.

My Mom called her a scheming, greedy gold digger which was what she was seeing as she was Daddy’s secretary before he divorced my mother to make her his wife. And I liked my Mom as best I could, seeing as my Dad devoted his life to all things f**ked up including doing everything within his formidable power to make my mother’s life miserable and that included keeping me away from her. He did this until she gave up the fight and took off to California. Before that, no way I’d use the stepmonster to screw with precious time with my Mom. No way in hell.

But, whatever. Kara Creed was not me. I was just going to have to deal.

“Brand’s Brand,” he went on, taking me from my thoughts. “He likes everyone. His response to me tellin’ them about you was, ’Awesome cool, Dad’.” Creed said the last with a smile and kept talking. “He likes people. He’s social. Talkative. Even when he was a baby, he met people’s eyes and smiled at them. Just like my Dad. Dad could and did talk to anybody. He never went anywhere where he didn’t have a friend, mostly because he made friends if there wasn’t one there already. Brand’s just like that.”

That sounded better so I gave him a smile and a squeeze.

His expression grew thoughtful and his gaze drifted over my head as he murmured, “Chelle’s happy for me.”

I blinked up at him. “Say again?”

He looked down at me. “She didn’t do cartwheels but yeah, you heard me. She was happy.”

“You’re kidding,” I whispered, not having a good feeling about this.

“Baby, your name is inked on my back and she loves me no matter I dicked her over. You don’t know her, we haven’t gotten deep about her but I told you she’s a good woman. When I say that I mean, she’s a really f**kin’ good woman. Funny, loving, smart, sweet. In a f**ked up drunken speech, I gave it all to her. She knows about the lake, the pier, the necklaces, the promises, all our history. You’re inked on my skin. I named her kids your names. That shit, our shit, our history, our connection was and is extreme. She gets that better than anyone but you and me and she loves me. She can’t have me but she can be happy that I have what I need.”

Okay, he was a man so he didn’t get this shit but women so did not work that way.

Ever.

“Okay,” I said but even I could hear I was full of shit.

His arms gave me a squeeze and his face dropped closer to mine. “You’ll meet her and you’ll see. She is not like other women. She’s just Chelle.”

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled and still sounded unconvincing.

He studied me then his mouth curled before he muttered, “Nothin’ to do but wait and let you experience it yourself.”

Something not to look forward to. Chelle Whatever-her-name-was-now was so not happy Creed had found me.