“For now,” I replied and he smiled again.

Then his smile faded, a warm, sultry feeling filled the room, his eyes dropped to my mouth and his fingers pressed into my neck.

Then he muttered, “All right, then let’s go to bed.”

I stared into quicksilver eyes that were staring at my mouth, the eyes of the man who loved me, the eyes of a wild, rough, beautiful man who I knew but the proof had just been laid out for me felt exceptionally deeply and had an endless capacity for loyalty and I didn’t protest.

Not that I was going to anyway.

Chapter Fifteen

Unexpected Company

One month later…

It was Saturday and Brock had just gone out for a run, his weekend with his boys having been interrupted by them being invited to a party and they were currently there. He was set to return, shower then take off and get them and I wasn’t going to see him again until Sunday night as he intended to have “a talk” with them (in quotes because it was going to be heavy) about all that was going down.

While he was gone, I was putzing around in my kitchen.

It was my first full day off since two weeks before Christmas because Tessa’s Cakes had been a madhouse and it was all hands on deck.

The good news about this was, I could afford more nighties.

The other good news about this was, when I pulled myself out of bed every day and then dragged my ass home every night arriving late, exhausted, only to face Christmas crap (cards, wrapping presents I ducked out from work to buy or ran around the malls to get on the way home – we’ll just say my Christmas spirit took a hit), Brock didn’t like it much and told his mother about it. So of course she told her daughters about it. Then I got a visit at the bakery from Jill with Kalie and Kellie in tow and both girls were looking for jobs (Kalie, to buy Christmas presents and also to aid her goals in helping to save the world as well as for college, Kellie to buy Christmas presents and then continue to work her way to top fashionista of the sophomore class) and they wanted to work at Tessa’s Cakes.

I hired them on the spot.

They were still on the payroll working some evenings and weekends and, although business had slowed, it was not by much. They were godsends considering they were punctual, understood customer service, were hard workers, didn’t like to be bored and they were hilarious. Kellie was even learning how to decorate cakes.

In other words, they were two of the reasons I could finally have a day off.

The bad news about this was, I was overworked, exhausted and my Christmas spirit had been drained out of me. Not to mention, I didn’t have it in me to stay on the ball with all that was happening around me. Therefore I pretty much didn’t know what was happening around me because Brock locked himself straight into protective mode and told me not to worry about that shit, instead focus on the bakery and Christmas.

And I probably shouldn’t have taken him up on that but I did.

It wasn’t really true that I had no days off. I had Christmas off and New Years. But neither of these were days off, as such, considering the activity levels. Firstly, Mom was taking a long visit, enjoying an Australian summer with my sister, there Thanksgiving through the New Year so I had to be up at an ungodly hour to get their Skype. Then Brock only got the boys for half a day on both days and half that time needed to be spent having Christmas lunch/New Year’s dinner at his mother’s house, the other half at his pad and then they had to get back home so we were running around most of the day and I was doing my damnedest to make them good days for the boys because Olivia was still filling their head with garbage about me. They were visibly confused, worried about the state of affairs, worried about their Dad and struggling with loyalty to their Mom in how they dealt with me.

So, suffice it to say, even protected from that shit by Brock, it still leaked in and I had also descended from really not liking Olivia to pretty much hating her.

Brock had had two dinners with Olivia since the first drama (yes, two, the bitch). This did not fill me with joy but luckily I was too exhausted to build up any emotion about it because that emotion would probably not have been pleasant and Brock came home from both dinners looking like he wanted to rip someone’s head off so I needed to look after my man.

In other words, just like Elvira warned, Olivia was playing every game in the book, not listening to a word Brock said and that situation had not gone away.

Though, that said, after dinner number two, Brock came home not only looking like he wanted to rip someone’s head off but also declaring, “That’s it, done with that shit,” which I suspected meant dinner number three would happen when hell froze over. And this was also part of the reason for “the talk” with his boys this weekend.

I had no clue what Damian was doing and Brock didn’t fill me in. I figured my man was honest enough with me that he would tell me if there was something I needed to know so I kept my head down and did what he told me to do, focused on what I needed to be doing and that was not lapsing into a coma.

So right then, due to pure habit, I was in my kitchen thinking for the first time in my life if I saw a cake I’d scream my head off.

And thus I was also realizing that I hadn’t had a vacation in over a year and I was wondering, since Brock hadn’t been in his job too long, if he could get a week off and we could go to a beach somewhere.

And when my mind skidded into this thought, it moved onto other thoughts of beaches, water, tropical drinks that tasted like liquid candy and the fact that local fashion dictates would mean for the vast majority of time Brock would be in nothing but swim trunks.

And this was what was pleasantly occupying my mind when a knock came at the door.

My pleasant thoughts evaporated, I looked at the door and my first instinct was to run downstairs and hide in the guest room.

Another knock came and I heard Martha shout, “Tess! I know you’re in there because I can see your car and his new fancy-ass truck! Open up!”

Oh man.

Martha was on a tear.

I sucked in breath reconsidering the guest room and instead considering escaping out the back.

Then, because it was Martha, I walked to the door.

I opened it to see Martha plus Elvira as well as another black woman with tawny eyes and an enormous afro that had to have its own zip code and they were all accompanied by a woman who, at first glance I would have sworn was Dolly Parton. After blinking, I saw she was younger but she still had the masses of fabulous platinum hair, enormous bosoms and she was wearing skintight stonewash (yes, stonewash) from shoulders to toes (including platform boots made of stonewash). The entirety of this was adorned with what looked like a layer of glitter not to mention a heavy array of rhinestones decorating the shoulders and down the front of her jeans jacket.