“Right,” his voice was low and leaning toward angry impatience, “I get you. I get we lost that time. I get you’re not seventeen anymore and you can take care of yourself. And I get that maybe to you it’s crazy but what you need to get is it’s what I f**kin’ need.”

He meant that. He needed it.

Oh God, they messed him up. They messed us up. They f**ked everything up even beyond what we already knew.

My voice was softer and my body relaxed into his, my hand coming up to wrap around the side of his neck when I said, “That was a long time ago, babe. I’ve lived. I’ve changed. You have, too. We’re doing this, going forward in life together. I get what you’re saying but we’re both different and we’re different in good ways. We should embrace that.”

“You’re giving up Charlene, the kids, your partner’s family and Knight to be here with me. That’s your part. I take care of the rest.”

“Please don’t do that.”

I said it in a rush, my voice suddenly edged with an anguish I felt coming from deep in my gut, tearing through me, leaving tatters in its wake and I felt Creed’s big body still under mine.

I went on, “My Dad did that to you. My Dad took those years away from us. Yeah, it’s gonna suck, giving up my life in Denver but it’s you. It’s always been you. I’d walk the Sahara to get to you. I’m not lovestruck and acting stupid. I know it’s gonna be hard giving up my life in Denver but I don’t have kids. I don’t live in a house like this. I don’t have roots. I have relationships and if relationships are good, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, they always stay strong.”

He didn’t listen to the last part and this would be clear when he stated, “You carry no guilt for what those motherfuckers did to me.”

“I know, kind of,” I semi-agreed. “But do you see where I’m coming from?”

Creed rolled, disengaging us, so I was on my back and his body was pressed into my side and partially over me.

“No kind of,” he growled. “That was all Bissenette, what he did to you and what he did to me. These nightmares you’re havin’, don’t let them take hold. You bear no responsibility for what happened to me.”

I felt my body begin to shake and my voice was fragile and so totally not me it felt like it came from some other me when I reminded him, “You wanted to leave that night. I made you –”

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.