“I’m good, George. I’m taking Darby to the east wing.” Of course they have wings in this over-the-top house. I follow Jonas. As we pass George, I give the man a half smile.
“How are you, Ms. Harris?”
“Call me Darby, please.”
George chuckles. “We’ve had this fight before. You know I can’t.” His eyes go soft on me. “I’m glad you’re back. Give her hell.” He winks at me before turning to shut the door.
“This way.” Jonas cuts in before I can ask who I need to give hell to. I give Jonas another nod and follow after him. My eyes are so tired at this point that it’s hard to take the place in. Everything is breathtaking and beautiful. I’m going to have to put Jax in a bubble. This place is definitely not baby ready. If Jonas intends for us to stay here, he’ll have to make a lot of changes. Childproofing this place is only the beginning.
“Here.” I look back to Jonas as he pushes open two white doors into a giant bedroom. I follow him in as he sets the car seat down. I drop to my knees in front of Jax, unbuckling him before I slowly pull him out. I bring him close, needing to feel him against me. I always feel calmer when he’s close.
“Mommy,” he says in his sleep.
“I’ve got you, angel.” I pull Jax tighter in my arms as I stand. This gets harder and harder every day. He’s going to be as big as his father from the looks of it. My eyes flick over to Jonas, who is pulling his buttoned-up shirt out from his slacks. He’s a wrinkled mess in his tux.
I turn, heading over toward the giant bed to put Jax into the center of it. I don’t look back at Jonas as I crawl into the bed with Jax. It may be terrible, but I am using Jax as a shield. I don’t want to be alone with Jonas. I am still trying to get everything I am feeling under control.
“Can we step out for a minute?”
My body stiffens when I realize his voice is coming from right next to the bed. I open my eyes, sitting up. “No. I won’t leave Jax alone. He has no idea where we are. If he wakes up he might be scared.”
Jonas runs a hand down his face. “Okay but we need to talk.”
I shake my head no. “There is nothing to say. You wanted Jax here.” I look down at our son. “He’s here.”
“About us.”
“There is no us.”
“Darby-”
“Don’t,” I snap, cutting him off. I take a deep breath in to get myself under control so I don’t yell and wake Jax up. “You say I ran. Fine. Maybe I did. I don’t know what the truth is there. What I do know is that there had to be a reason that a person that’s so in love would run. They would have to have been scared or truly unhappy to take off without a trace. So you think that you have questions, well so do I. Beginning with why did I run from you, Jonas?” I turn my head to look back up at him. He looks shocked as he takes a step back as if I’d hit him. “You may not believe that I don’t remember you, but it doesn't matter. If I ran, I was running from something. If I’m going off the man I’ve met today, I’m starting to see why I would have.” I shake my head.
“I never once thought I ran away from someone. It never even crossed my mind. I didn't know who I was when I woke up in that hospital room but I didn't think for one second that I ran from something. I wasn't scared someone was going to find me. I was scared that no one was looking.”
“Darby-”
I keep going, ignoring him. Realizing that I’m pretty terrible at this not talking to him thing. “No one did.” I turn away from him. “For years.” I lie back down next to Jax, putting my arm around him and closing my eyes, willing myself not to cry. “I’m tired. Please let me sleep before Jax wakes up soon,” I tell him, hoping that he leaves before I start crying. The room goes quiet. I don’t know if he stays or goes. I don’t hear anything as I drift off to sleep.
Chapter 11
Jonas
A half hour later, Melody bursts through the door of my suite. “What is it? You made it sound like a huge emergency on the phone,” she says. Her hair’s a mess and it looks like she dressed in the dark.
“Are you wearing a different tennis shoe on each foot?” I ask from my seat on the sofa.
“Yes because you texted that I needed to get my ass over to the estate pronto and that if I didn’t something terrible might happen. So I got out of bed, grabbed the first thing I could find and drove over here only to find you sitting on your ass drinking what appears to be your fourth glass of scotch.”
“It’s only my third.” I pat the cushion next to me. “Come sit by your baby brother.”
Melody throws her coat onto a chair and trudges over. She’s not happy but since she loves me, she does as I ask.
“You’re lucky you’re my only brother or I wouldn’t feel so indulgent.” She throws herself onto the cushion, grabs my drink and downs half of it. Her face curls up. “I hate that you drink your booze neat. Scotch is better with ice.”
“Ice waters it down.”
“Exactly. It needs to be watered down. It has about eighty years of sediment in it. But enough about that. I didn’t come all the way over here in the middle of the night to argue with you about liquor. What’s going on?”
“Darby’s back.”
&
nbsp; Her jaw drops and it takes her a couple of seconds to compose herself. “Darby? As in your Darby? Oh, Jonas.” She puts her hand on my forehead as if I’m sick. “I thought you were starting to move on. That’s why I sent you up to the Wards, but instead of finding a new woman, you’re sitting in the dark dreaming about Darby. Honey, she’s not coming back. I miss her, too, but this isn’t good for you.”
I nod my head toward the set of double doors leading into the bedroom. “Go and look for yourself. She’s really back. Be quiet, though. They’re sleeping.”
“They’re?”
“She has a son. My son.”
“What?” The one word flies out of her mouth so loud and high, I fear she’s going to wake them. I clamp a hand across her face and hold a finger to my mouth.
“They’re sleeping.”
Wide-eyed, all she can do is blink at me for a while. Finally, she collects herself and walks over to the doors. She stops in front of them, takes a deep breath, and then slowly opens one door just wide enough to slip through. After a minute, she returns. Her face is creased with shock—eyes wide, eyebrows raised, mouth slack.
She stumbles back to me and collapses against the cushions.
“That’s Darby. I thought she was dead.”
“Me too.” I gulp the rest of the liquor and pour myself another serving. Before I can take a sip, Melody steals my glass and downs half of it.
“Sorry,” she says, pounding her chest with a fist.
“I know. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut, too.”
“What happened? Where has she been? Where did you find her?”
“She was living over the Wards’ garage. I’m not sure what she was doing there or why she ran away. She says that she survived the accident but had amnesia. She hadn’t taken a fall off the cliff into the ocean like everyone presumed.”
“Amnesia?” Melody whisper-shrieks, her voice full of the same disbelief that I’m feeling.