DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(60)

But then she walked in here, all covered in flour, looking incredibly sexy…I wasn’t expecting the perfect curves hugged by low rider jeans and that simple cotton tee. Or the exhaustion in her eyes that made them seem bigger and greener than they looked in pictures. And the way her wavy mahogany-colored hair sat askew in its ponytail only made her look more vulnerable, more innocent, in a most alluring way. I couldn’t hardly put two thoughts together from the moment she walked through the door. And then she got mad—as if she had a reason to get pissed off—and that just set me off.

I hadn’t meant to make threats. But watching her storm out of here like that loosened my tongue.

I cursed under my breath after she’d gone, aware that I’d just opened a door that should have remained closed a little while longer. I gathered my things, shoving student essays into a leather case that was meant to carry million dollar business deals rather than badly written essays on Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and stormed off to the tiny house I was renting six blocks from the house where JT lived.

Everything in my life right now seemed to be measured by how it related to JT. How far my house was from his, how long until he was scheduled to sit in my classroom, how many days until I could sit in the stands and watch him dominate on the football field. At least when he played football I could take pictures to send back to Libby without someone thinking I was some sort of pervert, or something.

I walked into the house, dropped my case on the floor, and wandered into the kitchen, pouring myself a glass of rather expensive bourbon. A swallow or two and the uneasiness that had settled in my chest began to dissipate. My first instinct was to call my lawyer. That woman was clearly in over her head. All it would take was a petition by my lawyer in the local courts, and I could get custody of JT. The paperwork was already in order. My lawyer put it all together weeks ago when my investigator presented him with a DNA test done with a blood sample stolen from JT’s doctor’s office—JT had to have a physical at the beginning of the school year to play football; it was a cinch to steal a blood sample and have it tested in an independent lab with a stellar reputation.

I knew he was my son before I came here. No doubts. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

He was mine and I wanted him in my control. This teaching thing—yeah, it was kind of nice teaching after all those years of dreaming about it and all the time I’d spent doing the one job I’d never wanted—it was fun. But I was needed back in Oregon. And watching JT sleep through class and bully his way through the hallways was growing old quite quickly. And the lies. I was not a man who liked to lie. Keeping this secret was killing me.

Even my mother had no idea that I’d found JT. I was almost afraid to discuss it with her. A part of me really didn’t want to know if she was involved in whatever happened that caused some lawyer to think I’d given up my rights to my own child when I had no clue he even existed. If I’d known…

I think about it a lot. How would my life be different if I had known? Would I have dropped out of school? Would I have offered to marry Julia? Would she have accepted? Would we have tried to live a nice, quiet middle class existence, both of us college dropouts, both of working dead end jobs that would get us nowhere? Or would I have still caved when my father died, gone home and taken over the company anyway?

There was no way to know, really. Our lives might have gone differently. They might not have. But Julia seemed happy in her life with her Wall Street husband and two perfect little girls. So maybe her life took the path it was meant to take. But mine?

I thought I wanted to teach. I thought I wanted a quiet life. I thought being CEO of Ashland Furniture was the worst thing I could possibly do with my life. But in the last twelve years, I’d built it into something so much more than my father had ever dreamed of, let alone managed to achieve in his lifetime. Ashland-Philips Corporation was a billion dollar company where Ashland Furniture was barely staying out of the red year after year. I liked that I’d done that. I liked the reputation I’d built, the money I’d made, the success I’d achieved. What started out as a desperate attempt to keep my mother and sister housed and cared for had become a challenge that I welcomed every day without really realizing it. Without it these last few weeks, my days felt almost empty.

Except for JT.

I wanted my son. I wanted to take him back to Oregon with me, wanted to show him who I was and what I could provide for him in terms of his future. I wanted him to be more a part of my life than just what he was now: my student.

“I can’t keep doing this,” I said to my sister a little while later. “I can’t keep watching him throw his future away one exhausted day after another.”

“He’s a teenager, Harrison,” Libby said. “All teenagers behave that way.”

“But you should have seen the defiance in that woman’s eyes. She’s not going to do anything about his behavior. She’s more concerned about that bakery than she is JT.”

“She’s just trying to survive in the wake of tragedy. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?”

I stopped pacing my makeshift office in the spare bedroom of my rental, the ball of anger I’d been holding on to since Penelope walked out of my classroom suddenly dissipating in place of a sudden rush of incredulity.

“Are you seriously comparing her to me?”

“There are similarities. You had to give up your dreams when Daddy died to take care of me and mom. This Penelope did the same thing when her parents died.”