Sweet Little Memories (Sweet #3)(13)

His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “Thank God,” he whispered. Then his hands cupped my face and he kissed me. The kiss wasn’t wild and crazed, it was one of relief and tenderness. I pressed closer to him wanting to comfort him any way I could. If I could take it all away from him I would.

He’d been betrayed from those that were supposed to love him since birth. His father, mother, and now Jasper. Knowing Jasper had so openly accused Stone of something he wasn’t sure of to hurt him turned my stomach. Jasper was a disappointment. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. What he had done to Stone was very Portia-like and that made me sad. He’d been more affected by his parents than he realized. And I had been so swept away by his good looks and prince charming ways that I missed all of that.

My thoughts went to Stone. Was I missing something that also dwelled deep inside him? If so, I would accept it. I had no choice. My heart was his.





Stone

I EASED OUT OF BED where Beulah lay sound asleep. She hadn’t moved in over an hour. My eyes had remained open and staring at the ceiling. Not wanting to wake her with my restlessness, I decided that getting up was the best idea. Holding her after our lovemaking had been reassuring. She wasn’t gone. She wasn’t leaving me.

Telling her the truth had been hard. It was a secret I’d held close for so long that sharing it with someone was a huge step for me. I’d debated telling her, knowing deep down she’d stay with me no matter what. I had also known I could trust her. Even if she chose to leave me she’d never share my secret.

For the first time in my life I had someone who was there for me. Someone I could lean on, share things with, and know they were by my side. The moment I saw the doubt in her eyes, I cracked. I couldn’t handle that she trusted Jasper. I had to get away so I could work through it without her there, tearing me apart with her pleading eyes.

I never told Jasper about Hilda. He had been there when Hilda acted inappropriately around me though. Once he had asked if I was banging my stepmom. I’d scowled at him in disgust. The moment she’d become my stepmother it was over. Not that she didn’t try to change that.

After Wills was born she got worse. When he was only four months old, she came looking for Jasper and me downstairs. Wearing nothing, she had made it very clear that she wanted us both. At the same time. Jasper’s eyes had bugged out of his head. He’d played with her tits that were still massive from the milk. My father required she nurse Wills for at least six months. She hadn’t wanted to. That didn’t stop her from showing me her swollen breasts more than once in her attempt to get me to have sex with her. Jasper was mesmerized. He was begging me to touch her. When he put his mouth on her nipple to try her milk like she suggested I told her to leave.

Instead, Hilda had straddled Jasper’s lap. He was ready to fuck her right there with no concern for his life if my father came downstairs. He had told me I needed to taste her which disgusted me. She was possibly the mother of my son and she tried to get two sixteen-year-old boys to have sex with her while a nanny took care of Wills.

I had to stand, point at the door to the stairs and threaten if she didn’t get her ass out of the room that I would call my father. That worked—Jasper didn’t want anything to do with my father’s temper and Hilda had all but run out of there.

Later that night, Jasper asked me if I’d fucked her before. I told him I hadn’t. I wasn’t admitting that to him or anyone.

He didn’t ask me about Wills until he turned two years old. Wills looked exactly like me. It wasn’t obvious or abnormal to anyone else because we were half-brothers. However, my father’s unsaid accusations were obvious. He would glare at me and I knew he wondered.

Hilda soon became another ex-wife and my father’s newest girlfriend was even younger—only a few years older than me. According to the prenup, Hilda had signed without even reading it, Wills was to remain with my father. She could have fought him in court. She was his mother and the prenup was ridiculous. She never debated and left her son there. She rarely even sees him to this day on her designated weekends.

Wills was living my life and I hated it. I didn’t want that for my son. Wills didn’t have a Geraldine to come along to fill in the loneliness and isolation. He had a stepmother who acted as if he was a hindrance. She never wanted him around and swore she wasn’t having kids. The idea of her stomach being anything but flat was unacceptable to her.

I grabbed Wills’ photo album from my closet and took it with me to the living room to look over his photos. I’d taken him to the Central Park Zoo and a movie while I was in Manhattan. He’d talked nonstop about his new school and his new friend George. I listened as he shared every aspect of his life with me. I understood his babbling. When Geraldine would take care of me as a child, I talked to her like this. I had needed someone to listen about my life and to care.

When I dropped him off later that day, he’d held my neck tightly and told me he loved me. The hunger to be loved and wanted was so familiar to me. I’d been that child once. Taking him and running was so damn tempting. But I knew my father would have Wills within hours and I’d be thrown in jail. I had to fight my father the right way. I had to be smart. And if Wills wasn’t my child, I had to find a way to save him anyway. A life with my father would ruin him. I didn’t want him to be like me—hard, cold, unable to trust. He still had joy in his eyes, they held hope for more. That would eventually get beat out of him and I had to save him before that happened.