Betting the Bad Boy (7 page)

He found out that Grace lived in the old Phillips place, which was a shock in itself. The house had been one of the oldest, creepiest places in town when they were kids. It was a monstrosity of a home with an odd layout and painted in a brown color that Duke could only describe as shit-toned. But if the house wasn’t creepy enough, it was its residents that kept people away. An older couple lived there with their son. The rumor was that he was a serial-killing cannibal that they wanted to keep locked away, but Duke knew the man was mentally ill and harmless. He felt bad for the guy. He almost understood what it was like to be him, because he had lived as an outsider in this town, too. He also knew that Colt had found housing for the Phillips boy and was paying all his bills.

He had been surprised when he learned about it, because Colt seemed like such a smug, cold son of a bitch, but he was a good man, too. It was probably why, even though they had nothing in common, they’d never lived more than five miles apart from each other since he had gotten out of prison.

He pulled up to Grace’s house a few minutes later, finding it even uglier than he remembered. The porch looked like it was about to fall off. The misshapen roof was shedding shingles. He couldn’t believe that she’d gone from that beautiful house with the manicured lawn and the pool in the back to this. And what bothered him even more was that she was driving around in a rusted piece of junk. Taking his kid around town in it. He knew what it was like to grow up poor and he would be damned if he let his son live that way.

As soon as he was done here he was heading back to Vegas and right to his lawyer. Ryder was never going to live like this again.

Grace stepped out on the porch as soon as he cut off his car. She was wearing a khaki-colored skirt and a pink top. Her light-brown hair was pulled back, her face pale and tight with worry, and yet Duke still found her beautiful. He hated that the air sizzled around him anytime she was near.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come,” she said when he stepped out of the car. For someone who had been keeping his only child a secret, she sure as hell didn’t seem like she was about to back down. She stood there with her chin up and her back straight.

Her gaze never wavered from his.

He almost admired her for that.

He stood staring at her for a moment, not knowing where to begin. There were too many thoughts crashing around in his head.

He had waited for her to come visit him in jail before the trial, or write him a letter, or call him, but there was nothing. He knew her father had sent her away, but he still expected something. Some kind of communication. Just to let him know he wasn’t alone in there.

He thought she had loved him, but he guessed it was more teenage infatuation than real love. And the whole time she had been keeping a son away from him. Probably too embarrassed to let to world know that she had made a baby with a piece-of-shit criminal.

“Please come in.”

He walked inside her house, finding the interior a little better than the outside. He could see all of Grace’s little touches that made it homey. The handmade quilts on the couch. The fresh flowers on the side table. Pictures covering nearly every spot on the wall. He walked over to them, seeing Ryder as a baby with a big drooly smile. Seeing him as a toddler walking and as small child at his baseball games. He had missed it all. Every single part of his kid’s life. And now he was a teenager.

Duke knew right then that he would never miss another important moment again. “He looks just like you,” she said quietly from behind him.

He turned to face her, more furious than he had ever been. “So you admit it? You’re not going to lie and say that I’m not his father.”

“How could I deny it? I’m assuming somebody told you. Who was it? Who knew?”

“Nobody told me. Of course nobody in town knows. You would have never told them that you had a baby with Duke King.”

“Wait a minute.” She looked outraged. “I tr—”

“No. You don’t get to do the talking. You had years to do the talking and you didn’t, so it’s my turn. Nobody had to tell me that he’s my kid. I caught him throwing rocks at your father’s car and realized that I was looking at my own goddamn face. How long did you think you could keep this from me? It would have come out. You may think you’re fooling the world, but these people here would have figured it out when he grew into a man who looked just like me. You’d rather let him go fatherless than let the world know that you had a baby with a King boy.”

“I don’t think you’re trash,” she yelled back at him. “I never thought you were trash. I was in love with you.”

“Bullshit. I did what I did for you and I never heard from you again.”

“He sent me away! And I—”

“You weren’t the fucking prisoner. That was me, remember? I was the one who couldn’t get out, who couldn’t contact you, but you knew where I was the whole time.”

“Let me explain. I wr—”

“Let you explain what? That you were just a bitch who screwed the wrong guy.”

“Duke, I…”

He saw Grace’s expression change to one of horror and then he felt the fist slam into the back of his head. Ryder had flown at him and started pummeling him with the force of a grown man. “Don’t you call my mom a bitch, you fucking bastard.”

Duke caught the enraged kid’s hands, twisted them around his body, and pulled the boy close to him to stop the assault. “I’m sorry, Ryder. You’re right.” He held him tighter as he struggled against him. “You’re right. I should never talk to your mother or any woman that way. I was mad. I’m sorry, Grace. I won’t speak to you like that again.”

“Ryder, honey.” Grace touched his shoulder, tears in her eyes. “Please calm down.”

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped at her. “Is it true?” He looked up at Duke and into his eyes. “Are you my father?”

Duke looked at Grace for a moment before he answered. “I am.”

Ryder broke down, a sob tearing from his chest, and Duke felt more pain than he had ever felt in that moment. He didn’t know this child, but he knew Ryder was his and seeing him in pain was like being stabbed in the gut with a hot knife. He loosened his grip on Ryder’s arms and put one hand on his back as Ryder cried into his chest.

The other hand came up to Ryder’s face, wiping away his tears. It was then that Ryder seemed to realize what was happening; he yanked himself away, looking embarrassed and angry at himself for breaking down. “If you’re my father, then where the fuck have you been?”

Duke looked to Grace again. “I think that’s a question for your mother.”

Chapter 7

Grace couldn’t tear her eyes off Duke as he held on to their son and gently wiped his tears. It was then Grace knew she was wrong. That this separation was completely her fault. In her gut she had always known that he had never read her last letter. She knew he was better than that, more honorable. He just couldn’t have just ignored the presence of his son. He wouldn’t do what his father had done to him. She had made a terrible mistake, misjudging him like that.

“If you’re my father, then where the fuck have you been?”

She gasped at the language, at the anger in Ryder’s voice. But then Duke looked at her, thirteen years’ worth of anger and hatred built up in his eyes. She didn’t know what to say except, “I’m so sorry, Ryder.”

“Don’t talk to me. I hate you!” He stormed out of the house. She started to go after him, but stopped. He needed his space, and she didn’t know what to say.

She didn’t know where to begin, with Ryder who was hurting so much it broke her heart or with Duke who was standing before her, that heat of his hatred burning her.

“I’m sorry.” Those were the only words she could form.

“You are going to be sorry when I take him away from you.”

“What?” His words literally caused Grace to stumble backward. “You can’t take him away from me.”

“You don’t think so? You live in this shit box. You’re driving around a car that could fall apart at any moment. You’re working two jobs just to make ends meet when I have everything, when I could have provided for you both.”

“Screw you!” She rounded on him. “He doesn’t go without. He’s healthy and taken care of and no judge is going to side with you.”

“Why? Because I have a record? The record I got because of you.” He took a step toward her and she could feel his fury, but she wasn’t scared of him, only of his words.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. You know I didn’t. I didn’t even know you were going to be there that night.”

“It doesn’t matter if you meant for that to happen. It did happen and you were so embarrassed by it you didn’t bother telling me that I had a son. Well, you’re going to pay for that, Grace. Because the tables have turned and I have everything and you have nothing. I will fight you in court and I will win.”

Fear slid down her back, but she knew better than to back down to Duke. “It won’t happen. I know it won’t happen. He is loved. He is cared for.”

“I heard from Lolly that he’s flunking classes and raising hell. The people in this town may not know he’s my son, but they know all about Ryder. He’s giving you problems. Problems that could have been avoided if he had a man in his life. His father in his life.”

“You forget that my father was a judge for thirty years. You forget that my grandfather was a congressman and that we have connections. You can try to fight me for him, but you won’t win.”

“You don’t think so?” He stepped closer to her, lowering his voice to a dangerous pitch. “I have all the money in the world and you have nothing. How long can you keep fighting me? How much money do you think your father has to pay a lawyer? By the time I’m done with you you’ll be so broke you’ll have no choice but to give him to me just to make sure he’s fed.”

“Is that what you want?” She tried to keep her voice steady, but it was all she could do to keep herself from trembling. “You want to raise your son alone when you have never been around a child?”

“I damn near raised my brothers. Or did you think the town drunk was a stable parent after his wife died?”

“You may have raised them, but you haven’t raised him. You don’t know him and if you think being a parent is easy you’re dead wrong. And think about him! Think about what’s best for him. Your son. Is having us fighting really going to help him?”

Duke went quiet then, and Grace knew she had made him think. The truth was, Duke was right when he said she couldn’t afford a court battle. Her father’s influence would only take her so far. She could barely afford to pay her bills now; there was no way she could afford a good lawyer.

“What are we going to do,” he asked after a long silence. “I’m not just going to go away. I’m not just going to send a check once a month. I want him to know me.”

And she wanted Ryder to know him. In her mind she had all these valid reasons for not going to Duke after he got out of prison, but none of them seemed anywhere near good enough after what she had just witnessed between them. “Let’s make a bet. Stay here with us for a month and get to know him. If you prove to me that you can be a good father, I’ll give you as much access to him as you want. But only as long as you don’t try to take him away from me.”

“That’s not enough.” He shook his head, his feet planted. “No matter what you say, I’m going to have access to my son. You can’t keep him away from me again. I won’t let you.”

“But I can get one hell of a custody agreement,” she countered. “You’re a stranger to him. You’ll be lucky to get weekends and holidays.”

“You can’t do that to me.”

“I don’t want to do that to you,” she said, feeling her heart breaking all over again. “And I don’t want to do that to him.”

“What if I stay here? What if I prove that I’m a good father after a month?”

“What do you want, Duke?”

“I want you both to move to Vegas for good. I want to pick what school he goes to and I want to have a say in every major decision that involves him.”

“But my father is here,” she blurted out, surprised at herself for doing so. They didn’t get along, and most of the time she didn’t like him very much, but he was her father and there was love there—and the promise she’d made to her mother.

This was the only place she felt connected to her. Her childhood home was the only place she had happy memories of them.

“Your father can go fuck himself. Those are the terms of the bet. If I can’t hack it, I’ll agree to whatever custody arrangement you want. But if I win, you had better start packing, because you’ll both be saying good-bye to this place.”

Every inch of her body wanted to rebel, to scream at him to go away and not interfere with her son, but Ryder wasn’t just her son. He was Duke’s, too, and he needed to know his father. Grace needed to do what was best for him. “I agree.”

“Good.” He stuck out his hand for her to shake.

She gripped it and looked right into his eyes.

“If you once threaten to take him away from me or try to turn him against me, you had better be prepared for the fight of your life. Because I’ll die trying to take you down.”

His hand squeezed a little more tightly around hers, and heat shot up through her body. She was mad as hell at the moment and so was he. But he looked good, too. Big hulking body, hot angry eyes. She wondered what it would be like if he made love to her right now.

Making love
wasn’t the right term.
Sex
was better. Hot, primal, angry sex that left them both sweaty and spent. The thought of it made her excited. It made her want to finish what they had started in the park the other day.

Duke let out a long, slow breath, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t fight dirty.”

Maybe not but he did fight, and fight incredibly hard. “I believe you.”

“Good. I’m going to go find Ryder.”

*   *   *

It didn’t take Duke long to find Ryder. The boy was sitting behind the dilapidated shed looking surly as hell. But Duke went to him and took a seat on the ground next to his son.

Ryder placed his hand over his forehead. “Just go away.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I know who you are now. You’re rich. You own fifteen cars while my mom is driving around in that piece of shit.”