King's Baby - A Bad Boy Romance (37 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Holland

I couldn’t just
leave. Seeing her for those few seconds lit a part of my heart that has been
dark for so long. I needed to touch her, smell her, and feel her warmth close
to me to believe she was real.

While King comforted
her, I slipped into the bedroom next to Juliette’s and tiptoed back in when he
went looking for me.

 
She is already asleep, and since she
can’t hear, I’m able to sit in a chair behind her and watch her for a few
minutes, but I can’t stand it. I press my knee into the mattress, and the
movement wakes her. She rolls over and I freeze. She gazes at me for a few
seconds, and just when I’m sure she’s going to yell for her daddy, she reaches
out her chubby little arms, inviting me closer. She’s seen me in pictures and
on video. I’m not a complete stranger. Our hearts and souls know one another.
She lived inside of me, she kicked and grew, and she felt my love for her.

I crawl closer, and
she takes my hand and rolls back to her side until we are spooning. She fits
perfectly in the curve of my body. She feels like home. I bury my face in her
hair and breathe her in, and she wiggles closer to me. Lord, I’m in heaven with
her in my arms again. The planets align and the stars are all in their proper
place in the sky. Every molecule of my body relaxes when I melt against her.
The exhaustion and worry of three long years without her falls away, and a
peace I have never known blankets us both.

Her breathing is slow
and regular, her grip on my hand relaxes, and the steady beat of her tiny heart
lulls me to sleep.

Before I even open my
eyes in the morning, I feel the calm in my soul. I slide my hand across the
sheet, half asleep, in search of her, but find a cool, empty pillow instead.
When I jerk awake and sit straight up in bed, I’m face to face with a
wild-haired three-year-old sitting on her knees in soft pink fleece pajamas,
watching me intently. She raises her hand to wave hello, and I do the same and
smile. She smiles back.

I don’t know what to
do now. I have no way to communicate with her. I don’t know sign language, and
I have no idea if she reads lips. Do deaf children read lips?

Juliette touches my
lips with the tip of her finger, as if to answer my question.

“Do you read lips?”

She nods her head up
and down and holds out her fingers as if to say just a little. Well that’s
something.

“Do you know who I
am?”

She nods again, and I
scramble to think of a way she can respond other than nodding. She’s too young
to text back and forth with. There’s an app for everything. There must be an app
for this. I sit up to retrieve my phone from my back pocket, and she surprises
me by crawling into my lap.

“Oh . . .” My arms
move to make way for her, and she snuggles in, pulling the comforter around us
both. It’s sort of strange that she’s so comfortable having a semi stranger in
her bed. King has done a good job familiarizing her with me.

When she’s settled, I
hold my phone in front of us both and search for some sort of app that helps
the hearing and deaf communicate, and voilà, there it is. She recognizes the
app’s logo and turns to smile up at me. I pause and look into her eager eyes
until she returns her attention to the phone and impatiently taps the screen,
but suddenly I realize that I don’t need an app to say what I want to say. I
turn her in my lap and point to myself and cross my arms over my chest, and
then I point to her.

Juliette’s eyes light
up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. She repeats the sign and
throws her arms around my neck in a long overdue embrace.

I hold her so tightly
that I can’t believe she doesn’t fuss. The emotions I’ve been holding back for
so long come rushing to the surface, and I begin to cry. My shoulders shake,
and she turns around and places her hands on my wet cheeks. When I open my
eyes, her face is full of concern, and I watch as she flicks her index finger
up, raising her eyebrows. She’s signing something, so I search the bed for my
phone to learn what she’s just said. I wish I knew how to tell her that these
are happy tears. She finds the phone first, though, and scrolls until she finds
a picture of a woman shrugging her shoulders in question and turns the phone to
show me she is confused.

Explaining via sign
language that I’m overwhelmed with happiness because I didn’t ever think this
day would come seems too difficult, so I just smile and sign I love you, I love
you, I love you until I can’t sign anymore because my hands are full of her.

“Ahem.”

King is standing just
inside the bedroom door, watching us with tears in his eyes.

Good.

Asshole.

“I can help you if
you’d like.”

Juliette notices my
rigidity and turns to see what I’m looking at. When she sees her daddy, she
leaps off the bed and into his arms, taking my heart with her. The pain her
reaction causes me is unintentional, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less,
and it’s totally not her fault—it’s his. He is the monster I used to live
and breathe for, the man who I would have given anything, the man who ripped
out the lifeline feeding my soul, the man who singlehandedly ruined the best
part of my life by making decisions for me that were never his to make, the
father of my little girl . . . King.

He swings her into
his arms and hugs her tight. I take the opportunity to speak freely while her
face is turned away. I don’t know how good she is at reading lips, and I
definitely don’t want her reading what I’m about to say.

“You’re an evil, vile
monster. I don’t need your help. You’ve done enough already. The only thing I
want from you is my little girl. Nothing else. You make me sick. I can’t
imagine hating someone more than I hate you.”

That’s not all true.
The sight of him feels more like a KitchenAid mixer set on high, with a bread
hook blending all my insides together. I hate him, yes, but miraculously,
somehow I don’t think the love I once felt for him is completely dead. Can that
even happen? Can I love and despise the same person at the same time? I think I
can. I think I do. I also think it doesn’t matter.

“I’m glad to see you
two are getting along.”

“Fuck you, King.” I
swing my legs off the bed and walk around him so Juliette can see me. “Are you
hungry?” She reads my lips and nods yes.

“Why don’t you order
some breakfast, King, and I’ll get acquainted with my daughter?”

I smile for Juliette,
but my tone is full of venom. He’s not used to being told what to do, and he’s
never seen me angry.

“Holland, I’m not
going to argue with you in front of her. We can have breakfast, but after that
we need to sit down and figure out what to do next.”

“There’s nothing to
figure out. You’ve deprived me of her for three years. I want back into her
life . . . permanently.”

“Like I said, after
breakfast. Sebastián is coming up. I’ll order for him too.”

“Did he know? Has he
known all along?”

“Yes. He helped me,
he had no choice.”

“Everyone has a
choice, King. He just didn’t want to die. That’s how you deal with problems,
isn’t it?”

“Not now, Holland.”

“Not now . . . not
now. When do I get to decide anything, huh, King? When will you
allow
me to live my life the way I want
to?”

Juliette has squirmed
from his arms. She may be deaf, but she can sense the tension between us and
she doesn’t like it. Her little hand slides into mine, and she pulls me into
the living room. King is in the bedroom on the phone, ordering breakfast and
calling Sebastián, the traitor, to come up and eat with us. He must be staying
in the same hotel.
Of course.
He travels with King
everywhere, he knows all of King’s business,
he’s
been
in on this from the beginning. Ugh. Another asshole. He was so concerned when
King disappeared. I should have known.

Juliette leads me to
the couch, where she motions for me to sit. She drags a basket of toys and
books between our feet. She begins to pluck toy after toy from her collection,
showing me each one and watching my reaction. I love that she wants to share
her things with me, but I’m distracted by my anger. Getting through breakfast
with these two rats is going to be hard.

Sebastián walks
through the door not five minutes later, smiling ear to ear when he sees
Juliette and me sitting on the floor where she’s set up tea for two . . . not
three or four. It’s juvenile, but I’m reveling in her undivided attention. I
ignore Sebastián and focus all of my attention on the sweet girl handing me a
cup of pretend tea.

“Good morning,
Holland,” Sebastián says.

Juliette notices my
sideways glance and looks to see what’s taken my attention away. When she sees
Sebastián, she jumps up exactly the way she did when she saw King and flies
into his arms. He squats down eye to eye with her for a hug, and she signs
something to him.

“How’s my beautiful
granddaughter?” he says, signing at the same time.

Granddaughter? What
the hell? I snap my eyes to his, and he realizes he’s let a secret out of the
bag. King steps in to rescue him. The assholes have to stick together, I guess.

“This is another
reason we should have talked before all of this happened,” King says, pinning
Sebastián with a livid glare.

“Come on, princess,
let’s have breakfast with Mommy and Daddy. I saw the man pushing the room
service cart our way,” Sebastián signs to her. He ignores us both and swoops
Juliette up over his head.

After a huge, over
the top breakfast, of which Juliette hardly ate a bite, Sebastián offers to
help her get dressed and go for a walk.

“No way,” I say.

“Holland, I told you
where they were. Why would I try to take her away now?”

“Ah gee, I dunno,
Grandpa.
I’ve developed some trust
issues over the past three years. Wonder why?”

King sighs, and
Sebastián looks at him with raised eyebrows as he pushes away from the formal
dining table. Who needs a formal dining room in a hotel?

“I’ll just take her
into her room and find her some clothes and brush her hair and teeth,”
Sebastián says, offering Juliette his hand. She looks back and forth between
us. He releases her hand and signs that I’m not leaving, but Mommy and Daddy
need some time to talk. She narrows her eyes suspiciously until I nod. She
signs something back to him and he translates for me.

“She says she doesn’t
want you to go . . . ever.”

I bite my lip to keep
from crying again. I don’t want her to think that’s all mamas do.

“Tell her I’m not
going anywhere.”

I watch Sebastián
sign my response to her, and when she’s satisfied that I’m not leaving, she
follows him out the door, only to run back in and launch herself into my arms.
She stands between my legs, and I press my face against the top of her head and
burn her scent into my memory. Her little face tilts up, and she quickly kisses
me on the cheek before she runs back after Sebastián. My heart swells a thousand
times its normal size. She doesn’t want me to leave, and she kissed me for the
first time.

I lean to watch them
disappear behind Juliette’s bedroom door. I don’t care what they say. I don’t
trust either of them beyond my sight.

“Let’s sit in the living
room,” I say, leading the way.

King sits on the
couch, and I choose the chair furthest from him. He unbuttons his suit coat,
shaking his head back and forth.

“I don’t bite,” he
says, glancing at the space I’ve put between us.

“I know,” God, I
don’t want to talk to him. I just want to be with Juliette. I haven’t been in a
room alone with King for a long time. It feels so different, so foreign that I
can hardly remember how it felt to be comfortable and relaxed with him.

“You don’t have to
sit clear over there.”

“I know.”

“Suit yourself.” He
shrugs, smoothing his tie.

“I will.” I cross my
arms over my chest, shutting him out as much as possible.

He sighs and rolls
his eyes.

“Well, I guess I’ll
start at the beginning.”

“Yes, that would be
good. I’d like to hear how you try to rationalize all of this.”

He takes a deep
breath and begins.

“You were a target
for every enemy I’ve ever had. You were in serious danger when my associates
learned I was going to cut off their supply so I could get out of the business.
I had to separate myself from you. I did it because I love you. I wanted you to
be safe and successful, and the world deserved to hear you play.”

“The world deserved
to hear me? What about what I deserved, King? What about me? Don’t you think I deserved
to have a say in how I wanted to live my life? Why didn’t you talk to me about
the danger? Why did you have to take Juliette? Why couldn’t you just disappear
and leave us together? You sacrificed my relationship with my child without
even discussing it with me.”