Legal Heirs - Box Set Edition: Books 5-8 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) (37 page)

They were both frustrated to have come home to California without Charlotte, but the good news was that she was alive. Still, it made them edgy that this newly found brother she felt safe with had meant to kill her just days before. Bly had brought Atticus home, and he and his sister were tucked safely in their beds. Now Bly and Finn were having a much-needed drink.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Bly. She’s married to a cold-blooded killer. Surely you haven’t forgotten that detail, you throw it in my face often enough. No, I trust Charlotte. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s found her brother. I should have known if anyone could turn the Ghost, it would be Charlotte. She’s not like most women, you know,” Finn said. He was peeling the label from the whiskey bottle while he talked. Keeping his hands busy so that his killer tendencies didn’t take over and send Bly to the great beyond before his time. Now that it was clear that Charlotte was safe, he was thoroughly disgusted about the agreement he and Bly had reached. West had played the part of the United Nations until Finn and Bly had declared a ceasefire in their neverending war for Charlotte’s affection. Fuck, now there would be never be an end to Bly’s bothersome presence. They had agreed to share her to a certain extent, if that’s what it would take to make her happy. Not sex, of course—Finn would certainly never stand for that. He’d gladly cut Bly’s dick off and hand it to him before he’d let that happen. But she could spend time with him and Atticus in a sort of makeshift family. And Bly had sworn that he would never touch her intimately, as long as he could have his allotted time alone with her and their son.

Bly wasn’t overjoyed with the situation either. It meant he would never be completely alone with Charlotte—Atticus would be their constant chaperone. But he could live with it, since it was the most he could hope for knowing Charlotte’s firm resolve to stay with Finn. Her convoluted reasons for loving her hard-headed sadistic fuck of a husband were beyond Bly’s ability to imagine. But she did love him, and she wouldn’t leave him, and he and Finn had agreed.

It was like bargaining with God when a loved one’s life was hanging precariously in the balance. Bly and Finn struck a bargain to share her and get along with each other, and they had sworn to it on Charlotte’s life. And she had indeed lived, and their happiness was secured, but now they would have to abide by their hastily drawn peace treaty.

“You don’t even know where they are? That worries me, Finn. I like to know where she is…”

“You’re a control freak, Bly, and it’s not one of your winning qualities. It certainly didn’t help you win the girl, now, did it? Be that as it may… I’m going to meet her in New Orleans on Sunday. I’ll meet Christopher and… she’d like for you to come too, if you’re up for it.”

“Of course I’m fucking up for it, and thanks for keeping me in the dark for so long. I swear to God, the devil would toss your annoying British ass out of hell in five minutes flat, and then he’d wonder why it took him so long. Goodnight. Be at my hangar on Sunday morning,” he said, and gave Finn a look that could kill as he stood and walked out the door. Finn rubbed his chin and didn’t bother to hide his smile. Fucking with Bly’s head was one of the great joys of his life.

*

Charlotte was barely inside the suite at the Royal Sonesta when Finn slammed the door and pressed her up against it. Her arms snaked around his neck and she pulled his lips down to hers and the heat that smoldered between them rekindled itself and burned hotter than ever.

“I thought I’d lost you, my love. I wouldn’t have survived it. Living without you isn’t possible,” he whispered. He tangled a hand in her hair, holding her mouth to his, tasting, breathing her in, his Charlotte. His free hand moved over her body, skimming her breasts, her waist, her ass, grasping her thigh and lifting it so that her hips pressed into him.

Her hands made quick work of the button and zipper of his jeans, pushing them down, freeing him, moaning as his erection rested against her belly, hot and heavy and insistent. She loved him with such a mad passion she could barely think or breathe. The thought tumbled in her mind that Gabrielle might have hired some other man to find her and her life would have ended. Finn must have felt it too as he looked into her eyes. His strong arms lifting her easily, her little ass fitting perfectly in his hands, her legs wrapped around him, her hand guiding his cock. Both of them gasping, their eyes closing dreamily at the wondrous feeling of him inside her. The pleasure rushing through them, binding them together in a world of sensation, the tight fullness, the wet heat, their passion impossible to deny. Her pussy gripped him as the first climax rocked her, vibrating, pulsing, drawing him ever deeper; holding him captive in the place where he belonged.

They went to dinner later, after they had showered together, which took longer than it might have if they had showered alone. There was never enough time for their lovemaking; they were so happily enamored with one another, all the time in the world would scarcely have satisfied them. Bly, Charles, and Christopher were already seated in a private dining room at Commanders Palace, along with Charles’s new wife, Belinda, who seemed overly interested in her newly discovered stepson. Christopher sat next to Charlotte and put his huge hand over hers as it rested on the table. He was strangely lost in the civilized world, terrified to be exact, and his sister was his anchor, the only person he felt an attachment to.

Tests had been done earlier in the week, the doctors rushing to make time and hurriedly review the results at the not-to-be-ignored insistence of Charles Tremont. There would be more tests to come, although Christopher leaned toward Charlotte and whispered in her ear that he was done being poked and prodded. She smiled and squeezed his hand, told him not to worry. They would all help him build a new life from the bits and pieces of the old.

His long-term memory was gone. Retrograde amnesia was the agreed-upon diagnosis. Christopher was no fool—he could have told them that without having to be scanned and thumped and discussed and compared to other ‘head cases.’ Traumatic brain injury, most likely caused by blunt force trauma, his fighter jet having crashed somehow, somewhere, eight years before. He’d survived, cared for by strangers, women who were the wives and daughters of a small group of morally questionable men, all members of a small Central American group of drug runners. They took him in as one of them, planted memories in his head, took advantage of his intelligence and military skills. And then, quite by accident, a cartel boss discovered he was an excellent pilot. His skill and his unique ability to withstand and inflict pain was amazing. Add to that his loss of memory and, because of it, an absence of conscience, and he was a man tied to nothing, to no one. He was prime raw material to be molded and fashioned into the ultimate assassin.

“Tomorrow you’ll see your mother. I suppose it will be as if you’re meeting her, really,” Charles said, lifting a champagne glass so they could all toast to Christopher’s return. “She may or may not know you, Christopher. She has her good days and bad. Alzheimer’s, I don’t know if Charlotte told you that or not. It was early onset, she began to show symptoms not long after you died… I’m sorry, after you went missing. I thought it was somewhat of a blessing for her, being able to forget that we had lost you. We were not quite fifty years old, and the reality that we would live the rest of our lives without you…. Anyway,” he said, looking away from his son, a hand drifting up to wipe away a bothersome tear. “A toast to my beloved son, and to my most darling daughter, who returned him to me. My happiness is more than I can express, I….”

Charles left the table quickly, pushing back his chair and avoiding the hand Belinda held out to him. Belinda pushed her chair back to follow him, but Bly’s words stopped her. “Sit down, Belinda. He needs a moment alone, I believe. A man’s tears are very private, and not easily shed, even when they’re tears of joy.”

“Finn, I’ve changed the baby’s name, if that’s alright. He’ll still be Charlie, but Christopher Charles. What do you think?” Charlotte said, and the three men sitting at the table raised their glasses in a toast. My men, she thought, the men I can’t help but love. Finn and Bly, forever, and now Christopher, who she was already making a special place for in her heart.

Finn had told her about the agreement he and Bly had settled on, how they had bargained with God and with each other. Desperate words from men desperate to save the woman they loved. She could spend time with Bly and Atticus together—Finn was willing to bend that far, but that was it. Charlotte was alive, and he was grateful. Besides, he had wasted too much energy hating Bly. And why should he hate him? Bly was infected with the same illness that Finn suffered from: the incurable malady of loving Charlotte. The problem being that they craved the drug and not the cure. Her love was potent and addictive, their drug of choice.

Chapter Three

Charlie was born by C-section in September, but not before Bly put his hands on Charlotte’s pregnant belly to feel him kick. She was lounging poolside at Bly’s house, watching all their children play games in the pool. Mia liked having Hadley, who was a few months younger, look up to her. And Atticus and Holden were practically inseparable, sharing a room and having all sorts of adventures when the twins were home from school in the summer. Bly had just come home from the office, and he walked to the edge of the pool to watch the kids. Then he turned and walked toward Charlotte, loosening his tie and tossing his sunglasses on the table beside her. He sat on the edge of her chaise lounge and the cool fabric of his suit brushed against her heated skin. She knew it was a mistake to have worn a bikini—she was nearly seven months pregnant, after all. But the sun felt so good on her skin, and her body hadn’t changed much, other than the swelling of her belly and breasts. He trapped her in his sexy, sea-glass eyes, and his gaze held her as he placed one large hand across her belly. She drew in a sharp breath as he moved his other hand beside the first. Then he smiled as adrenaline poured into her bloodstream and the baby began to kick.

God forgive me
, she thought,
I will never be free of him. I love Bly as much as I ever have. Who the fuck was I kidding?

She was forever thankful that the kids were in the pool and a maid called to them just then, telling them to grab their towels and sit down for a snack. She would have put her hands on top of Bly’s otherwise. She would have remained trapped in his eyes as she guided his long fingers under the fabric of her skimpy white bikini bottoms. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, or maybe not. Maybe being near him in a relaxed family setting was going too far. Nothing had ever changed, really—he had a pure, raw sexuality that called to her, and this agreement he and Finn had come to was going to do more harm than good. If she could just stop loving one of them, or convince herself, as she once had, that Bly was not as important to her. Then they could continue on as the three of them wanted, as an odd post-nuclear family. But love, ancient and illogical, would not allow it. It would not loosen its grip on her heart. As much as Bly and Finn loved her, she loved the two of them in return. Her men, her loves, left her spinning just beyond happiness. Her capacity to love was not halved, but doubled. But there were rules for loving, and it wasn’t acceptable for her to love fully or to the highest limits her heart could reach.

“I never got to do that when you were carrying Atticus, and it’s haunted me. I’ve imagined you like this a thousand times, Charlotte. Thank God I have my suit jacket on or I’d embarrass the hell out of the maid when I stand up,” Bly said, smiling. It was all he could do not to carry her long, sleek body out of view and make her scream with pleasure. The minute he’d laid his hand on the pretty mound of her belly, her nipples had hardened under the thin cloth of the bikini top. He wanted to throw all pretense of civility to the wind and take what was his.
She was his
, her body belonged to him; that was plain to see by her reaction. He leaned in close, his lips inches from hers, and just as he thought, her lips parted and the color rose in her cheeks. She lifted toward him and her fingers rested on his lips for a moment before Atticus called to them from the pool.

“Mom, Alex! Watch me dive, I’m totally amazing at it. I promise, you’re gonna be so glad you didn’t miss this!”

*

The days and weeks and years fell into a pattern as they are most likely to do with families, both ordinary and extraordinary. Charles Tremont had powerful political connections; he’d been a state senator and an influential ambassador. He was a man who could make things happen when a son disappeared as a hero and returned as a hired assassin. There were extenuating circumstances, he explained as he smoked cigars with both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy. Christopher had never once caused harm to the U.S. government or any other legitimate entity, for that matter. He had eradicated members of world’s deadliest drug organizations, and unknowingly he had done a great service for the good people of the world.

It was decided that he would continue to be a ghost, although he was done with his former occupations. They had presented him with choices, military honors and retirement, disability benefits, or the witness protection program. He made his own choice. He and Charlotte had that in common: they followed their own path, and it wasn’t always the straight and narrow. He changed his last name from Tremont to McCall, and he lived quietly in the carriage house near the beach at the McCall House. Christopher McCall was a man without a past, in his mind and now in his life, for all intents and purposes.

He visited his mother, and sadly, the dementia had progressed so she didn’t recall ever having met him. Still, he drove to the outskirts of New Orleans every Sunday to spend the day with her at the Saint Ignatius Memory Care Unit. She was content there, and she was glad to welcome her Sunday caller. Christopher listened tirelessly as she told him jumbled stories about her dear son, whom she was certain would walk through her door at any moment.