Ultimate Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 2 (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Natalie

Just as she sucked in a huge lungful of air to scream, “Hi, Natalie. Can we talk for a minute?” came out of Braden’s mouth. Normal. Rational. A bit sad.

She panted and tried to control the urge to run. “Umm…huh?”

Campbell grabbed him by the lapel of his coat and got in his face. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Braden stammered for a minute, glancing back and forth between both of them. “I’ve been trying to run into Natalie for several weeks.”

“So,” Natalie started and then had to wrap her head around the fact that wasn’t a lie. “You admit you’ve been pseudo stalking the clinic?”

“Not stalking. Oh my heavens, no. I’ve been working ridiculously late hours and haven’t been able to get to the clinic to see you until ungodly late. I tried in the middle of the day on Sunday last weekend and then remembered you weren’t there on Sundays.”

“Campbell…uhh…do you think you could let him go?”

“I’m not certain,” Campbell answered with a fair amount of reserve in his voice.

For a few more moments things were tense in the coffee shop. Thankfully it wasn’t peak coffee drinking time and they were off to one side, and Natalie hadn’t pulled the trigger on the complete flip-the-fuck-out she was about to rock when he stepped up.

Braden adjusted his collar and addressed Campbell. “I’m very sorry for catching you both unaware. I met with Detective Wyatt yesterday and earlier today.”

“You did?” Natalie asked him.

Braden nodded and faced her. “He contacted me after he spoke with you, setting up this meeting so that I could speak with you. It seems to me the message of my presence might not have properly transmitted to you. My deepest apologies for showing up unexpected and quite unwelcome.”

Campbell crossed his arms over his chest and eyed him. “You want us to believe that you showing up off and on outside the clinic for more than two weeks is nothing but a case of too late at the office? Plus you spoke to Wyatt and he cleared you and he was going to what? Intercede on your behalf so you could talk to Natalie? Which you absolutely could have done on the phone at any time, even from your high and mighty office?”

“Well…yes. I could have called, but what I need to speak with you about is sensitive in nature and I don’t fully trust the phones at the office. You can understand that portion of it, can’t you?” he asked Natalie.

“I’m sure every conversation has been recorded for decades there. With trigger words being fed into some kind of secondary database to be listened to by a person as soon as possible.”

“Rightly so.”

Natalie rubbed Starling’s back to give her something to do with the nervous jitters running through her system. She was super thankful she hadn’t scared the sleeping infant. She was freaked out enough for both of them.

“I hated hearing from the detective that you suspected I would try to hurt you. That’s why he decided to help me meet with you. After what I heard I didn’t think you’d give me the time of day to even tell you what I wanted to discuss with you, much less actually meet. So I suggested this place. I’m always here around this time so it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary at work.” He shook his head slowly. “I’ve hurt you so much in the past I would never ever hurt you again. Not ever.” He reached for her arm but Campbell got to him first.

“Keep your mitts to yourself and that means off my girl.”

“Your girl?”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?” The attitude coming off Campbell wasn’t really helping though she couldn’t blame him for the macho display of territory.

Before things escalated out of control Natalie rubbed Campbell’s shoulder. “Will you contact Wyatt and verify this is right? I almost want to give him the benefit of the doubt and talk to him but—”

“Not gonna happen ’til we verify
everything
.” Campbell pulled out his phone and it actually started ringing in his hand. “Campbell,” he barked into the phone. “Just the man I needed to talk to. Yes, we’re here. Yes. He is too. Thanks for the heads-up. I almost had to send him back to work in a doggie bag. Good thing he’s a quick talker.” He glanced at his watch. “Can he tell us what’s going on or do you need to be here?” Campbell eyed Braden again. “I’ll do my best.” He ended the call and pocketed his cell.

“Did the detective verify my story?”

Campbell gave one brisk nod. “He said he thought you were harmless but apparently his definition of the word and mine are quite different. You can hurt her in more ways than just physical. You feel me?”

Braden nodded once and exhaled. He put his hands in his pockets and seemed to droop a bit. “Hurting you,” he said to Natalie and then to Campbell, “is not my intention.” He glanced back at Natalie and then down to Starling. His smile was sad as he looked up at Natalie again. “Never was, though I’m sure that’s going to take some convincing.”

Natalie wanted to run, she wanted to hide Starling from his gaze and slink back inside the walls she’d erected so many years ago after they made a very serious mistake.

But then she looked down at Starling and she never wanted her to feel as if she needed to hide. She wanted her to be brave. Not for other people but for herself. “What exactly do you want?” she enquired.

“A few minutes alone with you. That’s it. I’d like to explain a few things. Apologize for a lot, and try to make things right, something I should have done a long time ago.”

Campbell was already staring at her when she faced him. “I will not leave the coffee shop. You guys can sit on one side and I’ll sit on the other, but don’t ask me to leave you because I’m not physically capable of doing that.”

Natalie smiled and moved closer to him. “I wouldn’t want you to leave. I’d never ask that.”

“Good.” He cupped her face and then looked at Braden. “How long do you need?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes tops. I’m sure you have things to do and I promise not to take up too much of her time.”

“If you harm a hair on her head, you know who you’ll be answering to.” His words were most definitely not in the form of a question.

“On my honor.” Braden nodded at him and that seemed to be enough for Campbell. Barely.

Then Campbell kissed her. It was possessive and curled her toes before he let her go. “You okay if I take Starling with me? She can distract me.”

Natalie grinned. “She’s asleep.”

“Close enough.” His eyes.

He needed to have Starling with him. Needed something to focus on while he gave her the time she needed to deal with a few skeletons in her distant past. As if she needed another reason to love him.

Love.

Oh fuck.

Her voice shook as she spoke. “Just help me get her unhooked and you can take her.”

Campbell took off his jacket and helped her with hers. Then just a few buckles and straps later they’d transferred the baby to his chest. She wiggled a few times, rubbed her face but quickly settled down against him.

They put their coats back on and he gave her one more kiss before glaring at Braden and then moved back to where they’d been sitting on the far side of the coffee shop.

“Shall we?” Braden asked and gestured in the other direction.

Natalie moved around a couple tables and then took a seat. Quite a few extra people had come inside while they stood in the middle of the shop exchanging pleasantries.

She didn’t think it was really all that nice so far but it was totally different than the evil eye Campbell was throwing from across the room or the good old-fashioned fistfight she was sure he’d wanted to start before.

Braden sat across from her, which was good or she would have moved, and thankfully the tables were all pretty small so she could still hear what he had to say.

“I know this is awkward,” he started out with.

“Understatement of the year. Nope. Let’s go with decade since it’s been a bit more than that since I’ve seen or spoken to you.”

He didn’t laugh it off or make excuses for the distance. With a simple nod he spoke to her but looked at the table. “Apologizing in this case will never make right what happened. Saying I’m sorry cannot right the wrongs I’ve caused you. What I’ve put you through. Alone. I’ve tried my best, even without the ability to make things right, to put myself in your shoes. What you had to deal with, what you had to suffer. I have always been completely unable to accomplish that task. I do not know how you are so amazing and give of yourself so completely at the clinic with what you have gone through and what you’ve had to give up.”

“Our son.”

He looked up at her as if she’d zapped him with a cattle prod. “What? Say it again.”

“Our son. That’s what I gave up. What I was forced to give up because I was too weak and dependent to do it on my own.”

“Our son,” he murmured. Folding his hands on the table he twisted his wedding ring. “That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud since I stormed out of your father’s office so long ago.”

“That’s sad.”

“I completely agree.”

Natalie glanced at his wedding ring again. “You got married?”

“I did. A few years back.”

“Happy?” No clue why she asked it, but she was glad she did because genuine curiosity kept her from apologizing for being nosy.

“It wasn’t a love match if that’s what you’re asking.”

“What other kind is there?”

“Convenience, political gain, tradition. Lots of things call people to the altar even if there is no love involved.”

Count her out of any of those. She’d be damned if she’d ever say “I do” without the man she was standing with thinking she hung the moon and all the stars right along with it. “Children?” she asked.

“No. Never lucky enough.”

Natalie glanced in Campbell’s direction, and she smiled when she saw his gaze was still locked on her. A frission of awareness raced up her spine.

“Can I ask you a question? And if you don’t want to answer it I’ll completely understand.”

She thought about it, not certain if she were truly prepared to have the conversation she knew they were about to jump into. “Ask what you want. I’m honestly not certain what I’m comfortable discussing. I have some questions too if you don’t mind filling in a few blanks.”

“I’d be more than happy to. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a very long time.”

“So what’s your question since you obviously have something on your mind?”

“Do you hate me?”

It was the question she thought he would ask. The question she honestly didn’t know how to answer so she went with the truth. “Hate is a very strong word. Back then when it all happened? Yeah. I did. But now?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t understand why you abandoned me back then. I would hate to think my love was so misplaced, and you still don’t seem like a bad guy now, but back then you just left me to deal with everything on my own. I was young, scared, pregnant, and you kicked me to the curb, took a payoff to sign your rights away and then kept working your way up the corporate ladder at my family’s business, which I’ve been disavowed of. Talk about unfair.”

His face went white. “I never took a payoff. I loved you and our son. So much.”

Natalie opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “What do you mean you never took money?”

“God. How could you think that?”

“The last time I saw you it was outside my father’s office. You were yelling at him about money.”

“Your parents threatened me with rape charges if I didn’t keep quiet. I wanted to be with you. Desperately. And our son. I wanted a family. I wanted it all.”

“But it was consensual. Everything we did was consensual.”

“Consent means nothing under statutory rape charges, especially in New York City. They have some of the strictest rape laws in the country. If they would have gone through with it, which I know they would have, you could have testified on my behalf and it wouldn’t have made any difference. And even if the laws wouldn’t have been on their side we both know your father could have gotten me indicted on anything and everything he wanted.” He shook his head and stared at her. “I’m sorry just isn’t good enough, but I’m just so sorry. Signing my rights away was the weakest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make things right and have regretted the decision every day hence.”

“I hear your apology and it sounds genuine, but that last day you put something in your pocket coming out of my father’s office. What did you pocket?”

“A check.”

She didn’t even try to hold back the sneer curling her lip. “From my father.”

“No. Mine. I tried to buy your freedom and that of our baby. I was unbelievably naïve back then. Thought I could save you. Our son. We could be together. Your father laughed and threw it back in my face.”

“What?”

“I offered him two million dollars, almost every penny of my inheritance. I had no idea how much your family was worth at that point. It was a drop in an unlimited ocean of funds. And did you know he still brings it up every once in a while? Thank God you didn’t turn out like him. Thank God.”

Natalie slumped back in her seat. She needed about a decade to regroup. Instead she took ten seconds. “But the way you looked at me outside his office as I stood there. You looked at me with nothing but pity.”

He nodded. “That you had to stay. That you couldn’t get away from them. Couldn’t break ties like I could. I hated not being able to help you.”

The entire tectonic plate of her past shifted beneath her feet. She’d never been so thankful for being seated for a conversation before. “I’ve misunderstood for so long. Been angry and hurt for so long.”

“My fault. I could have reached out. I should have reached out. But I’ve been a coward. I thought my absence in your life would be a good thing. I never wanted to hold you back or clip your wings again. I knew you’d be amazing and you’ve so far exceeded what I believed you could do. You truly are incredible, Natalie.”

She stared at the table as she rolled everything around in her head that they’d talked about. Then her gaze snapped back up to his. “Wait. You stayed. You’ve worked for my father ever since. How can you say you felt bad for me that I had to stay when I was the one who got out?”