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“No, we do, but the last rep quit a year ago. After King Frederick took power, we had a hard time finding out when a replacement would arrive.” Bella sighed and began to rub at her eyes, obviously exhausted.
“No one is ever going to come,” Hansel said, doom in his tone. “They’ve forgotten about us.”
“That’s not true,” Bella said. “I’m sure the new queen will take care of this.”
“Forget that. She’s only eighteen,” Heath said. “I think we have to take this into our own hands.”
“Heath, please,” Bella said. “Let me handle this.”
“Bella, I hate to say it, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve been doing a good job of handling it. You almost got sent to prison for life and these kids are still living with a creep.”
Bella was obviously in over her head—much too gentle a person to deal with the monster that called himself the father of these two kids. But Heath wasn’t gentle and had experience dealing with evil sons of bitches.
“Listen,” Heath continued gently. “I know you did the best that you could. I’m just saying you guys need some help. I’ll get my people on this and we should have Hansel and Gretel out of that house by the beginning of next week.”
“Really?” Gretel looked up at him like he was her new hero.
“Heath, don’t make promises that you can’t keep,” Bella said, though she too was looking optimistic. “They’ve been through enough.”
“I’m going to take care of it,” Heath assured all three of them with a big smile, already thinking of the perfect people to send to Mr. Procter for a visit he would never forget.
“Legally, with no one getting hurt. Even their father,” Bella said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Heath waved away her concern. Legal-schmegal. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
He knew as well as anyone that the law wasn’t made for kids. It was made for assholes who liked to hurt kids and get away with it because they happened to biologically be their parents. But it took more to be a parent than the donation of an egg or some sperm, and sometimes it took more than what the law allowed to find justice.
“Well then, we’ll keep our fingers crossed, won’t we?” Bella asked the kids, her words met with a huge grin from Gretel. Heath even thought he saw the ghost of hope in Hansel’s eyes.
If Heath hadn’t been set on helping them before, that hint of hope would have done it. Hansel wasn’t beyond saving. He could still have a shot at being a normal kid if they got him away from the man who had already stolen most of his childhood.
By the time Hansel and Gretel had been bundled into their coats and sent on their way home, it was nearly midnight and Bella was looking even more exhausted. Little wonder, really. She had been home less than a month, her company was in the crapper, her good name was ruined, and two kids she obviously loved were in a horrible situation and she felt powerless to help them.
Heath smiled as she closed the door behind Hansel and Gretel’s retreating forms, thinking how happy he was going to be to help all of her troubles fade away. Pretty soon she would be back in the money and the entire world would know the truth—that she was innocent and still the queen of candy that the entire Kingdom had loved for years.
“And then you won’t want to work with me anymore,” Heath said out loud, his smile slipping before he put it firmly back in place.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Heath
“What?” Bella turned to him, running a hand through her long black hair, which looked even more delicious a little tangled.
“Nothing. Just thinking out loud,” he said with a smile.
What kind of asshole was he to even think about his own selfish crap? There was no way he wanted to profit off of Bella’s misfortune, especially since it would be so easy for him to help her get back everything she’d lost.
“You do that a lot?” She walked toward him with a gleam in her eyes that he liked a lot. “Talk to yourself?”
“All the time.” He smiled.
She laughed softly before the grin faded into a serious, heartfelt expression. “Thank you, Heath. You don’t know how much this means to me.” She reached out, pressing his hand in a gesture that was surprisingly—and wonderfully— intimate.
“Somebody should have
helped you out a long time ago. I’m just doing what any decent person would do. What your lawyer should have done a year ago, if you want my opinion.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, fighting the urge to fondle her unbelievably luscious ass.
“I fired my lawyer. She didn’t know Carl or what he was capable of. I thought it would be better to go through Kinder Services, but even that would have been a risk.” She sighed as she dropped her head to his chest, where his heart was doing funny things again.
