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“What the fuck? No. She’s a woman. Tamsin doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone.”
“Are you going to try to marry her off?”
“Even if I wanted to, that’s not my decision. Your mother and I, before we had you, when she realized what I was, it took her a long time to adjust.”
“Adjust? Mom had me when she was eighteen years old.”
“Nearly nineteen, and you think she wasn’t freaking out the whole time?” Maddox asked.
“I met your mother, fell in love, and that love has never once changed or diminished. I’d die for that fucking woman, but I was an asshole, and she didn’t have a clue what I was until after Abel was born. Shit got real fucking serious after that.”
“What happened?”
“She got scared and took you both away. I didn’t see her for six whole weeks. I couldn’t find her. It’s the first time in my life I ever felt real fear. I wasn’t there to protect her.”
Jacob hadn’t known this. This was one part of his life he didn’t actually remember. “What did you do?” he asked.
“I kept on working while trying to find her, but it was never enough. I was always one step behind her. It didn’t help that I realized what a total fucker I’d been. I never asked her anything about herself. Just assumed she’d be fucking happy with me. She had a Denton in her life, and I didn’t care enough about anything else.” Maddox took a deep breath. “After that, I went fucking mental.”
Jacob had known about his father’s days of being completely crazy. Nearly everyone he met talked about the moment his father showed his true colors of what a Denton could really be.
“How did you get her back?”
“She called me from England. I didn’t have a fucking clue that she actually had family over there, and she did.” Maddox laughed. “Charlotte called because she’d heard about a certain Denton causing shit over his woman. From that one phone call, I worked my ass off until I finally got her permission to fly out to England.”
“P
ermission? Why didn’t you just go?”
“I didn’t have a clue where she was. She wouldn’t tell me, so I talked to her every single chance I could on the phone. Even being miles away, Charlotte calmed the monster inside of me.”
“Monster? You’re not a monster.”
“Yet I have the respect of thousands the moment I walk into a room. Think about that, Jacob. I’m not a monster to my family, yet to others, I’m the bogeyman they’ve taught their kids to be afraid of.” Maddox took a deep breath, inhaling the warm summer night’s air. “I fucking love this time of year. Have you felt it yet?”
“Felt what?”
“The burning need to be with a woman.”
“Nope.”
“I’m really sorry for you, son,” Maddox said.
“Why?”
“You’re thirty-five years old. I was twenty when I found your mother.”
“And you almost screwed it up.”
“You’re going to screw it up, son. Just make sure you don’t take it too far.” Maddox slapped him on the back, and made his way back inside. “I hear the losing party has arrived. Let’s go and congratulate him.”
“It sounds like we’re mocking him more than anything.”
“Not at all. Riley Moore as far as I’m concerned is a decent guy, and I had him checked out. He’s one hell of a fighter who could have gone all the way if his parents weren’t determined to keep him as their prize puppet. I’m about to offer him a job.”
Jacob rolled his eyes and entered the house again. The silence that he was enjoying was long gone.
The sound of two women shouting caught and drew his attention. One sounded shrill and like an old cackling witch, but the other, it set his nerves on end and not in a bad way, not at all. Closing his eyes, he took in every single tone of her, which was like sweet music to his ears.
