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“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. This time I’m big enough to do something about it.” Jack took a step closer to Callum. The boy was almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and he hadn’t finished growing yet. There was evidence of muscle building, too. In a few years, Jack Sinclair would make a formidable foe. “Don’t think you can use her for sex. She isn’t some cheap night out.”
Callum stilled. “Do people say that about her?” If they did, he was going to put a stop to it pretty damn fast.
Jack searched Callum’s eyes, looking for something he obviously found, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “She has two kids to two fathers. Both men ran out on her. People talk.”
Callum’s fists clenched. “They talk to you?” About his mother?
Jack shrugged, like it was nothing, but he couldn’t quite keep the emotion from his face. It wasn’t nothing. It was a huge bloody deal. “I handle it. But people will talk if you’re here. And don’t think they won’t know. Someone will notice. Rumours will spread. You need to be gone before that happens.”
“I plan to be gone in the morning.” Although, for some reason, the words seemed to stick in his throat as they came out.
Jack nodded and his eyes hardened, but not before Callum saw a flash of vulnerability that reminded him that Jack was still very much a boy. “And if there’s a kid on the way?”
Callum opened his mouth to say that he’d never turned his back on a responsibility in his life. Then he remembered walking out on Benson Security and closed it again.
“That’s what I thought,” Jack sneered. “You’re just like the rest.”
There was nothing Callum could say to that. He couldn’t make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. He couldn’t tell the kid that he was a reliable bet when he knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t offer him anything at all.
“Let’s see what the future brings first,” Callum said, and heard exactly how pathetic he sounded.
“Sure.” Jack turned away. “Whatever.”
Callum felt the boy’s obvious dismissal like a blow. He wasn’t entirely sure why Jack’s opinion of him mattered, when the opinions of most people didn’t, but he had to bite his tongue to stop from making promises he couldn’t keep. To stop from trying to convince the boy that he was a better man than he knew himself to be.
“Here you go.” Isobel walked into the room, her arms full of folded bedding, and looked at them both. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Jack said. “I’m going to bed.”
He kissed his mother’s cheek, which, from the look of shock on her face, wasn’t something he did every night, and then sauntered from the room. Isobel placed the bedding on the couch, and her fingertips brushed the spot where Jack had kissed.
“You have a good boy,” Callum said.
“I know,” she whispered before clearing her throat. “I’ll show you around.”
“Good. I need to get a feel for the place. And I want to make sure the house is secured.”
“I thought you might. Do you need to go upstairs? Sophie’s asleep, but we could peek into the room if we’re quiet.”
“I want to check all the windows and doors.” He’d already noticed that she had no alarm system and that she didn’t even own a dog. The lane leading up to her house was only lit by one low-wattage orange lamp, and the path to her front door was flanked by overgrown bushes. It was a security nightmare.
“Callum.” She hesitated in the doorway. “I know you didn’t want any of this. But thank you. I mean it. Thank you for being here tonight.”
She looked so earnest and vulnerable standing there with her hair wild about her face, and that oversized purple cardigan pulled tight about her. She looked like she was drowning in the thing. Or hiding in it. And Callum had never seen a sexier sight. Without thinking about it, he took a step towards her. Her eyes went dark and the tip of her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips.
Callum had never wanted to taste a woman more than he wanted Isobel right then. Her gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. He knew she was feeling the same intense pull.
“Callum?” she whispered.
For one second, it felt like time had stilled and there was nothing else in the world except him and Isobel. He knew, without a doubt, that if he kissed her right then, she would return the fire he felt burning inside of him. He knew she wouldn’t reject him, wouldn’t turn away. He knew because he could see the same desperate need in her eyes as he felt growing inside of him.
But they couldn’t.
He took a step back. There were tremors running throughout his body. The need to touch her, to take her, was so great that it almost brought him to his knees. But he couldn’t lose his mind over her. Not again.
“Show me the house.” His voice was husky and low, a declaration of what he desperately wanted, but a reminder of what he wouldn’t allow.
She swallowed hard, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “Of course.” Her dark eyes met his. “I… We… I mean…”
