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Reaching Belinda, I grabbed for the statue, surprised by how heavy it was. I had no idea how she’d lifted the thing on her own, other than she must have been running off pure adrenaline.
Recognition filled her eyes when she realized who was trying to take her weapon away. “You!” she cried. “You set this up?”
“I had help,” I said with a shrug, not bothering to deny it. Lyla had followed me, and from the squeaks of other partygoers, I figured my bodyguard was pushing his way through the masses to get to me. I ignored them and everyone else to focus on Belinda. “But you started this creepy game by trying to make me doubt Braxton.”
That alone would have gotten someone a pencil to the eyeball. But this was Braxton’s mother. I’d refrained from violence and opted to open her eyes to the ugly truth those she assumed were her nearest and dearest had been keeping from her. It wasn’t pleasant, especially with all her supposed friends witnessing the horrible scene. In the end, Belinda probably would have preferred I kick her old ass, over the public humiliation of finding out her husband had been cheating on her with her son’s high school girlfriend and fathered a child with her—then subsequently attempted to play off the baby as her grandson.
“You!” Darcy screeched at the top of her lungs, and I imagined the crystal champagne flutes cracking from the high frequency. “You took Brax from me, and now you’re trying to destroy the rest of my life!”
I felt a puff of air behind me and tilted my head a fraction to see Lyla grab the other woman by the arm, twist it behind her, and bend her in half.
“No touchy-touchy,” Lyla tutted, pushing Darcy in the direction of Miles, who barely caught her. When her weight hit him, he was unprepared for it, and they both fell. A thud echoed through the mostly quiet room as his ass hit the floor, with Darcy’s head in his lap. A few snickers followed, and if I hadn’t been busy wrestling the heavy statue from Belinda, I might have giggled at the sight of Darcy with her face in Miles’s crotch.
Also, gross!
I didn’t need another visual reminder that those two had a kinky-as-fuck relationship.
Belinda finally relinquished her hold when she saw her husband and his mistress on the floor. Out of breath, I placed the statue on the floor once she released it. More like I dropped it, but it wasn’t Belinda’s or my own house, so I didn’t really care if the hardwood was damaged. Huffing from exertion, I grasped both of her hands. “I’m sorry if what you saw upset you, but you needed to open your eyes. You’ve been trying to hurt Braxton with how you’ve treated me. Honestly, I don’t care how you feel about me—I’m not all that keen on you either. But when you start hurting the man I love, I won’t just sit back and take it.”
“I just wanted him to be with his son,” she said in a weak voice. “I wanted our family to be together. My grandchild…” Tears filled her eyes. “But he’s not my grandson, is he?”
“No, he’s not.” Still grasping her wrists in one hand, I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders in a half hug, attempting to comfort her. “I’m sorry that disappoints you. I’ve seen pictures of the little guy. He’s adorable. Looks a tiny bit like Braxton. But just think, one day, you will have grandbabies who look more like your son than Jonah.”
I bit my tongue when that word-vomit left my mouth, but instead of getting angry at me, Belinda only sighed. “You’re not a home-wrecking whore.”
“Again, sorry to disappoint you.”
Her lips twitched with a ghost of a smile. “You’re an odd girl.”
“Gee, no one’s ever said that to me before,” I replied dryly. Voices around us got louder as the shock began to fade from more and more people. “Would you like to get out of here?”
Her dark eyes shot venom over my shoulder, and I was glad not to be a victim of it. “Please.”
Chapter 7
Braxton
My driver pulled up outside the house in Santa Monica, and I scribbled my name across the slip before giving it and a tip to the man in the front seat. Driving was one of those tasks I could do with a prosthetic, but it wasn’t something I did well. I knew my limits, which meant using a car service or getting one of the men on our payroll to drive me where I needed to go. We had an SUV, which Nevaeh used to drive herself to classes most days, but she still had a team member watching over her.
She huffed and complained at times, but I knew she only did it to bust my balls. My kitten knew I needed eyes on her at all times or I couldn’t do my job—or function in society, period. Meeting her was the best thing to ever happen to me, and the thought of something taking her away from me left me with a hollow pit in my gut.
Grabbing my overnight bag, I slowly got out of the car. I felt stiff and sore from the flight to Hawaii, being cooped up in an office for two days, and then another plane ride home before spending over an hour in the back of a car. I wasn’t a small man, so that meant even my fake leg was long, which left me cramped up despite being in the back of a town car.
After punching in my code, I used my thumbprint to unlock the front door. Stepping into the house, I dropped my bag by the door to take upstairs later, and I quickly moved through the house. It was dinnertime, and Nevaeh loved cooking. I could already smell garlic and herbs, which never failed to make my stomach growl. With all the amazing foods she filled me up with day and night, I would have been triple my size if I didn’t work out every day.
“Kitten,” I called out before I reached the kitchen door so as not to startle her. “Are you making spaghetti or those meatball sandwiches I love so much?”
She didn’t answer, and when I pushed open the door, I realized why. She was sitting at the kitchen island with a mug of coffee in front of her. Seeing me, she gave me a grim smile then turned her gaze back to the woman seated across from her.
With her face washed clean of all traces of makeup and her hair in a messy ponytail—both things I’d never seen the woman do a day in my life—my mother was nearly unrecognizable at first glance. But then she smiled, and I saw myself in some of her facial features. “What the fuck are you doing here, Mother?”
“Brax,” Nevaeh scolded when my mother flinched. “She’s our guest. Don’t speak so harshly.”
I blinked at the love of my life. With her hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head, her glasses sitting low on her nose and giving her an adorably owlish look as she blinked her blue-gray eyes at me, she looked like the same woman I’d left with a kiss goodbye only days before. But she sure as fuck wasn’t acting like the same person.
“What is she doing here, Kitten?”
“I invited her to stay with us for a little while. Until the divorce is finalized.” She lifted her mug to her lips and took a sip before continuing, as if she didn’t need to go into more detail about the bomb she’d just dropped. “Belinda is going to house-sit for us while we’re on our honeymoon. But she has a real estate agent looking into finding her either a small house or an apartment as close by as possible so she can be a part of your life. And the lives of our babies when we decide to start having kids.”
