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It didn’t take long. Beau arrived early.
Devin didn’t answer his greetings, only came forward as he swayed uncertain in the foyer. Ignored the slash of his lips, the cant of his brows, as he watched her in cool derision. He knew what this was about. Of course he would. Would he take her back to that awful apartment in the warehouse? Would she be forced to live out her days listening to the horrendous sounds of prostitutes and their clients?
Trying not to gag, Devin climbed into the passenger seat of Beau’s car. Huddling into the cool leather, she stared at her feet.
She didn’t take note of where they were until Beau pulled to a stop. She startled at the large brick building, an innocuous black metal door leading inside.
“He thought you might like to get out of the house,” Beau said gently, fingers skimming down Devin’s arm before he climbed out of the car to help her out.
Leading her inside, he took her to the little office she’d claimed as her own where everything was just as she’d left it. Even her wild array of sticky notes fluttered against the far wall as Beau shut the door behind them.
Devin burst into tears, falling into an awkward heap to sob into her hands.
“Hey, hey,” Beau murmured, trying to purr as he pet at Devin’s shoulders and back to quiet her. “We thought you’d like this, but if you don’t, we can go. Anywhere you want, baby.”
“He’s not sending me away,” Devin stammered out, and her regret was instant as she tried to suck the words back in, choking on her tears for her effort.
“What? Hell no. He’s been trying for months to make you happy, woman.” Beau seemed more offended than anything, whirling Devin around to grip her cheeks. Forcing her to meet his gaze. “Is that what has you all torn up? Why the hell do you think that?”
Devin could only shake her head in the tight confines of his grip, clenching her teeth tight over the tirade of words clawing at her throat to be free. All the many reasons Rey wanted nothing to do with her, the many ways he proved it.
Beau was dead wrong if he thought Rey wanted to keep her.
He sighed, chin tilted as he viewed Devin for a long span of seconds before he finally released her. “Do you want to stay or go somewhere else?”
“Here’s fine,” Devin mumbled to the tops of her knees, fingers picking at the frayed edges of a hole she hadn’t noticed.
“Okay. Why don’t you get some work done, eh? Always seemed to perk you up before.”
So she had a purpose now. Keep the books as she had before. It was something, and she grasped at it, a life raft amidst a stormy sea of confusion and turmoil. Devin dragged herself up from the floor to the chair, settling herself in the small seat before turning the computer on. Within minutes she lost herself in the steadfast order of numbers and figures. The melancholy oozed away, leaving her clean and settled for several hours.
It was the grumbling of her stomach and the ache in her breasts that brought her out of the strange calm. Pressing a palm to her sternum, she winced and started to rise, only to realize Beau wasn’t in the room. Left alone to her own devices, she was loathe to hunt him down, no matter the discomfort.
She could go hungry a little while longer.
Devin had no idea how much time passed before Beau returned. Expression pained, he murmured placating words as he came around the desk to guide Devin back to the car. His smile was strained, eyes grim as he helped her inside.
Beau abandoned her just inside the front door, Gabriel’s hungry cries echoing through the house. Shoulders slumped, Devin sighed and began the seeming endless trek to the bedroom to pump. She didn’t even pause at the whiff of a strange Beta female, no comment given as she passed the nursery where the woman fidgeted and soothed the fussing infant.
She expected Devin to snarl and shout, to protect her upset baby. This woman would learn soon that Devin didn’t belong here, if she remained any length of time.
Pumping completed, she loaded a bottle and went back to the nursery, offering it to the woman without a word. Set it down on the dresser when the woman stressed and cowered, leaving her to feed Gabriel so she could pack away the remaining milk.
“Beau said you enjoyed your time out,” Rey said as he came alongside her at the counter where she rinsed the various pieces of the pump.
“Thank you.” It seemed right to thank him, though not for letting her get away from all of this. For not having Beau take her somewhere else, not throwing her away just yet. That would come in time, but for now he’d let her take him in deep draughts that soothed something raw and tortured within her soul.
“There’s enough in the freezer, if you wanted to do it more.” Rey’s fingers glanced over the back of her hand, a barely there touch gone before she could notice it.
“Sure.” He might not be sending her away, but he didn’t want her here, either. Still, she was grateful for the small reprieve.
So it became part of her daily routine. Beau would arrive in the late morning hours, taking her straight up to the office where he left her alone for the most part. Once or twice he tried to tempt her with food or the idea of going somewhere else, but Devin was resolute in her focus. She’d work as long she could, make herself useful enough that Rey would keep her by his side just a little while longer.
A month passed, and then another. Different pills pressed into her palms every morning and night, Rey’s face darkening more each day. Devin didn’t know what she’d done wrong now, what mistake she’d made, but she doggedly kept to the path laid out before her. Make herself useful, stay as long as she could.
Gabriel grew by leaps and bounds, no longer so tiny he fit in Rey’s palm. Able to wear the inordinate amount of clothes Rey had purchased before he’d been born, all the toys able to come out for play. The Beta came every day, assisting as much as Rey would allow her to, which wasn’t much in the scheme of things. She stayed some nights when he had work to do, with no one but Devin to mind her.
Still the obsessive need to protect and care for her child evaded Devin. Even the territorial anger fading to nothing as she grew accustomed to the woman’s presence and scent drifting through the rooms. She just had to make it from one day to the next.
