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“Just try me,” I growled as I took a step upward that made her flinch. “You want another? I got plenty more.”
“Youdarelay a hand on Her Grace!”
To everyone’s surprise, it was the butler who spoke up through the open front door.
“Her Grace does,” Xavier said simply, though his eyes were blazing as he looked at me. “And consideringsheis the mistress of this house, not my former stepmother, thenHer Gracemay do as she sees fit. Particularly to those who insult her husband.” Then his eyes zeroed in on the butler, who couldn’t help but shudder under their terrible, quiet wrath. “Or areyoualso disloyal to this house, Bledsoe? I’m sure my wife would have some thoughts for you too.”
The butler worried his mouth while Georgina continued to nurse her cheek. Neither of them, however, said a word.
“I thought so,” Xavier said. “Now leave us. I expect you both to be gone from this house when I return tomorrow evening. Go. Now.”
It wasn’t until the door shut behind both of them that his large shoulders finally drooped with pure exhaustion.
“Come here, you fierce little thing,” he said as I returned to his side and allowed him to wrap a long arm around my shoulders again. “Bloody good fighter, you are. You might be the first person in decades to shut up Georgina Parker.”
I giggled. “I hope I won’t be the last. She deserves to have her mouth washed out with soap.”
Xavier sighed as we walked toward the street. “It’s a nice thought. Right now, though, all I want is to take you home, bury myself between your thighs, and forget this night ever fucking happened.” He took out his phone. “Let me see what’s keeping Ben.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” I said as I took his hand in mine. “Let’s go home, babe.”
But before we could go any further, Xavier’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, revealing a battery of missed calls, all blocked by Parkvale’s less than stellar reception, and at least five missed messages.
His arm dropped from my shoulder as he turned to me. It was like I was looking at a ghost.
“What?” I asked. “Xavi, what is it? What’s wrong now?”
Another note? Another article? Some other equally irritating news that would cost us more headaches over the coming days?
But it was far worse than I imagined.
“It’s…it’s Sofia,” he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
And then I watched as my husband, my tall, strong tower of a man, collapsed right there on the sidewalk.
“Sofia?” I repeated, hearing my voice rising to shrill heights within a second. “Xavi, what happened to Sofia?”
“It’s—she’s—” He gulped and looked up at me with eyes that had morphed into whirlpools of fear. “Our daughter’s been kidnapped.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Back at Mayfair, the world was still as chaotic as it felt the moment Xavier broke the news of Sofia’s abduction. Maybe even more as the facts sank in.
I had been precariously balanced on one of the kitchen stools for nearly an hour while Xavier, Jagger, and Elsie were a storm of action along with the rotation of law enforcement officials who had come and gone at Xavier’s bidding.
The world was spinning. I was having trouble breathing. I couldn’t think straight, could barely comprehend what had happened.
Sofia was gone.
Sofia wastaken.
My sweet, spunky, amazing little girl was not, in fact, on her way to us from the airport but had been kidnapped almost immediately after exiting customs.
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, losing a child. It’s completely unnatural. You’re supposed to outlive them. You’re supposed to help them grow, send them off into the world, meet a few grandbabies if you’re lucky, and then die knowing you left them capable of caring for themselves and the people with them. Just like you did.
You arenotsupposed to lose them at almost five years old to God knows who.
Every time I thought of the fact, my breath left me all over again.
