“I can’t,” Bowie said. “This is asking too much of me. I deserve better than this. I love you, Genesis, but I can’t love for the both of us. Until you figure out what is more important to you, then I think we need to call off the wedding. Put a halt on us. Unless you can tell me that you will walk away and let Kye find someone else to help him. Like his mother. He trusts her. I don’t get why she isn’t here, doing this. Chloe has always catered to Kye. This seems like something she’d want to be involved in. I bet she could keep Jagger by herself. Kye could go back to his Mafia life.”

  I wiped at the tear that rolled down my face. “He’s not going to do that to her. She’ll get attached to Jagger. He doesn’t want her to get hurt,” I said softly. “You want to call off the wedding?” My voice cracked, repeating his words.

  “Yes, I do. When I say I do, I want to know the woman I am saying it to puts me first in her life.”

  Why was he doing this?

  “I love you,” I replied as another tear escaped.

  And I did love him. I knew he’d be a good husband. He’d give me the comfort of a home, children, security. He was exactly what a woman should want in a man. But Jagger … and Kye were first. I didn’t love Bowie enough to walk away from them.

  “Not enough, Genesis. I’ve thought of little else since you decided on changing our wedding date so you could help Kye with his mistake. I’ve talked to my mom. I’ve lost sleep over it. I hoped that, today, you would agree to come stay at a hotel with me. That you’d give a little. Just enough to give me hope. But you didn’t.”

  He’d tested me, and I’d failed.

  I sniffled and fought off crying. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Bowie. But I’d realized, being here with Kye, that I might have been using Bowie as a distraction from what I couldn’t have. Kye would never be the marrying kind. He’d never be a Bowie, yet my heart didn’t seem to care. It was no longer just Kye holding me tightly; it was Jagger. They both had my heart. Maybe there wasn’t any room left.

  “That’s it? You aren’t going to change your mind, are you? Even with me calling off the wedding?” he said with a defeated tone.

  “You are asking for something I can’t do,” I whispered.

  He looked at me, and the pain was there on his face. He didn’t try and mask it. My chest hurt as I thought about how he was feeling, but as much as it ached, I knew leaving Jagger would be worse.

  Bowie walked over to me, and I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me. Tell me he was sorry. That we’d work it out. However, when he reached me, he looked down at my left hand, then up at me.

  “If this is truly how you feel, then it’s not just the wedding I’m calling off. It’s the engagement too.”

  I swallowed painfully over the lump in my throat. Lifting my hand, I slid the ring off my finger and looked at it one last time.

  The truth was, I should have never said yes to him. He’d asked me at a very emotional time. My father was in the hospital, and my mother’s complete devotion to him reminded me that their love was what I wanted in life. Bowie seemed like the man who could give me that. But I hadn’t factored in that my mother adored my father with every breath she took. She had told me once that he still gave her butterflies when he walked into a room. Bowie didn’t give me butterflies. He never had.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I placed the ring in his open hand. “I’m sorry for everything. All I’ve done that has hurt you. You’re right; you deserve more than I can give.”

  His hand closed tightly over the diamond that I should have never accepted.

  “He will never love you the way you want him to,” Bowie said with conviction. “He will destroy you. Crush your soul. This pretend world you’re living in right now is temporary. Once the kid is gone, Kye will be right back to the way he was. It’s just how Kye is.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from letting out a sob. I nodded. I knew he was right, but hearing him say it out loud was like a knife slicing through me.

  “I know,” I managed to say through the emotion clogging my throat.

  He shook his head. “Then, you’re a damn fool.”

  I blinked away the tears and sniffled. Bowie turned and walked over to the door, picked up his backpack and overnight bag, then walked out without one backward glance. I stood there, looking straight ahead until I heard his truck start up and drive away.

  One day, he’d find a girl who adored him. He would fall in love and be thankful that this had happened. I would be one of those relationships he was glad hadn’t lasted because he’d found the one that was meant for him.

  As for me, I wasn’t sure what my future held. I couldn’t look that far ahead and hope. There was too much in my present that I never wanted to let go of even though I knew the day would be here soon when I had to.

  Twenty-One

  Kye

  Bowie’s truck being gone surprised me when I arrived back at the house. I hadn’t expected him to give up time with Genesis.

  He’d been fucking annoyed last night, and I felt guilty for enjoying it. I didn’t want Genesis hurt. That was the only reason I wasn’t grinning like a fool from the scowling Bowie did last night and this morning over breakfast. He was quiet and withdrawn. I knew Genesis saw it, too, and she seemed nervous. It was one of the reasons I’d offered to run to the store. I’d wanted them to have some alone time.

  When I walked inside the house, the living room was quiet. I took the bags to the kitchen and put the cold things away before going to find where she and Jagger had gone. Stopping at the door to my bedroom, I saw Jagger sleeping in his bed with the baby monitor thing beside him on the table. Genesis had been so excited about the things Maddie had sent over with Six this morning.

  I closed the door to the room, then made my way back to the master bedroom. The sound of the shower made me stop. If Genesis was in there, then I didn’t need to go any further. While the idea of seeing her naked body standing under the spray of water sounded like a level of heaven that I’d give my soul to experience, she’d be furious with me. I started to turn around and leave when I noticed there were no signs of Bowie.

  The duffel bag he’d brought with him was missing. It had been at the foot of the bed this morning when I glanced down the hallway to see the door open. The laptop that had been on the side table was gone. I studied the room for anything of his and found nothing. Turning my attention back to the open bathroom door, I heard the water shut off.

  Had he left already? Wasn’t he supposed to stay for another two nights?

  I’d had to buy more fake meat for the bastard, and the brand of almond butter he’d requested was fucking hard to find. I’d had to ask for help at the store.

  Genesis emerged from the bathroom with her hair twisted up in a towel and another towel wrapped around her body. There was the video screen that came with the baby monitor in her hand, and she was looking down at it, checking on Jagger. A soft smile touched her lips before her eyes lifted and locked on me. She jumped, startled, then scrambled with her one free hand to keep her towel from falling off.

  “KYE!” she cried, then let out a breath. “You scared me.”

  Her red-rimmed eyes looked swollen from crying. The fucker had upset her, then left. My hands fisted at my sides as I looked at her. She might not let me kill him, but I was going to hurt him.

  “What did he do?” I asked through clenched teeth. Fury pumped through my veins. He might be engaged to her, but I’d be damned if he thought he could make her cry. “Talk, Baby Doll, or I’ll hurt him worse than I’m currently planning on.”

  She took a step toward me while setting the monitor on the dresser. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s hurt enough. He doesn’t need you to physically assault him too.”

  I didn’t agree. “You’ve been crying. His shit is gone. He’s gone. Why?”

  Her shoulders drooped, and I tore my eyes off the drop of water running from her neck to her cleavage. Getting a damn hard-on wasn’t what I needed to be doing. I had a man to go hunt down.

  “He asked me to choose. You and Jagger or him,” she said, then lifted her bare, damp shoulders. “And when I chose the two of you, he called off the wedding and took the ring.”

  That was not what I’d been expecting to hear. My gaze swung to her left hand … her bare left hand. Fuck, that felt good. The heavy weight that had been making it hard to take deep breaths was instantly gone. Looking back up at her face and seeing the clear pain there, however, reminded me that this had hurt her. She had wanted to marry him.

  “What exactly did he say?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’d just released his hold on her and she wasn’t getting married anymore.

  “He wanted me to go stay at a hotel at first. While he was here. Spend time with just him. It was a test, apparently, and I failed it. Then, he wanted you to get one of your strippers to come stay here instead of me, which I adamantly refused. His last demand was that you call your mom to come and take care of Jagger.” She paused and pressed her lips together. “I couldn’t do it. I don’t want someone else to take care of him.”

  I didn’t either. Goddamn him. He’d been cruel.

  “Come here,” I said to her, holding out my arm.

  She sniffled and hurried to me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her against me. She wasn’t sobbing, but I could hear the sniffles. When she cried, it killed me. I hated it. Even though I was ready to thank whatever gods there were that she wasn’t marrying Bowie.

  “He didn’t deserve you,” I said as she clung to me.

  I didn’t deserve her either. I wasn’t sure anyone did. Except maybe Jagger.

  “He deserves someone who can put him first. Who adores him the way my mom adores my dad. In my head, that’s what I thought we were, but I realized”—she sniffled—“that it was me being selfish. I knew Bowie would treat me the way Dad treats Mom. But he didn’t give me butterflies. He never did.”

  Relief wasn’t a good way to describe what I was feeling. The surge of joy that rushed through me was something I didn’t have a word for.

  “Butterflies?” I asked, wanting that clarified. I wanted to make sure I was understanding her correctly.

  She nodded against my chest. The towel in her hair was in my way. I couldn’t smell her this way. I reached up and pulled it off, then tossed it aside.

  “Butterflies,” she repeated. “Mom said that she still gets butterflies when Dad walks in a room. I never got those with Bowie. He was just comfortable. Safe.”

  She didn’t finish, but I knew what she was thinking. He was things that I wasn’t. Did she measure the guys she dated up to me? Was I the guy she made sure they were nothing like? Fuck, that hit me in the gut.

  “Don’t ever settle without the butterflies,” I told her. “You are worthy of a man who makes you feel all the things.”

  She let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  I ran my hand over her damp hair. She had no fucking clue how perfect she was. No idea how the man who gave her butterflies would be the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet.

  “It’ll happen,” I assured her. “You’re only twenty. I’m not ready to give you up for a very long time. And even then, I’m going to end up in therapy when I do.” I was serious too.

  The brutal truth was, I wanted her. She gave me fucking butterflies. When she walked into a room, I got so damn happy that my entire world lit up. I was pretty sure Jagger felt the same way. Like father, like son.

  “Maybe,” she whispered, then pulled back, her hands going to her towel to keep it together. “Jagger has been asleep awhile. I need to get dressed before he wakes up.”

  I wrapped one of her wet locks around my finger. “I’ll take care of little man. You take your time.”

  She smiled. “Honestly, I need to hold him. He’ll make me feel much better.”

  Watching her with him was my favorite thing to do.

  His new birth certificate was in a drawer in my bedroom, tucked away, and had been there for a few days. Levi had gotten it expedited through his connections. I hadn’t wanted to expedite it, and I wasn’t ready to tell Genesis I had it. The thought of giving my son away was more difficult than I’d ever imagined it would be. I tried to tell myself that it was just because I knew it was going to be hard on Genesis. I couldn’t stand the idea of her being upset over letting him go. But I had to face the facts. It was me who didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to keep him. Just like I wanted to keep her.

  Twenty-Two

  Genesis

  Jagger had slept five-hour stretches the past two nights. It was as if the night when Bowie had been here exhausted him so much that he was making up for the lost sleep. When my eyes opened at six and he was still sleeping, I watched to make sure he was breathing. Kye’s arms tightened around me, and he snuggled in closer to my back.

  This, too, had gotten more intense since Bowie had left. I no longer just woke up like this, but we went to sleep like this too. Kye had asked if he could hold me the first night, and I’d been weak. I’d said yes. Somehow, it’d happened again last night. To be honest, I enjoyed it. I slept better. The only issue I had with it was that my panties were wet every morning and the tingle between my legs had become an ache.

  Kye buried his head in my hair and made a sleepy groan. It was like he knew I was awake and would be getting up soon. If he knew I wanted to stay here even more than he wanted me to stay and why, he would be the one flying out of the bed first.

  At least, I thought he would. I kept telling myself he would to keep me from doing something stupid that I couldn’t take back. Kye was always touchy-feely. I also wasn’t sure how much sex he was getting these days. When he wasn’t off doing underworld stuff, he was with us. There were days he didn’t leave us at all. I couldn’t let his lack of sex and typical horny behavior make me think he was asking for something that I knew he didn’t truly want from me.

  He shifted, and his erection was tucked inside of my butt cheeks. I closed my eyes and tried not to make a sound. I wasn’t sure if he was awake enough to know what he was doing. I had blamed his morning wood on just that. But now that he was spooning me at night, I could feel it then too.

  Last night, I’d scooted away from it, and his deep chuckle in my ear had made me shiver. It was bad enough that the view of his muscular, tattooed arm thrown over me was arousing. I didn’t need to feel that too. Not if I was going to stay sane.

  I tried to move away just enough to get his hard length away from my bottom.

  “No,” he said in a low growl, pulling me tighter. “That feels good.”

  I closed my eyes tightly. “Kye,” I whispered, not wanting to wake Jagger.

  “Yeah,” he replied in his raspy, deep voice.

  “That, uh …” How did I say this? Excuse me, but your dick pressing between my butt cheeks is making me really wet, and you are going to feel it soon through these pajama pants. I didn’t think that was the right way to handle it.

  He gently thrust his hips against me, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from moaning.

  “Mmm, that feels so fucking good.” His hoarse whisper caused me to tremble. Maybe he wasn’t fully awake.

  “Kye, wake up,” I hissed, feeling panicky.

  He did it again.

  “I’m awake,” he said. “Trust me.”

  My hands fisted in the sheet, and I forced oxygen into my lungs in an attempt to control myself. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He moved his arm that was around me and brushed my hair off my neck, then locked it around me again. This time much closer to my breasts. His forearm was tucked under them. I felt his warm breath on my neck before his lips touched my overheated skin.

  “Kye,” I whispered.

  He moved his hips against me again, causing his thick arousal to rub against me. “Baby Doll,” he replied as he trailed kisses up my neck.

  “What are you doing?” I repeated.

  His arm turned, and his hand slid up to cup my left breast. He groaned so close to my ear that I almost had an orgasm. I did make a sound, but I couldn’t help it. When he squeezed the plump flesh, I felt the sparks of pleasure all over my body. I rubbed my thighs together, needing some kind of relief.

  “Fuck, you feel incredible.” His voice sounded thick as he licked the skin beneath my ear. “I bet you taste like candy.”

  Oh God. I was unable to keep a clear head with all this. Kye had never touched me this way or talked to me like this. I wasn’t going to be able to stop it. He had to do that. Surely, he was going to before I did something embarrassing, like orgasm loudly. “Kye.” His name came out more like a moan, but he was moving his hand under my T-shirt.

  His callous palm slid over my stomach, and I stopped breathing.

  “Fuuuck.” The pleasure I could hear in his voice in that one word when his hand closed over my bare breast this time made me cry out.

  Kye flipped me onto my back so fast that I gasped. He jerked my shirt up until my breasts were uncovered. I watched in amazement at the wild look in his eyes before he lowered his head and began to suck hard on one of my nipples. His hands grabbed my waist, and his fingers dug into my sides.

  The sight of Kye’s mouth on me was too much. His tongue flicked over my nipple as he sucked more of my breast into his mouth. Hungry noises vibrated in his chest. I spread my legs, and the moment his sank down, settling between them, the pressure from his hard cock against my clit was all it took.

  I threw my head back, and a sound tore from my chest as my body exploded in the most powerful orgasm I’d ever had. I shook as the tremors hit me. Kye shoved his rigid length harder into me, and I continued to shake with the pleasure that continued to pump through me.