Cam had that. He hadn’t been given the advantages my wealth could have brought him, but he’d had something greater than money. He’d had something money couldn’t buy. He had a mother who sacrificed everything for him. A mother who raised him with the security that he had her. She would be there for him, no matter what. And in this moment, he was showing me what she had taught him. That you protected those you loved.

  “I was wrong,” I said to him. “I made a mistake.”

  Cam shifted his gaze to his mother, then back to me. I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. He wasn’t sure what to do with this. Brielle placed a hand on his arm. That small touch gave him the answer he needed.

  “Because you know my mama wasn’t lying?” he shot back at me.

  I nodded. “That, among other things. Hurting your mother was one of those. I was surprised. Shocked. I reacted poorly, and I wish I could go back and do that again. I’d handle it differently.”

  He glanced up at his mother. She nodded her head at him. They didn’t need words. It was fascinating to watch them talk to each other with gestures. Rush hadn’t had that with his mother. Hell, he didn’t have that with me. That was something that came from trust, respect, and love. A love unlike any I had ever experienced.

  Brielle had raised my son … our son … better than I could have, and she’d had him when she was a child.

  I loved her. It wasn’t her beauty, the size of her chest, the way she felt when I was deep inside her. I was in love with the person she was. The way she thought of others. Her kindness. Her determination and spirit. The way her gentle smile could make a dark moment easier.

  I loved her because, even at eighteen years old, she had been the best damn mother I could have asked for my kid to have. I loved her because our son was smart, loyal, brave, and talented, and it was all because his mother had taught him how to be with her own actions.

  “I don’t want you here if it’s going to upset my mama,” he said to me.

  “Cam.” Brielle said his name, and he looked up at her. “This isn’t about me and Dean. It’s about you and …” She paused and looked at me a moment. “It’s about you and your father. I never imagined you’d get the chance to know him. You’ve been given a gift. I want you to embrace it. I will be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” I said, taking one step in their direction. “This will always be about you too. You’re his mom. You’re his safe place.”

  She started to say something, and I held up my hand to stop her.

  “You’re also the only woman I have ever loved, and you’re the only one I will ever love. I know I fucked up, Brielle, but I will spend every damn day I have left on this earth showing you just how much I love you. How sorry I am for hurting you. Just give me a chance. Please.”

  Her big blue eyes widened as she stared at me. I could see the different emotions cross her face. That beautiful, expressive face. Even when I wanted to hate her, I couldn’t. She was in my head, she was under my skin, and she was in my heart.

  “You love me?” she asked in a whisper, as if saying the words aloud would make them untrue.

  “So damn much,” I replied.

  Brielle blinked, then reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “Mama?” Cam asked, looking up at her. “I don’t think he meant to make you cry by saying that.”

  She pressed a kiss to Cam’s forehead. “I know,” she said. “I’m just … I didn’t expect that,” she said, looking back at me.

  “Can you forgive me? Give me a chance to make you love me?” I asked her, taking a step in their direction.

  She laughed, and Cam looked at me, his eyes wide with confusion, then back at his mother.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to me.

  For a moment, my heart sank.

  “It’s just that a part of me has loved you since the night we conceived Cam. But … then I got to know the man—the real Dean Finlay—and I fell in love with him too easily.”

  I didn’t wait for her to say more. I went to them. To my son and his mother. I grabbed her waist and pulled her to me before I covered her mouth with mine. She kissed me back, holding on to my arms the way I loved. As if she had to hold on to me to keep from falling.

  Brielle made me feel like a man. She made me feel needed for more than my money and fame.

  Cam cleared his throat loudly, and Brielle pulled away. I looked over at our son. He was glaring at me again.

  “Easy,” he said. “That’s my mama.”

  Brielle’s laughter filled the room, and my world was right. It was full. It was complete.

  epilogue

  Brielle

  One Year Later …

  I waved back at Cam as I stood up through the sunroof of the limo. Clara was beside him, holding his hand and wiping her tears while smiling. Mrs. Jo standing beside Kiro Manning on the steps as they watched us leave made me laugh. Everyone we loved was there, outside the Slacker Demon mansion in Beverly Hills. As I looked back at them, even after a year of weaving Dean’s world and mine together, it seemed surreal.

  “Better get down. The media is just outside the gate,” Dean called up to me as he held on to my ankles.

  I waved one last time before sinking down into the back of the limo. The sunroof closed as I snuggled against Dean’s side.

  “Today was perfect. Thank you,” I said, tilting my head back to look up at him.

  Dean gripped my chin with his finger and thumb and held it as he locked his gaze with mine. “Promise me one thing,” he said, his tone suddenly very serious.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Talk to me. If being Mrs. Dean Finlay ever gets hard, tell me. I’ll move us to a fucking private island if I have to. Just don’t leave me.”

  This was his biggest fear. It wasn’t the first time he had brought it up over the past year. When he had asked me to marry him, he’d told me then that he couldn’t live without me. That he’d move heaven and earth to keep me happy. I had to stop him often from going too far in his need to please me. Just being with him was enough.

  “I’m never keeping secrets again,” I assured him. “We will talk about everything.”

  He bent down and put his lips on mine. It was softer and sweeter than it had been in front of the minister and our friends and family. After our I dos, Dean had grabbed my face and kissed me as if he needed me to breathe. Kiro and the rest of the band members had cheered him on, making everyone laugh.

  I reached up and touched his face gently. This was my husband. I was married. This life hadn’t turned out the way I’d imagined. Dean made me believe in fairy tales. He had shown me how to trust, how to be loved by a man, and what it meant to need someone.

  A hand knocking on the window caused me to jump, and Dean cursed under his breath.

  “Damn media,” he said. “We’ll be past them soon.”

  I laid my head back on his arm, feeling so content with life that it was almost scary. Cam was going to spend a week with his new nephew and nieces at Rush and Blaire’s house. He was excited about it, and I didn’t have to feel guilty that we were heading to Greece without him. Rosemary Beach had become one of his favorite places to visit.

  “When we get back, we need to start looking for a house,” Dean said.

  I lifted my head to look at him.

  Cam and I had been living in his penthouse for the past four months. When my lease had neared its end date, we had been with Dean on tour, and he refused to let me renew it. He wanted us with him. I hadn’t argued with him because we rarely used our apartment much anymore.

  I had expected we would just continue to live in his penthouse after we were married.

  “You want a house?” I asked him.

  “Don’t you?” he replied.

  I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it. “I want you.”

  He grinned. “And you have me. But what about a house? A big one. You could have a yard of your own. A pool.”

  “Cam would love that,” I admitted.

  He’d never lived in a house before.

  “Cam would love anywhere you are. You’re his home. What do you want?” Dean asked me.

  For a moment, I thought about a yard with flowers and a tree with a swing. All the things I had dreamed of as a child. Being adopted by a family with a home that felt safe. A place that decorated for the holidays and a Christmas tree that needed a ladder to put the star on top.

  “A house would be nice,” I admitted.

  Dean pressed a kiss to my head. “Then, we’re buying a fucking house.”

  I laughed, and he smiled as he watched me.

  This man had two personalities. He was the rock star and the family man. When he had to be Dean Finlay, drummer for Slacker Demon, he acted the part. Entertained the crowds. I had watched him in amazement from backstage while they toured this past winter and spring. Then, the moment the cameras were off him and the fans were no longer around, he was Dean, a father, grandfather, and now husband.

  I loved both. Because both were mine. The rocker who would look for me while he was onstage, then wink at me, and the man who held me at night while I fell asleep.

  “The day I walked into that office and saw you standing there with your messy bun, looking like a sexy librarian, I had no fucking clue the gift fate had handed me. The fact that I almost canceled that appointment haunts me. I might never have found you, learned about Cam,” he said to me, tucking a curl behind my ear.

  “I believe I’d have tried to contact you again one day. Once I knew the right way to do it. You’re not an easy man to get in touch with,” I replied.

  He knew how I had tried to get in touch with him when I was homeless and pregnant. I’d told him all of it. But that didn’t make the time he had lost with Cam any easier. I wished more than anything that he’d had that time with Cam, but then would we be here now? I had been a child myself. Time and hardships hadn’t yet molded me into the woman I was now.

  We were lucky. Our paths could have crossed sooner or never again.

  Life hadn’t always been good to me, but in this moment, I wasn’t sure it could get better. It was as if the universe was making up for lost time.

  Dean took my hand and threaded his fingers through mine.

  He said nothing more about the years he hadn’t known about Cam. We’d talked through that already.

  Our story wasn’t an easy one. It hadn’t begun with romance. It had begun with lies and lust.

  But along the way, through the twists and turns, it had turned into something beautiful.

  You can connect with Abbi online in several different ways. She uses social media to procrastinate.

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  Snapchat: @abbiglines

 

 

  Abbi Glines, Going Too Far

 

 

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