Drowning to Breathe (12 page)

Now I couldn’t wait to get to that moment when she would fill it.

But we needed to make it through this crowd first.

A bristle of fierce energy rumbled through Sebastian. His tone was hard as he spoke near my ear. “This is the same bullshit they pull at every turn, and you don’t need to deal with it now. They have no right to be here.”

But they were.

And this was part of Sebastian’s life.

A part I had accepted to be with him.

Although now some of the obsession was directed at me.

We were hit with a firestorm of questions.

Most laced with assumptions.

Lies and hurt and morbid intrigue.

A warped and skewed truth to feed the fascination.

“Can you tell us the verdict in your daughter’s custody hearing?”

I cowered closer into Sebastian, part of me wanting to shout victory and adoration, the other determined to keep my mouth closed. Understanding the game because I’d had to play it before.

“Mr. Stone, is it true
Sunder
is currently seeking a new lead to replace you?”

“Sebastian Stone, has your relationship with Hailey Marx officially come to an end?”

Grunting, Sebastian shoved through the swelling crowd, his anger throttled, the restraint he barely hung onto quickly unraveling as he pulled me tighter.

“Ms. Bentley, how do you respond to the breach of contract between you and Mr. Jennings?”

My eyes immediately flew the reporter’s direction, and I could feel my brows pinching with the question he hurled.

Breach of contract?

Never before had it been claimed.

Was he claiming it now?

A jumble of voices fought for our attention.

“Now that you’re out of hiding, will Delaney Rhoads be making a comeback?”

I wanted to scream,
Not a chance in hell
, but instead I held my tongue and allowed Sebastian to haul us forward, his body a battering ram driving through the throng.

“Sebastian Stone, it’s no secret you and Martin Jennings remain at odds. It seems obvious you’re using your relationship with Shea Bentley to get back at him.”

Sebastian growled, “We told you what we had to say yesterday. Now get the hell out of my way.”

Rage vibrated from his bones. It was enough to send the lesser of the photographers scampering out of his way.

But some remained bold, and a microphone was shoved in my face. “Is it true you hid your pregnancy from Martin Jennings, and now he is seeking full custody?”

Nausea rolled in my stomach.

They had no clue, no idea the secrets I’d kept inside or why I’d kept them.

No idea the lengths I’d gone to protect my daughter.

Another voice at my ear. “Your estranged mother is quoted as saying, ‘I’ve never been faced with greater disappointment and discouragement than in my daughter’s betrayal.’ Can you comment?”

As if I’d been kicked in the gut, I gasped, and angry tears pricked at my eyes. I wanted to lash out, just as Sebastian had done outside the hospital on Sunday night.

Because. This. Hurt.

How did she still shock me with her vitriol?

Didn’t they understand what we had already been put through?

The pain?

This was the life I’d run from.

One I’d hidden away to protect myself, but most of all, to protect my daughter.

Burying Delaney Rhoads.

But shallow graves are so easily uncovered, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with her resurrection.

For a second we broke free, and we darted across the street to where the Suburban was parked. Running lights flashed as we neared it, the locks disarming, and Sebastian yanked open the passenger door, quick to help me inside.

He slammed the door shut behind me.

I watched as he fought back through the reporters, as he rounded the front, this time not quite as amicably as he’d been with me at his side. Three seconds later, his door flung open and he jumped in. Immediately he slammed it closed, cutting off the frenzy of voices.

Panting, my breaths wheezed from my too-tight lungs, and I tried to calm my thundering pulse.

From across the space, Sebastian searched me for injuries he knew would not be visible.

“Those bastards.” His rugged face winced, his voice a hard rumble. More regret.

“This is exactly what I was trying to protect you from all along. Never wanted to drag you and Kallie into this kind of life. It’s no good, Shea. No fucking good.”

I stared at him and my head tilted to the side. My voice was soft but packed with emphasis. “Life with you is
good
, Sebastian. As long as we make it that way. I don’t care what lies they tell or what they believe. Just as long as it means I get to spend my life with you.”

He exhaled and shook his head, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his pretty, pretty mouth. “Where’d you come from, baby?”

“I’ve been right here all along, waiting for you.”

Outside, we were surrounded.

But here?

It was just the two of us.

That strange energy still intense and profound.

But different.

Maybe it was the overwhelming relief, the weight that had been lifted, but the air had shifted. A glimmer of sweet. A suggestion of desire. Sebastian slanted me a smile—all flirty and sexy—gaze brazen, as he looked me up and down where I sat in the passenger seat while he readjusted his tie. His gray fitted suit only amplified the bulk of his stunning presence.

“So fucking beautiful,” he moved in to murmur near my face, “still can’t believe I get to call you my girl.”

Heat climbed my neck and I could feel it radiating from my cheeks.

God.

One thing about Sebastian?

He never balked at finding comfort in the other’s touch, and over the last two days, he’d sought me out time and time again. Taking me. Soothing me. For a few blissful moments, lifting me to a place where I was detached from everything in this world.

Except for him.

A place where we existed only in the other.

Tied.

Tethered.

Bound.

Hearts and minds and bodies and souls.

After everything that had happened, it seemed impossible only four days had passed since he’d come back to me.

Since he’d torn all those barriers down and chosen to stay.

Even though deep down, in the places we didn’t want to acknowledge, we both knew he would eventually have to go.

This life would take him places where I couldn’t always physically follow, whether standing up for his little brother would land him back behind bars, or if the call of his spirit would take him back on the road.

At the thought, my heart thrashed a severe beat of defiance, and I flinched as I attempted to block the injustice of it all.

Sebastian frowned when he noticed the shift in me, his touch gentle as he hooked his index finger under my chin.

A simple promise.

You belong to me.

It didn’t matter where the road took him. How much time or distance existed between us.

It didn’t hold the power to erase what that promise meant.

“You did it,” he finally whispered just above our slowed breaths, and he reached out and cupped the side of my face.

“She’s really coming home.”

But what would be Martin’s next step?

I forced off the grim thought.

“Yeah, Shea, she’s really coming home.” Sebastian started the truck and put it in gear. “Think it’s about damned time we go and get her.”

He jerked the long black Suburban out onto the road. Paparazzi scattered. A tumble of bodies rushed to get out of Sebastian’s way as he gunned it onto the one-way street and headed away from the courthouse.

Inside my purse, my phone rang.

I dug through my bag and pulled it free.

Nigel.

“Hello?” I answered. There was still a tremor in my voice, unable to shake the worry that in the ten minutes since I’d last spoken with the attorney, something had gone amiss. That I’d misunderstood or misconstrued.

That my mind had played the cruelest kind of trick.

“You can pick up Kallie at 4:30.”

I breathed out and glanced at the dashboard.

Four o’clock.

My chest fluttered.

In only thirty minutes, Kallie would be in my arms.

“Claribel Sanchez,” he continued with his instructions, “the case manager, will meet you at the house where Martin Jennings has been staying with Kallie to oversee the exchange.”

I blanched.

It sounded as if we were bartering goods.

I swallowed down the residual bitterness. Even though I hated that was precisely what Martin had done—using an innocent child as a tool in a failed coup—I would only be thankful she was coming home.

He rattled off the address and I scribbled it down so I could plug it into the navigation.

“Got it,” I said.

Of course, the monster had not only taken her from her home, but removed her from her hometown. Placed her in the midst of everything foreign more than thirty miles away.

Every piece of me prayed she was truly okay.

That she would recover and this trauma wouldn’t leave her with scars that would never heal.

I bore enough of those for the both of us.

My mind swam with questions.

How had he treated her? Fed her? Cared for a child he didn’t even know? What lies had he fed her? How would I answer her thousands of warranted questions?

A chill skittered down my spine.

What would I do if I found out he’d harmed her?

Nigel pushed out a relieved breath. The no-nonsense persona he typically wore veered into something warm. “Congratulations, Shea. I was confident this case would come out in your favor, but I can’t begin to describe the satisfaction I feel with getting your little girl back where she belongs. I know my job made a true difference today, and I want to thank you for placing your trust in me.”

“Thank you for putting everything you had into it. I will forever be in your debt.”

I ended the call, and Sebastian turned and headed north out of Savannah.

He hit the freeway.

Trees hugged the roadway, interspersed by buildings that opened up to small towns as the sun beat a path west and we continued silently toward our destination. The entire ride I fidgeted in my seat, picking at the hem of my shirt as I incessantly checked the time.

Urging it along.

Ten more minutes.

Sebastian reached across the console and took my hand. “We’re gettin’ close, baby.”

I squeezed his hand and attempted to steady my breaths, to calm the escalation of my heartbeat. But it only increased with every passing second. “I can’t wait to see her.”

Every emotion I’d felt over the last few months seemed to gather right at the base of my throat. A lump derived from the blinding bliss Sebastian had brought into my life and the pain and torment that had followed, building and weaving and breaking and strengthening until I stood right here.

On the cusp of where it all manifested as my future.

A future with her.

A future with him.

All muddied with a cataclysm of unknowns that would make up our lives.

Unknowns I couldn’t wait to experience.

Exiting the freeway, Sebastian made a right, then a left.

Sitting forward in my seat, I clamped down on his hand.

Wave after wave of yearning washed me through.

My beautiful, frightening man cast me a reassuring smile as he made another right down a street, then began to slow as we approached the address.

He pulled up to a stop in front of a single-story home.

My gaze was immediately drawn to the windows framed by white shutters, wondering if Kallie stood behind one, peering out, just as anxious for my return as I was for hers.

Did she know I was coming? Did she know I would have come for her two days ago had it been possible?

For the rural area, the house was on the nicer side. A manicured lawn adorned the yard. Two mature, lush trees flanked the walkway lined with rows of recently planted fall flowers.

Still, it didn’t come close to touching the extravagance of Martin’s Nashville residence.

I realized this was little more than a holding cell. A place to keep Kallie, because he hadn’t been allowed to move her out of state until I’d been in front of a judge.

A palpable rush of agitation burned through Sebastian, and he gripped the steering wheel, his attention also locked on the face of the house where my daughter had been held.

The clock read four twenty-eight, and the same small blue car that had been present the night Kallie was taken pulled up behind the Suburban as the sun slid slowly toward the horizon.

In discomfort, Sebastian cleared his throat. “Think it’s best I wait here. Last thing we need is me bringing more trouble on you two. Took about all I had not to lay that smug bastard out back in court. Not sure how things would go down without a building full of cops to deter me.”

I gave a quick nod. “Yeah.”

I knew with Sebastian, it was vastly more than just an idle threat, which was precisely why I could never let him know just how depraved Martin truly was.

He smiled a brilliant smile that cut through his intensity. Something beautiful beneath his hardened scars. “Go get your girl.”

Through the rearview mirror, I watched Claribel Sanchez step from her car. I did the same. Although my movements were rushed and shaky, filled with the culmination of my anxiety, fear, and relief.

This was it.

I attempted to steel myself against the idea of facing Martin in this setting. One without the screen of intercessors. No attorneys or judges or officers there to act as a buffer. Only this lone woman, who knew nothing of Martin, and Sebastian who knew too much.

I flattened my palms down the front of my blouse, nervously straightening it, needing something to do with my hands.

She approached me with a cautious smile on her face. “Ms. Bentley.” Sympathy flashed across her features. “I’m glad I can be here to help with the transition.”

In her eyes I saw an apology. As if maybe she’d felt it in her gut she’d been making a mistake the night she’d torn my daughter from our home.