SEAL'd Perfection The Complete Collection: A Navy SEAL Romance (15 page)

Something snapped, and before I could stop it, a hollow laugh erupted from deep inside me. Mitch cocked a brow at me, silently asking whether I’d lost my mind. Who knows? Maybe I had. Maybe it had finally happened. I laughed until tears sprang to my eyes, before beginning to descend back to normal.

“What
on earth
do you find so amusing about this, Kat?”

I pointed at him, smiling, “Oops, careful, you wouldn’t want Hannah hearing you use that name,” I said. Hannah had been the reason behind Mitch switching from calling me Kat to Katherine. Secretly, I think she was threatened by the fact that when I’d first found out about their affair, he’d called her a mistake. Why she had gone on to marry the lying, cheating, son of a bitch was something I stopped trying to understand a long time ago.

“
Katherine
,” he hissed, warning me. “This isn’t a laughing matter. The custody of our child isn’t a joke. What would the courts say about this? You’re being very unprofessional.”

I balled my hands to keep myself from flipping him the bird. He’d been threatening me for such a long time, his words had lost their meaning. “Fine, you want my serious answer, here goes, no court is going to allow you more custody simply because your whore is knocked up,” I snarled.

Mitch reared back, a delicious look of shock on his face, and I immediately bit back a triumphant smile at my own ballsy comment. I’d never been able to speak to him like that before, to tell him what I really thought of him and his sham of a marriage. “We’ll see about that,” Mitch declared, regaining his frosty composure. “Jax!” He bellowed back through the open front door. “Come say goodbye.”

Jax burst through the door and wrapped me in a hug, his fingers sticky with some treat Hannah must have given him inside. I pressed a kiss to his forehead, barely getting a “bye mama” before he raced back inside—presumably to get the rest of whatever snack he’d been munching on.

I knew I should be happy that he wasn’t crying and pitching a fit like normal, but compiled with Mitch’s news, it fucking stung. When Jax was out of earshot, Mitch cast me a dark look. “The mediator that we worked with will be meeting us, all three of us, to discuss the changes Hannah and I are proposing.”

Like it or not, I’d have to go, and while I was fairly confident that I was right, a court wouldn’t give them full custody for such a ridiculous reason, there was a tiny sliver of me that was terrified. I drowned that part out long enough to say, “Fine, I need two weeks’ notice to get it off from work, and Monday and Wednesday evenings I have school.”

Mitch sneered at me. “The meeting is Monday, Katherine. One thirty.”

“What the hell? How could you arrange something like that without my consent?” I raged.

Mitch offered a smarmy smile that made my skin crawl. “It was the only appointment available. At least, that’s what my lawyer told me when he called and set it up for us.”

Icicles slid down my spine, remembering the smug face of Mitch’s high powered attorney. If he was involved—things were going to go south, very, very quickly. “You’re unbelievable. It’s like you don’t even realize that what you’re fighting for is our son, Mitch. Jax. He’s not a toy or a car or a beach house. He’s a person, a little person we created, and you want to drag him through this crap. And for what? To get back at me? What the hell did I ever do to you?”

Mitch didn’t answer, he just stood there, staring at me like I’d completely gone off the reservation. “I’m not
dragging
our son through anything. I am working to get him the best life possible. One that involved less time with some stranger next door, leftover diner meals, and certainly without any tattooed biker guys with a history of losing their shit and trashing hotel rooms.”

I was stunned to silence. He meant every venomous word that poured from his lips. It wasn’t a game to him—this was going to be war.

Hot rage seethed through me, but I spun on my heel and stalked down the drive, this time, not bothering to hold back, and flipped him off as I backed down the drive. Only once he was back inside the house, did the fear that I’d caged up let loose, wreaking havoc on my emotions the whole drive home.

Kat had made it painfully obvious that she didn’t care to see me again. She’d been ducking me at the diner, ignoring my calls, and hadn’t answered any of my text messages. I’d seen her at the grocery store over the weekend. She’d been crouched down in the cold and flu aisle, checking out a couple different bottles of medicine. She looked like hell and my heart churned at the thought of her spending the weekend alone, sick, and undoubtedly missing her son. I’d called out to her, but when she turned to see me, she rolled her eyes, threw both bottles in her basket, and walked the opposite direction down the store aisle.

When she wasn’t at work on the following Monday, I knew something was up. I asked Patrice where she was, and after a few tries, finally coaxed her to confess that Kat had called in sick. I abandoned my normal lunch order, and instead, asked for two bowls of soup and two cheese sandwiches to go. Patrice looked a little nervous, but in the end went to the kitchen to put in my order.

Several minutes later, she reappeared, and set the bag down on the edge of my table. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, while I fished a twenty from my leather wallet.

“What do you mean?” I asked, somewhat startled by her statement.

“With Kat,” she said. “Her ex really worked her over, okay.”

I nodded slowly, unsure how to respond.

“We all love Kat and want her to be happy,” she added, turning away before I could rush to defend my intentions.

I picked up the bag of food and left, still puzzling over Patrice’s cryptic warning as I went to Kat’s townhouse. The night she’d invited me over for dinner, she’d opened up a lot about her fears and her ex. The guy sounded like a first rate douche bag in my book, but I also understood that Kat had to play nice for the sake of their son. I admired the hell out of her for keeping everything together. Which—I added to myself as I parked along the curb and retrieved the food from the side pouch on the bike—was exactly why I was standing in her driveway with soup and sandwiches to help her feel better. Kat deserved the world, and I wanted to be the one to give it to her.

Her car was parked in front of her garage, and I wondered what was in the garage that made it so she couldn’t park inside. Bikes? Boxes of storage? I shook my head, focusing my mind on what mattered—finding a way to get her to let me inside long enough to patch things up. I went up the stairs two at a time, and knocked, but there was no response. I tried again, and waited another minute, but still nothing. I peeked through the long window to the left of the door, but she had a filmy curtain blocking the view inside, which was smart, but frustrating in the moment.

I was about to turn back when I heard a rumble inside. I took a step closer to the door and grabbed the door knob, flinging the door open at the sound of a loud crash. “Kat?” I called out in the direction of the bang that was still echoing in the air. A split second later, Kat’s face peeked around the corner and her mouth dropped at the sight of me standing in her entryway with a takeout bag from the diner. “Are you all right?” I asked. She stepped out and I ran my eyes over her, as though checking for gaping wounds. “What’s going on in here?”

She crossed her arms. “Nothing,” she insisted, setting her jaw.

I’d expected to find her wrapped up in a bathrobe with a pink nose and messy hair, but she was actually made up, her hair tucked back in a complicated looking knot on the top of her head, and she was wearing a sleek black pantsuit, with an emerald green top underneath that made her eyes absolutely dazzle. Although, I realized a split second later, with the way she was staring at me, I could have mistaken rage with dazzle…

“Kat, what’s going on?” I asked, taking two steps inside, closing the door behind me. “It sounds like a construction crew was on the loose in here two seconds ago. Are you okay?”

“Yes!” She threw her hands in the air. “I threw some pots and pans in the kitchen, okay?”

“You
threw
them?”

She scoffed and disappeared into the kitchen. I followed her and watched as she stooped over to rearrange a pile of pots and pans on the floor in front of the open storage drawer under the oven. “This
drawer
is stupid, like whoever designed it needs to be put away or sued or something…”

She was fuming mad, but I couldn’t help but smile at her statement. I set the bag on the small dining table and went to her side, gently leading her off the floor and to the table. “I brought you some lunch, I’ll do this,” I instructed, ushering her into a chair before she could protest.

She spun the bag around on the table and looked at the logo. “Jace, what are you doing here?”

I knelt on the floor next to the mess she’d clearly made out of frustration, and started stacking the pots and pans into orderly piles that slid into the drawer. “They told me you were sick, so I thought I would bring you some lunch. Soup and a cheese sandwich.”

I glanced over at her and found her already staring back at me. “I’m still mad at you, you know.”

I laughed softly. “I figured, you didn’t exactly bother hiding it when I saw you at the store on Saturday.”

Her cheeks tinged with a crimson color, and she buried her nose in the bag, breathing in the savory aroma. I took the seat next to her and unpacked the bag, setting a bowl of soup and a wrapped sandwich in front of each of us, and then unpacked the plastic spoons and wad of napkins, before stashing the empty bag under my chair to get it out of the way. She picked up her sandwich and started peeling the wax paper away little by little. “Why are you being so nice to me, when I was such a bitch to you?”

“I like you Kat, and I know you’re scared, and I’m not going to push anything, but you need to know I like you.” Her green eyes were searching mine and I found myself wishing I knew what she was looking for. “I care about you and when you care about someone, you do things for them. You’re sick—I brought you stuff to make you feel better. Simple.”

She nodded slowly and turned her attention back to her sandwich wrapper. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the other night—I still don’t know why I freaked out like that. There’s just…a lot going on.” Her voice was wavering and uneven and the sound twisted my heart.

I reached over and helped her unwrap the rest of her sandwich. She smiled sadly at me and took a tiny bite. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and when she set down her food and pushed away what was left of the soup, I leaned back in my seat, giving her space, before asking, “So, what really happened? I’m thinking there’s more to your pots and pans party than a faulty drawer…” My voice was gentle, but she still flinched at the question. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s okay, too.”

“No, it’s all right,” she replied, sucking in a deep breath, before continuing, “Mitch, that’s my ex, Jax’s father, is having a baby with his mistress-turned-wife, and is going after full time custody of Jax. He told me I had to go to a mediation meeting today, to hammer out a new arrangement, or else he’d take me to court. So I called in sick to work, which, I was, this weekend, but it was mostly to go to the meeting. Anyways, I get there, and he had this huge list of all the ways I’m failing as a parent, and is blackmailing me, in front of our freaking mediator, that if I don’t give him what he wants, he’ll take it to a judge.”

“Oh my God, Kat, I’m so sorry, that’s…that’s crazy fucked up.” My mind was spinning trying to process everything she’d just said. Her eyes were red, and I knew she’d been crying and was close to tears again. I scooted my chair over to hers and pulled her into my arms. “Where’s Jax now?”

“He’s next door, with Hilda. She took him so I could go to the meeting. I just got home a little while ago and needed a minute to…decompress,” she explained.

I nodded, my mind reeling with what to say next. After a long minute of silence, I reassured her, “It won’t work, you know? There’s no way a judge could meet you and say you’re an unfit mother or whatever that bullshit is. I’ll come and be a witness for you, whatever you need.”

She snorted. “
That
would be interesting,” she mused, almost to herself more than meant for me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, tipping her chin up so she met my eyes with hers.

She bit her lip. “Nothing, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Kat? Tell me.”

She shifted her eyes away for a beat. “Mitch knows who you are, like from your show and stuff on the internet. He’s using you against me, saying that I’m hanging out with the wrong kind of people, he brought up a bunch of stuff, and I don’t know if it’s true or not…something about trashing hotels, partying, drinking…”

I jumped up from the table, exploding out of my seat. My fists balled together and I had to bite back the urge to swing at the wall. It killed me that I was being used as a pawn by her asshole ex.

“If you wanna throw the pots and pans, go for it, it actually helped a little,” Kat sighs, pointing at the drawer I’d fixed minutes before. Her voice and posture reminded me of a dry sponge, every drop wrung out.

Her resignation stopped me in my tracks, and my anger dimmed as I stared at her. “It’s funny how being a decorated war veteran doesn’t come up in my resume. It’s like those six years didn’t exist or something. Now I’m just the side show who tattoos people on TV after most of the country has already gone to bed,” I spat out, leaning over one of the wooden dining room chairs, letting my body weight sag against my arms braced along the back of it.

Kat reached over placed her hand on one of mine, silently reminding me that she was there. “Those years existed Jace, the people talking shit don’t even know you— you can’t let it get to you.”

I shifted my eyes to her. “But it’s hurting you, and your baby. You were right, we can’t do this.”

Kat turned in her seat, placing her other hand on my arm. “I’m ready to fight, Jace. I’ve never been strong enough before, to actually call Mitch out on his bullshit, but this time I am.”