Sweetened With a Kiss (28 page)

Stefan followed him back into the office. He spotted Jen immediately curled up by the fireplace in a chair. Someone had covered her with a blanket. He took a step towards her. He would just get her and go. Maybe they would be smart and let him walk out with her. No harm, no foul.

“Not yet,” the judge said, and Stefan swung back around and took the papers the judge slammed against his chest. “These are copies, of course. You might want to have a seat.”

Stefan stared at them blankly. “What the hell is this?”

“I hate to spoil the surprise, but I’m filing to have your marriage annulled first thing Monday morning.”

There was a stunned silence in the room, and then it became crystal clear as the papers went flying that Stefan had not brought enough friends with him. But Jackson and Rogan managed to catch him before he lunged. He let them hold him back.

“Annulment?” Stefan rasped, jerking away from Rogan.

The judge waved at him and leaned back in his chair. “That poor girl isn’t competent enough to make her own decisions. You know that. Your family has always known that.”

“Think about it, Stefan,” Madlyn threw at him from across the room, “It means your marriage isn’t legal. You really should have signed that pre-nup.”

Before anyone could take their next breath, Stefan crossed the room, slid his fingers around Madlyn’s neck and backed her up against the wall. The room exploded behind him but as far as he was concerned there were only two people left in the room at all. And one wasn’t staying.

Madlyn grabbed at his hand, sucking in one ragged breath and finally, finally, the arrogant, smirking triumph started to melt into what she should have been feeling all along…fear. Her eyes widened as he pushed her harder against the wall.

He brought his face up close to hers. “Robert loved you,” he snarled, low in her ear and felt her start to struggle harder.

“Stefan,” she gasped, grabbing at his hand and prying desperately at his fingers. “Think.”

“He loved you. You vindictive, malicious, bitch.” The words tore out of him as he squeezed just short of actually cutting off her air. “And this is what you do to his sister? I should snap your vicious neck.”

“Stefan,” a voice cut through the icy haze. “Stefan,” Jen was next to him. “Let her go.”

Jen watched as the thing frost giants feared turned and looked at her. She took an instinctive step back from him. His eyes weren’t right. He was dangerously close to the edge and once again she found herself in a situation where she had to stop him before he did something he’d never come back from. She didn’t think he would actually hurt Madlyn, but she also wasn’t sure she even knew who he was anymore.

“You are hurting her, Stefan. Let her go.”

“Don’t move,” he warned her.

All the hairs on her arms, legs, and neck started to rise. She’d done this to him. He wasn’t on the edge, he’d already gone over. And it was her fault. This had not been what she wanted at all. “Let her go,” she whispered. She had to diffuse this situation and quickly.

Jen was faintly surprised when he released Madlyn, who immediately dragged in a deep breath and slumped back against the wall. Jen tried not to step back as he advanced on her.

“Don’t you want to know how I got her to run away to Paris?” Madlyn interrupted, still leaning against the wall and breathing hard. “What could I have possibly said to her that would make your precious princess leave you?”

Stefan’s mouth twisted into something bitter, but his eyes never left Jen. “Yes.”

“I told her you loved her. But that you only saw a broken little girl you felt responsible for. If she loved you, she wouldn’t let you trap yourself into a marriage you’d regret.”

Stefan closed his eyes.

“You know the best part, Stefan? She believed every single word. It’s easier for her to believe the most outrageous lies I can come up with, than it is for her to trust you.”

Lies? What lies? Jen’s attention focused past Stefan as the Red Queen recovered her composure with each word. Madlyn turned on Jen, going for the kill, and Jen met her dead shark eyes straight on. “You are pathetic. You don’t deserve him. How could you actually believe he would keep Robert’s child from you? Today is not the first time you’ve met Robbie.”

Jen opened her mouth to speak but the floor was rushing up at her already. The buzzing was back as her mind couldn’t absorb what Madlyn was saying to her. Then she looked back to Stefan who was reaching for her as she sat down hard and she understood it all so clearly. In fact she could even see it now as memories flashed through her so quickly she couldn’t keep up.

Lizzie lying in the grass, a little boy held up over her, laughing as she raised him up and down and smothered him with silly kisses. Stefan grabbing the little boy and swinging him high in the air before settling him down in her lap so she could give him a bottle.

Hands were on her but she batted them away. The whole world was trying to get her attention but Jen ignored it as she faced what she had been hiding from for so long, what she’d forgotten she was hiding at all. It wasn’t just her heart that was fractured into so many pieces. Her mind was too.

She really was broken. She just pretended that she wasn’t. Ignored the parts that didn’t work right. Ignored the things that hurt too much. Stefan really did deserve better. She should never have married him.

“Don’t do this,” Stefan said, sounding a million miles away even when she fought him off. “Jen,” the word rasped across her skin. “I’m not leaving here without you. I have nowhere to go if you don’t come with me.”

She stared up at him and it was like seeing him for the first time. His hand pressed against the side of her face. “Come home.”

She nodded quickly, curving her arms around his neck as he swung her up in his arms. She vaguely heard the old judge yelling, “You step one foot out of this house with her, Sellers, and I’ll have you for kidnapping and assault. She needs to be in a hospital.”

She turned into the warmth of the body holding her. She turned her face in the familiar safety of his neck and gave into the gray lurking at the corners of her vision. She closed her eyes.

“Don’t listen to him,” he said, against her hair. “They’re wrong, Jen. There is nothing wrong with you.”

“I’m warning you,” the judge yelled, lifting up the receiver on the desk phone. “I’m calling the police now.”

“I am the police,” Jackson informed the old man. “Give it your best shot.”

“This is complete bullshit,” Jared said, scattering the legal papers across the dining room table.

Stefan was more interested in the older Marshall’s reaction. His emotions weren’t invested. Jared’s were and he wasn’t thinking clearly. Stefan knew this because he wasn’t thinking clearly either. He didn’t seem to be capable of thinking at all.

“His argument for the conservatorship is pretty strong,” Grant said looking up from the papers he’d been reading for the last hour. He gathered up the papers Jared had just tossed angrily across the table and started to stack them back in order. “Tell me about her head injury.” He tapped the stack of papers and set them in a neat pile.

“She had a concussion and a skull fracture. They removed part of her skull for a while to relieve the pressure from swelling. But there was never any brain damage.”

Stefan could have sworn smoke was starting to wisp out of the hippie’s nose. It probably should have bothered him that Jared was this deeply upset. He was obviously ready to rip someone apart. But instead of questioning the younger man’s motives, Stefan found himself almost relieved to have someone as angry as he was. At least Jared could express it. Stefan had passed the point of being able to release any of the rage eating away at him from the inside out. The fallout from any reaction he allowed himself would far outweigh the advantages.

“We’ll get him,” Stefan said, not even recognizing his own voice as he tried to talk Jared down. “That old man has no idea what he’s just bought.”

Jared faced him across the table and a silent pact was sealed between them. Winston Robicheaux was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

“Obviously there is something wrong with her,” Grant Marshall said carefully, as Stefan and Jared turned murderous stares on him. Unaffected, Grant added, “I can’t help her if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

“For the last time,” Jared started to snarl but Stefan raised his hand and Jared reluctantly fell silent and sank back down in his seat.

“Dissociative amnesia,” Stefan explained. “It’s a result of emotional trauma, not a brain injury. Anything about the accident or her brother can trigger fugue states. She just checks out. She’ll stop talking for a while. It can be a few minutes, a few hours, and on rare occasions a few days. Then she’s fine. She doesn't remember when it happens, we all got very good at not mentioning the episodes or anything that might trigger them. It rarely even happens anymore. She’s been a lot better since she got back from Paris. And yes, asshole, you get the credit for that,” he told Jared before the hippie could point it out.

Jared sat back in his chair, his arms folding across his chest in self-satisfaction. “She was happy in Paris with me.”

Stefan leveled his eyes on Jared. “There is a line. Don’t push it right now.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Jared,” Grant interrupted him. “You’ve seen these fugue states?”

Jared gave a noncommittal shrug-slash-nod and waved his hand dismissing it. “There is nothing wrong with her.”

“No, there is something wrong with me,” a husky voice came from the dining room doorway. All three men swung around to find Jen standing there. She was pale and still shaky. Stefan stood up, wincing as she stepped back and refused to meet his eyes. “But I made coffee,” she added quickly. “Do you want some?”

“Yes,” Grant sighed in exaggerated relief. “Coffee is perfect.”

She nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Stefan forced himself to sit back down and not go after her. Not yet.

“She seems okay,” Grant said, sitting back in his chair as they waited for her to return with coffee.

“Give her another hour. You won’t know anything had even happened,” Jared said. “She’s stronger than any of you give her credit for.”

Stefan nodded his agreement, unwilling to admit he was only now really starting to get that about her.

“His argument is that someone has to handle all her financial matters. That she can’t even balance a checkbook.”

“That’s crazy,” Stefan said.

“She’s twenty-two. She doesn’t have a car. She went from living with your parents to living with you. The judge is saying she can’t take care of herself and I don’t have anything to show that she can.”

“I bought her a car for her birthday,” Stefan said. “She liked living at the Lake House and we’re married so she lives with me now.”

“The old man is clever, Stefan,” Grant explained. “He’s arguing that you’ve married her to continue controlling her inheritance, part of which belongs to his grandson.”

“Part of it does belong to him,” Jen said quietly, walking in with a tray of coffee mugs.

She set coffee in front of Jared and Grant, then a cup of Earl Grey tea in front of him. But she still wouldn’t meet his eyes. He tried to catch her attention but she still wouldn’t look at him. While the Marshalls fixed their coffee, Stefan gave in to the need to touch her and bring her close again. He wanted to wipe that haunted look off her face. She stiffened when he slid an arm around her waist. She even let him pull her close to him. But she held herself apart, didn’t melt into him.

That hurt him so much, his grip on her was not as light as it should have been.

He pulled her into his lap despite her silent protest and the resistance she put up. He needed her close to him. He was freezing, and he needed her curled up against his chest, her head under his chin and her hands touching him anywhere, or pretty soon he wasn’t going to be able to breathe.

He caught her face with his hand. “Stop avoiding my eyes,” he said, not meaning for his voice to sound like gravel again. “Look at me.”  He watched, horror curling up his throat, as those beautiful brown eyes suddenly swam with moisture. “Don’t,” he rasped out. “Jen, don’t.”

He could feel her slipping away from him, but he couldn’t protect her any longer.  He’d messed up trying to protect her from everything and he’d ended up hurting her anyway.

He was just selfish enough to admit that if he lost her now, he really wouldn’t recover. Life without Jen wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience again. Nothing would make sense if he lost her now.  The simple truth was he needed her.  He just hadn’t realized how much until he watched her eyes swim with defeated tears.

Shoving back the urge to shelter her, he reminded himself that she really was stronger than she looked and braced himself anyway before saying, “I thought we were past this whole fragile, fairy princess bullshit.”

She went rigid in his arms and was on her feet before he could blink. “I am not fragile,” she informed him, stepping away.

He grinned at her, relief sweeping over him like cooling rain. She was still pale and her eyes were haunted.  But the tears were gone and she didn’t look defeated anymore. “Oh, I don’t know, you’ve been doing a pretty good impression of a delicate butterfly since I picked you up off the floor at the judge’s house.”