I was both grateful and disappointed when Pierce didn’t say my name. I tried really hard to listen as he outlined what had happened with the ambush, but it wasn’t until he said Reese’s name that I felt my insides clench and I turned to look at my son. He’d gotten lucky that the only injuries he’d sustained had been a bullet wound to the leg and a concussion. I knew I was supposed to see a hardened soldier in that bed, but all I saw was the little boy who’d made life bearable. To the outside world, I was the epitome of success, but Reese was the only thing I’d ever gotten right.
Though in truth, I was giving myself more credit than I deserved. I’d sired him, but I hadn’t been the father he’d needed.
No, there’d been too many things I’d needed to accomplish first. Too many things I’d needed to prove to people who didn’t matter.
Regret seared my bones and I felt the need to curl in on myself until I was no longer visible to the outside world. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like such a fucking fraud.
“He’ll be okay,” Pierce murmured from behind me. I couldn’t mistake what the heat along my back was.
His body.
His big, beautiful body that was just inches from mine. The body that I wanted so badly to close the inconsequential gap between us and just fix everything.
Me.
Reese.
My farce of a life.
I closed my eyes and pretended I could feel Pierce’s strong arms wrapping around me from behind. I imagined how it would feel to sink into his hold and never have to worry about someone telling me it was wrong. I practically shook with the need to feel his lips on my neck as he urged me to let go – to let him take care of everything for a while.
I could escape to a place where I didn’t have the eyes of the world watching my every move.
I could pretend I wasn’t a colossal failure at being a husband… or father.
And I could dream of how things would have been different if I’d just been a little bit braver when I’d been a kid and my entire life had been laid out before me.
A life that looked perfectly lived on paper.
But was nothing more than a sham.
How the hell could one fucking handshake tear apart the entire fabric of my world? And why couldn’t I focus on anything but the fact that one handshake wasn’t enough?
It would never be enough.
I couldn’t do this. I had to keep it together. I’d chosen my path and there was no going back. Whatever this man had done to me in the past few minutes was a fluke – the crazy sensations were just a result of the stress I was feeling at the near loss of my child. None of what was happening to me was real.
Before I could even call myself a liar, Pierce did it for me.
But not with words.
No.
Not even close.
He did exactly what I’d wanted and closed that little bit of distance between us. Not enough to touch me, but enough that my body went haywire. The need screaming through me was impossible to ignore. But it wasn’t until his mouth dropped close to my ear so that only I could hear him that I knew my life was about to irrevocably change.
And just like that, with just a few softly spoken words, Pierce St. James stole away the last of the lies that had protected me for so very long.
“Everything will be okay… Everett. Trust me.”
Chapter 1
Nash
Present day
I didn’t like when he got like this.
I mean, I didn’t like the guy, period, but I really didn’t like when he got like this.
He was quiet… too quiet. And not the kind of quiet that meant he was planning something, like trying to ditch me again.
No, it was the kind of quiet that he sometimes got when he was in the middle of doing something unimportant and his mind just wandered off.
Wandering wasn’t the right word, because that made it sound like he was just preoccupied. No, when he got like this it was so much… more.
What the fuck do you care, Nash? It’s not like this is a real gig.
I couldn’t deny the voice in my head was right. After all, babysitting a former president who lived in Bumfuck, Nowhereland, wasn’t exactly the highlight of my career.
The familiar bitterness that washed over me just served to piss me off. In the first half-dozen foster homes I’d been placed in, I’d tried so many variations of being the perfect kid that I’d easily lost myself in the process. By the time both my age and the count of foster homes hit double digits, I’d accepted that life wasn’t going to hand me a fucking break, and I’d reacted accordingly.