Kristen Ashley - Jagged

She took a step toward him, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. Xavier and I… we’ve, well… not agreed on a variety of things through Zander’s upbringing. I never got any legal documents to make me his guardian, so Xavier has all the power and—”

He interrupted her. “That’ll be changing.”

She lifted both hands, and her face, not unattractive and he’d only seen her a few times but her usual closed, hard expression made it less so, now looked pained.

“Please, Mr. Reece, I beg you, listen to me.”

Jesus.

If he could believe it, by the look on her face, the tone of her voice, she cared about this kid and not just a little bit.

Reece went silent.

“I don’t know what’s happening with the attorneys,” she stated. “I do know that any child will eventually want to know about their parents. And any child should have all the family they can get. From the beginning, Xavier and I didn’t agree about who would be in Zander’s life and he made it clear that if I didn’t tow his line, he’d take Zander away from me. But I always knew there’d come a time when Zander would ask questions about his mother and father. And when Zander started doing that, Xavier and I disagreed on how it should be handled. Now all this is happening but even before that…” She paused and then she admitted, “I wanted him to go to his mother’s funeral.”

“Clearly you didn’t get your wish,” he noted.

She shook her head. “No, but I got mad that he didn’t… It was the perfect time to tell him, if there ever was a time to tell him such things. Zander wouldn’t really understand it now but he might one day be angry that he’d been kept from his mother’s funeral. But Xavier wouldn’t let me bring him. Wouldn’t let me share about his mother, his aunt, so he wouldn’t be curious or upset if he saw Zara at the funeral. And then I saw Zara at the funeral and got angrier about all the pain Xavier has caused, keeping this family apart. So, after the funeral, I took him to get a sundae and I told Zander about his mom.” She held his gaze, took in a deep breath, and finished. “And I told him about Zara.”

Zander knew about Zara.

Reece tamped down the urge to howl with elation and guessed, “And Cinders knows this and he’s pissed.”

“Very much so,” she confirmed.

Reece said nothing.

Wilona Cinders did.

“Zander wants to meet his aunt.”

“You name the day and time, she’ll be there and you know it,” he said instantly.

She nodded.

Then she shocked the shit out of him when she added, “And I want to help you with your custody case.”

Reece blinked. “What?”

“I have stipulations.”

He uncrossed his arms from his chest and planted his hands on his hips, saying sarcastically, “Why does that not surprise me?”

She didn’t respond to that.

Instead, she announced, “I want to raise him.”

Reece’s anger started edging back.

He dropped his arms and made to move away. “Not gonna happen.”

“No!” she cried, lifting a hand toward him. “He’ll meet Zara. She can come over any time. I promise. Any time, Mr. Reece. And Zander can come to your place. He can spend the night. Have his friends over if he wants. We’ll do Christmases together. Thanksgiving. All of it. I’ll do anything, and I know Zara and I haven’t been close, but I promise. I’ll do anything. Between us, we’ll make it good for Zander. I swear.”

She lifted her other hand, turning both palms up, beseeching and, fuck him, with her posture and the look on her face, the bright in her eyes, even he wasn’t immune.

“But he’s my boy,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the word boy. “I’ve had him since he was so little. He couldn’t even hold his head up. And he’s happy. I’ve worked hard to make him happy because I want him to be happy. I don’t want Xavier to hurt him. I want him to have people around him who love him. And I don’t want him to be caught up in any of Xavier’s nastiness. I don’t want scars on him like that.”

The tears glistened in her eyes as her voice dropped lower.

“I don’t want him to have scars like his mother had. I don’t want him to survive childhood like she did…” She pulled in a breath and shared, “Like I did. I want him to be happy.”

A tear slid down her cheek and Reece closed his eyes.

Probably unintentionally, Xavier had broken the cycle, giving his grandson to a woman who’d learned. A woman who couldn’t conceive. A woman who knew the precious entity she had in her hands and handled it with care.

He opened his eyes. “I’ll talk to Zara. We’ll want a meeting with Zander the minute you can arrange it. We’ll speak to our attorney about the rest of it and either Zara or our attorney, Nina Maxwell, will contact you to discuss things further with you.”

“Zander can’t wait to meet her,” she said immediately.

“She feels the same.”

“Tell her…” She lifted her hands to her face for a second before she dropped them. “Please, Mr. Reece, tell her that it wasn’t my decision to keep him away from her. I would have gone to her but I didn’t think…” She trailed off.

She was right not to think Zara would be receptive to a visit. Zara was not a fan of either of her aunts. But times apparently were changing.

And Reece was fucking glad she didn’t. This was news he wanted to share.

“I think she’s got a pretty clear understanding of how her father works, Mizz Cinders. But I’ll tell her.”

She nodded.

He turned to leave her.

“Mr. Reece?” she called.

He heaved a heavy sigh and turned back.

“Thank you.”

Fuck him. She meant that.

And she meant it deeply.

Reece nodded.

She looked up the stairs as if seeing them she could see Zara, tell the future, understand how she’d react.

Then she moved away.

Reece watched her go.

Then he jogged up the steps.

* * *

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, God, God,” Zara chanted as Reece stood in his sweaty workout clothes and watched her dancing around their living room, her soft hair bouncing, her face lit with a massive smile.

Needless to say, she took all that day’s news better than he did.

She stopped, whirled, dashed to him, and halted abruptly so she could slap her hands so hard on his chest he had to swallow a grunt.

“Zander wants to meet me!” she shrieked in his face, then threw her arms around him, also throwing her body at him. She did this so he had to go back on a foot so they didn’t topple down.

He wrapped his arms around her, noting with little surprise her priority in dancing around in joy was her nephew, not the fact that she was a millionaire.

Before he could say a word, she jumped away, breaking from his arms, and cried, “Oh God! I need a new outfit!”

Reece felt his lips curve into a smile.

Jesus.

Women.

“Not sure a nine-year-old boy’ll care what you wear, cookie,” he told her.

She shook her head and started pacing, declaring, “I have to go to the mall.” She whirled on him again. “Immediately!”

“Maybe you should let me call this new shit in to Nina before you head to the mall.”

He wished he could eat those words when her face instantly fell.

“Do you think Aunt Wilona will renege?” she asked.

“No. The woman I spoke to would lay her life down for that boy. But your father is unpredictable.”

“Then we need to do this on the hush-hush,” she stated and he grinned.

“That’d be good. So you be good. Don’t go spreadin’ word around town with all your girls. Don’t fly off to the mall and buy a meet-with-Zander outfit. Your dad’s investigatin’ me. We already know that. We don’t know what else he’s up to. He could have someone watchin’. He might even already know about that meet I just had with your aunt outside. We just got a couple of huge breaks. You need to play it cool.”

She nodded, her head bobbing vigorously. “I can be cool.”

She was totally not going to be cool.

“Arlene’s out,” he told her and she scrunched up her nose.

“This is true. Arlene has a big mouth,” she agreed.

“Inner circle, babe. Nina only until she sorts shit out and you get a sit-down with that boy. We do not want to tip our hand that we know about that money or it might disappear. We do not want to set your father into doin’ somethin’ stupid that’ll hurt Zander if he knows Wilona made an approach. The more people who know, the more chance word will spread even if folks don’t mean any harm. We keep this under our hats. And that means more than keepin’ it from Arlene.”

She again nodded.

“Now I’m gonna call this in to Nina. Then I’m gonna take a shower. Then we’ll celebrate this shit private-like in a way no one will know.”

She nodded again but this time with a huge smile on her face, but asked, “Can I make an alternate suggestion?”

“Give it to me,” he invited.

“We could speed up the celebration. I take a shower with you.”

That was when Reece smiled.

Then he muttered, “You’re on.”

Then he braced because she again flew at him, and landed in his arms. He had to take another step back to keep them from falling. Her hand slid up into the back of his hair, pressing down, and her mouth found his.

Which meant their plans were derailed.

They celebrated on the living room floor.

Then he called Nina.

After that, they celebrated again in the shower.

Out of Harm’s Way

Two days later…

“Calm, cookie,” Reece muttered.

We were sitting in a booth at The Mark, both on one side. I was fidgeting, a ginger ale in front of me, my eyes glued to the door.

Aunt Wilona had not reneged.

Ham called Nina, Nina called Aunt Wilona, and the meeting was set up.

And it was set up for that day after school, or as soon as Aunt Wilona could drive Zander there after school. We were meeting at The Mark for mile-high mud pies.

After a life that was so far from a dream it wasn’t funny, this was yet another dream come true.

I’d had time to buy a new outfit, and since Nina was the only one Ham allowed me to talk to about all this, she’d gone to the mall with me. So I was wearing a new berry-red sweater, Lucky jeans, a killer belt, and a pair of high-heeled boots that were so expensive, even back in the day when things were good in the shop, I would never have even looked at them.

But now I was going to be a millionaire.

Since her impromptu meeting with Ham, Nina had actually looked at Grandpa Val’s will and she said it would take an act of God to break it. This was her professional opinion, of course, but she had added evidence, seeing as she’d also discovered from court papers that all three of Grandpa’s offspring had tried to do that at the time Grandpa died and they’d all lost.

Unfortunately, after this battle was fought, the executor of the will, one of Grandpa’s cronies, had taken a trip to the Pearly Gates. For some reason now lost with him, he’d not set the money up in trust and he’d not made provisions for his demise, so there was no one official to keep track of the money and Dad had jumped on that, taking control of it.

To keep Aunt Wilona’s mouth shut, he eventually gave her Zander and the money to keep him.

But to keep Aunt Dahlia’s mouth shut, he’d just given her money.

Money Nina was making moves to get back, either from Dad, whose money it wasn’t to give, and if that didn’t work, she was going after Aunt Dahlia, seeing as she knew this was ill-gotten gains and she accepted it anyway.

So, although Nina shared that it might be tied up while all the legal stuff was handled, I’d eventually get it.

She’d done what she had to do and, tomorrow, those accounts would be frozen until the legal issues were settled.

Therefore, since I was eventually going to be a millionaire, I could afford Zander’s school and an expensive pair of boots.

I knew Ham thought I was insane, me being hell-bent to buy a new outfit to meet my nephew in. I knew this because he was wearing a wine-colored shirt I’d seen him wear more than once since he’d been back and his standard faded jeans that were so broken in, they looked like they’d been bought around the dawn of time.

Still, he looked great, like always, even if his outfit wasn’t new.