Page 76 of Tame Me
Lukas begins to cry. While I freeze, Talia steps forward to pick him up.
‘I need to top him up and hopefully he’ll sleep again.’ She looks around for a chair to nurse him in.
I can’t stand to watch that sweet intimacy again so I walk away. I check the rooms, fiddle with the heating, attending to the basics—shelter, warmth...food? I grab my phone, start a list and make an order. Gradually I feel calmer. I call my legal team then my primary assistant. There’s a huge amount to arrange and not a lot of time to do it.
As I finish the fourth call I see a car pulling into the driveway. Relieved, I head out to meet the delivery guy and carry the bags back to the kitchen.
Talia appears in the kitchen just as I’m serving up. The shadows beneath her eyes have deepened since I first saw her this morning, plus she has a pinched look as if she has a headache. While Lukas is thriving, she needs replenishing. I clench my jaw to crush back my growl of frustration. ‘He’s asleep?’
She nods and I glimpse how bony her shoulders are.
I jerk a thumb towards the kitchen counter. ‘Sit. Eat.’
She glares but mercifully doesn’t argue.
Lunch is a simple spread—warm soup, crunchy bread, soft butter. As she eats, I watch colour slowly return to her cheeks. I eat as well. But it feels more dangerous to be around her without Lukas.
‘You should rest,’ I mutter as soon as she’s done. ‘You look like you need it.’
She looks startled, then indignant.
‘Go,’ I say gruffly. ‘Take a break.’
She meets my gaze. Yeah, it’s definitely more dangerous to be near her without Lukas. But apparently she feels the same because she scuttles away.
In the late afternoon my team get in touch. They’ve expedited the information I requested and I print the file they’ve sent. The space for the father’s name is blank but the baby’s name gives it all away.Lukas Dain Parrish.
Just as she said. It would have been easy enough for her to discover my grandfather’s name. It’s in the brief family history I allowed on the company website to sparsely furnish the company’s ‘story’.
An hour later I put the printout on the kitchen table in front of her. ‘You didn’t name me on the birth certificate. I understand that if I were named, then I would be a guardian. As guardian I’ll then have some say in my own child’s upbringing.’ I breathe out but my chest is tight. ‘My lawyers filed a declaration of paternity.’
Her hands tremble, and my teeth clench because I hate her obvious fear of me.
‘I want to establish Lukas’s legal rights as well as my own. If anything happens to me, Lukas inherits.’ I try to explain my reasons. ‘No question. No delay. Plus he gets everything he should have had from the start.’
‘We don’t need things.’
‘Youdon’t have to have anything from me,’ I say pointedly. ‘Lukas, however, is different.’
‘You sure you don’t want a DNA test?’
My skin tightens. She thinks I have any doubt? ‘Eventually. My lawyers will insist on it but you and I already know.’
Her eyes widen.
‘What’s weird to me is that you wanted him to have a family connection yet barely tried to contact me. It’s hard to understand.’ Was money really no motivation? Because that’s not how it usually works in my world.
She bites on her lip. ‘I don’t like having to rely on anyone.’
Trust issues. Yeah, we have those in common. I offer the faintest smile. ‘You’re still a control freak, then?’
‘Leopards. Spots.’ She drops her gaze.
‘Born that way or forged?’ I ask.
She freezes.
‘I was forged,’ I mutter.