I knew he loved Mase. The jury was still out on Nan. But I also knew he was trying to tell me that my mother was and would always be his heart.
I stood up and walked over to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his chest. I didn’t say anything. I had no words.
His arms slowly came around me. “I never meant to hurt you by keeping her from you. But it’s what I had to do. I know you’re all grown up now, but when I look at you I still see my little girl in pigtails. Every time I tried to tell you, I got high instead. I wasn’t brave enough to hurt you. I hope you can forgive me and your grandmama. She agreed with me that you didn’t need to know about your mother until you were grown. You were sick, baby, and I knew I couldn’t lose you, too. That would have destroyed me.”
I tightened my hold on him and buried my face in his chest and sobbed quietly. I couldn’t hate him for this. It wasn’t fair, but I understood. “I love you,” I told him.
“I love you, too. And that woman in there adored you. She never left your side when you were in the hospital. She believed you were our special gift. I remember the look on her face when you took your first step. You were her angel from heaven, and when I lost her I knew I had to protect you.”
I closed my eyes tightly and fought off the tears. I wanted to get control of myself so I could go back in there and see her again. When my sobs finally eased and my tears dried up, I gazed up at my dad. “Can I go back in there?”
He reached up and wiped my face then nodded. “Of course.”
Grant
Aphone call from Dean had gotten me past the large iron gates of Manor in the Hills. I didn’t intend to go inside. I just wanted to park and wait on Harlow to come outside. She’d been here at least two hours by now. I closed the car door and stepped around the front of the car so I could see the front doors. When she came out, I would be here.
If she didn’t want to see me, fine. I’d just follow the limo back to Vegas. But if she needed me, I was available. I was stupid enough to think that because I had gotten her to fuck me in a bathroom, all was forgiven. I still had a lot to prove to her. And if she would give me a chance I’d always be there when she needed it.
I hadn’t been waiting but ten minutes when the door to the Manor opened and Harlow walked out. From here, I could see she’d been crying. I made my way toward her. She didn’t notice me at first. She was wiping her eyes and walking down the steps when I made it to the bottom. Her eyes lifted and widened when she saw me standing there. This was it. She was going to yell at me to leave or she was going to—
Harlow ran down the stairs and threw herself into my arms and began sobbing. I held her against my chest tightly and closed my eyes. I was immediately thankful I’d come. I’d been right. She needed me.
I didn’t ask. I just let her cry and held her. Both her hands grabbed fistfuls of my T-shirt as her body shook. My chest ached with each pitiful noise that came from her. I wanted to fix this. I wanted to go inside and fix anything that upset her, but how the hell did I fix this? I couldn’t.
“He . . . he brushes her hair,” she said as a sob racked her body again.
He brushes her hair. What? Was she talking about her dad? I didn’t ask. I just let her talk.
“She smiles at him,” she choked out.
Yes, she was talking about her dad. I tried to imagine Kiro brushing a woman’s hair, one who couldn’t speak or move. It didn’t seem like those two things went together. I couldn’t see Kiro brushing anyone’s hair but his own, and that was rare.
“Oh, God, Grant, my heart hurts so bad. He’s so sweet with her. It’s like there’s this man I never knew existed. She can’t do anything. Nothing. I don’t even know if she even understands what he’s saying, but he talks to her like she understands everything. He still loves her. Completely. And he gets nothing in return.”
I glanced up at the mansion in front of me and tried to imagine what she was telling me, but I couldn’t. I’d seen Kiro fuck a woman on his pool table who I was pretty sure was barely nineteen. He was drinking vodka straight out of the bottle and smoking a joint at the same time as he did this. It was forever burned in my thirteen-year-old brain.
I held Harlow and ran my hand down over her hair, trying to soothe her even if it was impossible. She didn’t say anything else. Finally her sobbing eased off and she let go of my shirt and smoothed it out where she had wrinkled it. Not that I gave a shit. She could have the shirt if she wanted it.
“You’re here,” she finally said, looking up at me with a wet face that was still breathtakingly beautiful. How did she do that? Always so damn perfect. She made it hard on a man.
“I thought you might need someone.”
She gave me a shaky smile. “You were right.”
I reached up and wiped away the tears still clinging to her cheeks with my thumbs. “If you ever need me, I’m here,” I told her.
She sighed and closed her eyes briefly. “That doesn’t help,” she said.
“Why?” I thought having me at her beck and call would be pretty damn helpful.
“I’m trying to keep you at arm’s length. Being sweet makes it hard.”
So that’s what this was about. Well, she hadn’t seen anything yet. I was gonna make it even harder before it was over.
“I thought we had gotten rid of that arm’s-length thing in the bathroom on the plane,” I replied, trying to get a real smile out of her.
She cocked her eyebrow. “No. That was because you’re ridiculously sexy and you give me really amazing orgasms.”
I could work with that.
“Anytime you want one of those all you have to do is crook that pretty little finger,” I replied, and this time she did smile. A real smile. One that lit up all the darkness in her eyes.
I reached down and laced my fingers through hers and she let me. “I drove a rental car. You want to ride with me?”
She glanced over at the limo. “Yeah. I do. Dad wants to stay until tonight and I need to leave him the limo.”
Good. I wanted her beside me.
“You ready now?” I asked.
She glanced back at the house. “Yeah, I am. I can’t take any more today. And he needs his alone time with her. I think she needs him, too.”
I wasn’t sure what all went on in that room today, but I knew it had changed things for Harlow. Her life was forever different. The crying wasn’t over, either. I had a feeling more mourning would come. And I intended to be there. She wasn’t going to deal with this alone.
•
We were headed back to the desert and I had let Harlow pick the music. I also left her to her thoughts. She needed to think and process all she had seen today, and I understood that. I glanced over at her every once in a while to make sure she wasn’t crying.
“I’m not going to break down again,” she finally said.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. Harlow wasn’t a big talker when it came to her feelings, but after today I felt like she really needed to talk. Keeping that bottled up wasn’t good for her.
“I was so angry at him. At everyone who had lied to me. But then . . . I saw him with her. No one could have prepared me for that.” She shook her head and looked down at her clasped hands. “It definitely changed a lot between us today. I’ve always known that Dad loved me more. I hated to say that out loud, but I knew it and I felt guilty about it. Now, I get it. I don’t think it’s me he loves more. I’m just the kid that she gave him. I’m his connection to her.”
I thought about Mase and how distant he seemed when he talked about Kiro. As if Kiro wasn’t his father at all. And then there was Nan. I knew Kiro wasn’t a fan of hers. Harlow, however, needed Kiro and she loved him. I didn’t argue with her, but it was more than just her mother that made Harlow the favorite child.
“This is his last tour. He hates leaving her. I couldn’t even argue with him. The world may want Kiro, but Kiro wants to be with her. Even like she is . . . he wants to be near her.” Harlow let out a soft laugh. “And to think I thought my dad’s heart had been buried with my mom.”
I glanced over at her. “Do you plan on going back to see her?” I asked.
Harlow nodded. “Yes. She can’t talk to me and I don’t even know if she realizes who I am, but I know about her now and that’s enough. I want to . . . I want to be the one to tell her about my life. And maybe she is truly smiling when people talk to her. If I spend more time with her, then maybe I will find a way to have some relationship with her.”
I could hear the hope in her voice. She wanted to know her mother. It made sense. I just wasn’t sure I could personally handle it if she left there broken every time. I reached over and tugged her hands free from each other and laced my fingers through hers. “I’m always here to go with you. Don’t think you have to go alone. I will gladly wait in the car until you’re ready to leave.”
A soft smile touched her lips, and she laid her head back on the seat and turned to look at me. “Thank you,” she said simply.
“Anything you ask, Harlow. Anything you ask,” I told her.
She squeezed my hand. “I can’t get the image of Dad talking to her out of my head. He was so gentle and sweet. Kiro is never sweet. Thinking about it just makes my heart hurt all over again.”
“Tell me what I can do to distract you and I will. I can sing pretty damn good, but I suck at telling jokes so that’s all I have to work with at the moment.”
Harlow smiled but she didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at me, making it hard on me to keep my eyes on the road.
When I pulled onto a long stretch of road, I was relieved that I would be able to look at her more often. It was too damn tempting not to. Before I could glance her way, Harlow leaned over and slid her hands between my legs. My entire body went still and my focus was shot to hell. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and took a steady breath. Her mouth was at my ear before I could form words and her hand was rubbing my instantly hard dick through my jeans.
“Pull over,” she said before pressing a kiss to my neck, then taking a lick. Holy motherfucking shit. What was she doing?
“Harlow, baby, what are you doing?” I asked. I knew she was trying to find something to take her mind off today’s traumatic events, but I wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. Even though my dick disagreed with me.
“I need you to make me forget today,” she said in a husky whisper.
Oh hell. This was a bad idea, but her hand felt so fucking good. I decided pulling off the road may not be a bad idea. At least then I could focus on controlling myself and talking to her. I pulled the car off the road.
Harlow leaned over in her seat. I thought she had changed her mind until I saw her unbuttoning her jeans and pulling them down her legs, along with the panties I’d already seen once today.
I was frozen in shock until she crawled over the seat and straddled me and lifted her shirt to pull out her breasts from their confinement. “Are you going to make me beg?” she asked as she sat there, looking at me.
Beg? What had I been going to say to her? I couldn’t remember. “Harlow, I don’t think this is what you really want,” I managed to get out.
“Please. Don’t tell me what I want or need. I am tired of people deciding what I need. I’m a grown woman and right now I need you to help me forget. Give me something else to think about.”
I gazed up into her eyes, and the pain there was my undoing. How was I supposed to tell her no? She needed me. Wasn’t that why I came? To be there for her however she needed me? Even if my brain was screaming that this was a terrible idea, I reached up and cupped her face, brushing my thumbs across her still tear-stained face. She was special. “I’ll do whatever you need me to,” I told her before pressing my mouth to hers.