The Rules (29 page)

She walked backward and sank onto the bed. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her entire body, her breath, her insides—everything quaked. The fortified room was impenetrable, but she kept her eye on the door.

Tears running down her face, she waited.

The pain in her hip throbbed, and Terri gingerly rubbed the sore spot. She would be badly bruised. Just like all the times in the past when Talon hurt her.

She couldn’t hear anything in the hallway. Then there was a loud thump and she froze. Listening.

“Terri, are you all right in there? Talk to me.” Gavin’s voice came through the wall.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She rushed to the door but pulled up short halfway across the floor. Searing pain cut across her abdomen. She took a few deep breaths and the pain subsided. Then she resumed her trek to the door.

Too excited and relieved to think straight, she fumbled with the lock. Then she swung open the door and gasped at the sight before her. Gavin held Talon against the wall, one hand gripping his neck, the other gripping a gun with the barrel lodged in Talon’s mouth. Her ex’s face was battered and bruised, and blood oozed from a cut at the corner of his mouth.

“Are you all right?” Gavin asked, keeping his eyes on the other man.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Still, he didn’t move. He seemed to be frozen.

She rushed to his side and placed a hand on his arm. “Gavin, I’m fine.”

He didn’t respond.

“Baby, he’s not worth it. Think about what you’re doing.”

Gavin turned to her, and the only way to describe the look in his eyes was murderous. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” Terri answered quickly, petrified he might pull the trigger if she hesitated one iota. She didn’t care about her ex. She just didn’t want Gavin locked up for murder.

He shifted his gaze back to Talon, jaw tight with tension. The rank odor of urine filled the air, and Terri looked down to see a wet spot at the front of Talon’s pants.

“Baby, please. I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“Call the police.” Gavin spoke in an even, controlled voice, but she sensed the violence simmering near the surface, demanding to come out. “Tell them to hurry.”

****

Gavin looked around the living room as he spoke privately with his attorney in one corner. The property was a flurry of activity. Officers were going through the entire house and grounds to make sure no one else had arrived with Cyrenci. They also collected fingerprints and took photos of the places where he scuffled with Terri and Gavin.

A detective questioned Terri, seated on the sofa with another family attorney next to her interjecting every so often. The family publicist was present with a member of his staff, already working on a statement to be released first thing in the morning.

Gavin kept his eyes on Terri. She nodded and answered questions but looked wan and frail, and every so often, she rubbed her stomach as if in pain.

He walked over to trio. “How much longer?” he asked.

The detective looked up from his notebook. “Just a few more questions, Mr. Johnson.”

Terri suddenly cried out and gripped the underside of her belly. Gavin dropped to his knees and put a protective arm around her shoulder. “What’s wrong, baby?”

She turned wide eyes to him. “My water just broke. I’m going into labor.”

****

Gavin sat on the side of the bed, watching Terri’s eyes twitch as she dreamed. She jumped in her sleep, and he placed a calming hand on her shoulder. After a moment, the twitching stopped and tension eased from her body. He combed his fingers through the long braids splayed out on the pillow before pulling the duvet higher around her shoulders and standing from the bed.

She had been through too much. When he saw the bruises on her body at the hospital three weeks ago, the fury that erupted inside of him had almost sent him to the jail to remove Talon Cyrenci from this earth, limb by limb, with his bare hands.

The only thing that had kept him from firing a bullet inside Talon’s open mouth were her pleading words.

Baby, he’s not worth it.

Although it could be argued that he was defending his family, he couldn’t take the chance. He wanted to wake up next to his wife every day. He wanted to hold his children, play with them, and watch them grow. By acting rashly, he risked letting Talon Cyrenci take all of that away.

Since that night, he’d hired an architect who’d drawn up plans to install panic rooms on each floor of the house. One in the library behind a bookcase on the first floor, and the hall bathroom on the second floor would become the other safe room. A home security expert was working around the clock to have a keyless entry security system installed by the end of the week using biometric recognition software. The cutting edge technology transformed each occupant of the house into a key, able to open doors through facial and voice recognition.

He waited a few more minutes to make sure she was all right before quietly leaving the room.

In the nursery, he found the nanny, Esther, placing Elisabeth in her crib. Terri had been very instrumental in choosing the nannies. She once said to him, “There’s no way a hot young thing is coming here to watch my kids and try to take my place. Not gonna happen.”

While he didn’t like to comment on anyone’s appearance, Esther was a boxy woman who looked like more man than woman with her tall height and long-fingered hands.

Greedy little Gavin, Jr.—who ate about a third more than his sister, was being fed from a bottle by Gavin’s mother as she rocked back and forth in the tan wingback glider chair. His drowsy eyes followed Gavin as he moved to stand in front of the matching glider beside his mother. Elisabeth and Junior had Gavin’s light-colored eyes, but they both had Terri’s nose and honey-brown complexion.

“Good night, Esther. We’ll see you in the morning.”

The nanny nodded and left to go to her room on the second floor. Gavin sank into the chair and, sighing, buried his head in his hands.

“Are you all right?” Constance asked.

He looked up and nodded. “Been a rough few weeks.” His shoulders ached and he was operating on very little sleep.

Delivering the twins lasted almost fifteen hours. Then the doctors kept the babies in the hospital until their tiny bodies could function well enough to sustain them in the world outside the incubators. They’d only been home one full day so far.

“How’s Terri?”

“Could be better but she’s strong.” The doctor had offered to prescribe a sedative to help her sleep, but she turned down the offer, reluctant to take any medication while breast-feeding.

“You really love her, don’t you?”

Gavin nodded. “Yes.”

His mother rocked his son quietly in the chair. “Have you told her how much you love her?”

“Not recently,” he admitted. Not since the first time. He rested his head on the back of the chair and looked at his mother, awaiting her sage advice.

“Tell her again. Sometimes, we need to hear it, especially when things aren’t going very well.” A little smile came on her face. “Your father was a master at that. No matter how upset I’d get, he knew that was the one thing that calmed me down.”

Gavin used to avoid conversations about his father, but in recent months he’d grown more comfortable talking about him, even though it hurt.

“You had Father wrapped around your finger,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Although he did seem smitten with me from the first time we met. Did you know our parents set us up?”

Gavin nodded. “I’ve heard the story.”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “They tried to be sneaky about it, pretending they’d gotten together because of a business deal, but they were so obvious. Cyrus and I figured it out right away.”

In her arms, Gavin, Jr. dozed, and she removed the bottle’s nipple from his little mouth and rested her hand on the cushioned armrest of the chair. Gavin sensed the sadness in her and reached over to squeeze her arm.

His mother turned to him with a wan smile. “Tell her again how much you love her.” She spoke in a quiet voice, a sheen of tears coating her eyes. “A woman can never hear that too much.”

****

“What are you doing?”

Terri spun around from the stove to see Gavin standing at the island in the middle of the kitchen. She’d been so preoccupied with fixing a late night snack, she hadn’t heard him enter.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said. “If you need something, you should let me get it or one of the servants.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Terri said, though she probably looked like one. She wore an oversized cotton nightgown because she still had some of her baby stomach, ankle socks, and a satin bonnet on her head to protect the blonde braids.

Gavin had been coddling her ever since the incident, but she’d been through worse, and all she really cared about was that her children were fine, and they were. Both healthy and beautiful and a greater blessing than she could have ever imagined. She woke up with a smile on her face every day thinking about them—even when her sleep was disturbed by nightmares. Her children made all of that go away.

“What are you making?”

“A fried baloney sandwich.”

The craving for them hadn’t subsided. Terri enjoyed the food they ate when they went out or the meals the chef prepared, but a fried baloney sandwich could not be found on the menu of any fine dining establishment, and she didn’t intend to ask the chef to prepare one for her. They had to be done just right.

“A what?”

“Fried baloney sandwich.” Terri placed the second piece of bread over the other. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had one.”

“I’m not sure what that is.”

“You’re going to love it. Want to try?”

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

Terri walked around the island and stuck the sandwich against his pressed-together lips. “Open.”

He resisted and she shoved harder until he finally parted his lips and took a bite. He chewed slowly, frowning. Eventually, the lines in his knitted brow disappeared.

“Mmm. Not bad.”

“Told you.”

She turned away but he grabbed the plate.

“Hey! You said you weren’t hungry.”

“I wasn’t, but this is good.” He ate a third of the sandwich with another bite. “Fried baloney,” he said in wonderment.

“I can’t believe you’ve never had a fried baloney sandwich before. You’re so privileged.”

She shook her head and set about making another sandwich for herself. This time, she added cheese, and Gavin had to try that, too, which meant he also ate part of that sandwich, and she settled for the rest and pieces of a tangerine, which he insisted she share.

Terri muttered. “You’re so spoiled, I swear.”

He ignored her, taking a sip from her glass of ice water.

They sat beside each other, quietly eating and drinking, and when they finished the late night snack, Gavin cleaned up the counters and put everything in the dishwasher. Her gaze lingered on his broad back as he bent over the dish rack. It was too soon for them to make love again, and she missed that level of intimacy with him. She missed…something. She didn’t even know what it was, except it wasn’t there. Just a hole that needed to be plugged. A void that needed filling.

He straightened and closed the dishwasher. Turning around, he rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go…”

She hadn’t been fast enough in fixing her face. She’d gotten good at it, but he saw the truth, and her face burned. “Let’s go.”

She hopped off the stool and rushed toward the door, but he was too fast. He blocked her path and placed his hands on her arms.

“Baby.”

Such a simple word, a common endearment, but one that made her feel weak and achy. She pulled her lips in and hung her head to hide the welling tears.

“Baby,” he whispered again. He kissed the bonnet, then her forehead, then her eyelids.

Terri rested her head against his chest and his strong arms closed around her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He rubbed her back. “I abandoned you. Please forgive me.”

Sniffling, Terri rubbed the tears from her cheeks.

“I wanted to tell you everything, but I was scared,” she said softly.

“I know.”

“You said you wouldn’t…” She sniffed. “You said you wouldn’t stop loving me.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t stop loving you. Not for a minute, but I hurt you. I regret how much I hurt you.” He bent his head to her neck and rubbed a hand over her bottom, over her hips, and back up to her waist. “I love you, and I’ll always take care of you.”

There it was. The words she needed to hear. What was missing.

He pressed soft kisses into her neck and up the line of her jaw to the corner of her eye where salty tears leaked onto her cheek.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Terri said.

“What is it?”

She sniffed and lifted her eyes to look at him. “I love you, too. You believe me?” She smiled shakily.