Legal Heirs - Box Set Edition: Books 5-8 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) by Kimball Lee Read Free Book Online

you. Are you alright?” he asked, holding her at arm’s length and searching her face. His brow furrowed with concern as his finger traced the scar high up on her forehead. “It makes your beauty more poignant somehow, that small bit of imperfection,” he said quietly.
    She stood before him naked, she’d shed her clothes on her way to the bed, and she was completely exposed.
    “Oh,” she said, and she pulled free of him and went into the bedroom for a robe.
    When she came back into the living room she could barely see him as he stood on the deck amidst the clinging fog. She went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of vodka and handed one to Bly, then she sat on the stone hearth.
    “How did you find me, and how on earth did you get here so fast?” she asked, sipping the drink.
    He sat on an ottoman across from her and drank and his eyes never left her. He felt a tightness inside of him loosening just being near her. She was sitting on the stone hearth, the silk robe parted so that her long legs were exposed. Her shining black hair hung almost to the erect nipples that were visible through the thin fabric. It was all he could do to keep from smashing the glass of vodka against the stone fireplace and dragging her to the floor. He needed to spread those mile-long legs and fuck her until she said the words he wanted to hear.
    “I have my ways of finding out the things I need to know, and of course, I have a jet,” he said, as he finished his vodka. “I pay Billy Kipling to do a job and he’s good at it. I didn’t know about your accident until a few hours ago, my wife neglected to tell me.”
    “I don’t like the sound of that, the way you said, “my wife.” What’s going on, Bly, why aren’t you happy with her?”
    He laughed at that and rubbed his eyes, then ran a hand through his hair so that the wayward strands fell across his forehead.
    “Do I really need to answer that Charlotte? I’ve tried to love her, but what the fuck am I supposed to do with all this feeling inside me? Really, please tell me what I’m supposed to do? I fucking love you, and I can’t get over it and I’m worn down from trying. She’s having twins, and I’m happy, I suppose, and I’m sorry about your wreck and that you lost your baby. But, I’m fucking selfish, Charlotte, I wanted you to be the mother of my children. I think about you until I’m so sick with need… then I convince myself that I could almost live without you if Atticus had been my son.” He looked at her then as if some miraculous thought had occurred to him, but as he considered it, his face turned grim. “You saw the results of that test, didn’t you? I should have insisted on a copy, but I knew it was too much to hope for when I looked at your beautiful baby boy.”
    A chill ran through her and she looked away from him, it would be so easy just to tell him. Atticus was still so young, just fifteen months old, he would never remember that Finn had once been his daddy. She could say three words and change all their lives, just, “he is yours,” and the world would be altered forever. But she felt that Finn was right when he said Atticus was meant to be his son, their souls were connected for a reason. After the wreck and her miscarriage the doctor told her there was a chance she wouldn’t have another child. Bly had two babies on the way and Finn would be childless if the truth were known. It was a convoluted twist of fate, just a small matter of DNA, and she had been so sure that Atticus was Finn’s. As she looked at Bly’s wide mouth and the dimple in his chin, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t known the first moment she held her son.
    She had set the course of their lives when she chose Finn, and that was that. Her love for Bly would remain just an ache she pushed far back in her heart. That love had created a little boy who would grow up as Atticus Hale. He would flourish with Finn’s love and strength to guide him, he would become the man