“He had no taste—not in friends, not in women, not in design.”
“Who the fuck cares, Anna? He’s dead.” I throw open the door and nearly drag William over the threshold. William’s refusal to stand up for his son, even in death, pisses me off. My car is sitting at the base of the steps, but I have no desire to drive William home. “You.” I point to the young staffer just inside the entry. “Call these two a cab.” I release William and stalk back inside, leaving Michael’s parents standing on the front steps.
After five minutes of fruitless searching, I find Sera on the third floor in the nursery with her child. Since Michael’s marriage, there has been an unspoken agreement that when we got together, it would be away from his family. He once asked me whether it was his son or his wife that made me uncomfortable. I told him I had no interest in either.
That was a lie, of course. I think about Sera daily and Asher only a little less, but my memory of the boy was of an infant, not this small child with Michael’s face and eyes. Sera hadn’t foisted another man’s child on him.
“That is definitely Michael’s son.”
Her head jerks up. She must not have heard me arrive.
“Why are you still here?” she asks, pushing Asher’s face protectively against her chest as if looking at me will turn the boy to stone.
Michael’s will demanded it. It’s not the money that will tie me to Sera and this boy. I have, as Lucas crudely put it, vaults of cash. Michael’s estate is nothing more than a burden. His bequest, though, is enough of a shackle. By putting it in writing to be read to his family, he has effectively placed me in a box. Either I watch out for his family, or I watch his family be ruined. Michael knew I wouldn’t be able to sit back and see his son suffer. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re my responsibility.”
“I can take care of myself and Asher. We don’t need you,” Sera says with a scornful lift of her chin.
“Unless you have some secret job that your husband didn’t know about, your very existence depends on me. You very much do need me.”
“Mommy, too tight,” the little boy complains. He wriggles out of Sera’s grip and pins a blue stare on my face. “Who you?”
“Your uncle.”
“Un-ca?”
“He’s a friend of your daddy’s,” Sera supplies.
“Where Daddy?”
Sera bites her lip. A woman comes bustling in, shoving me to the side. “Let me take the boy, Miss Sera. It’s dinner time. You hungry, my boy? We’ve got french fries and dinosaur chicken tonight.”
“Yay!” the boy shouts, and allows himself to be carried out by the older woman.
“That’s Dora, Asher’s nanny,” Sera explains. She picks herself off the floor and dusts her wrinkled silk skirt with her hands. “Thank you for coming today, but regardless of what the will says, Asher and I will be fine on our own.”
Her green eyes meet mine defiantly. Blood rushes through my body and pools in my groin. My cock swells, and the urge to pick her up and fuck her on the bright yellow sofa of her child’s nursery is almost overwhelming. I ball my hands into fists.
“With what skills? You have no college education or even a high school diploma. How will you pay for your nanny or the Ralph Lauren baby clothes on a waitress’s salary? Or do you have other ideas on how to make money?”
Sera’s mouth tightens. “I know what you’re implying, and it’s disgusting. I can do childcare in my home. It’s what I did before Michael and I married.”
“In what home? You have no property in your name, and I’ll not give you one cent if you leave this house. In fact, if you do try to leave, I’ll sue for custody.”
Sera gasps. “You monster.”
I shrug. “I’ll do what I need to do to fulfill the wishes of Michael, which is for me to raise his son and for you to continue to live the life to which you have become accustomed, which is 24-hour maid service, a chef on call, annual trips to Nice and Barcelona, luxury accoutrements.” I flick the collar of her dress, the five-thousand-dollar couture item that was probably hand stitched. “None of that will be possible on whatever salary you can make out. So let’s put aside all these ridiculous arguments. You’re not moving out. And you’ll do what I tell you to. Here are the ground rules.” I tick them off one by one. “There will be no man in your life. No dating, no sexting. Nothing. You’ll act like a nun until Asher graduates from college. You will not leave town without my permission. Should you desire to attend any social event, it will be with me by your side. For all intents and purposes, we will act as a married couple just as you were with Michael. It will be in the best interests of Asher, and that is all I care about.” With that, I turn on my heel and let the door slam behind me. It’s not until I reach the first-floor landing that I’m able to breathe again. This is the longest time I’ve spent with Sera since the night before she married Michael. I have avoided her as much as possible because I knew that if I was in her presence for any length of time, I would want to finish what we started that night.