All I Am--Drew's Story

  I balk at him, horrified. “Where the hell did you get them?”

  “I borrowed them.” He shrugs like he hasn’t just committed a crime, at the same time ruining the travel plans of two poor unsuspecting people. “Don’t worry; I’ll give them back.”

  “Sam, you can’t do that.” What kind of impression will I be giving Georgia? So far today, she’s watched me beat a man, been involved in a high-speed chase across London, heard all kinds of inappropriate words, and now she’s part of a theft. I’m going to Hell.

  “Bollocks.” Jesse swipes the passports out of Sam’s hand and thrusts them into my chest. “If it makes you feel better, I won’t use these for me and Sam.” He holds up two more passports.

  “Oh my God,” I breathe, quietly trying to reason. It’s for a good cause, I tell myself. And we’ll return them as soon as I’ve found Raya. Raya. My focus realigns in a moment. I take the documents and hold the barcodes to the barrier in turn, letting me and Georgia through. “I need you to act normal,” I tell her, taking her hand and heading for the security area. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m pulling her in on my crimes. “Actually, maybe you should stay with Uncle Jesse and Uncle Sam.”

  “No!” She stops where she is and stamps her little foot. “I want to come find Raya.”

  “Okay,” I whisper, sweeping the area nervously. “Just don’t shout.”

  We join the nearest line, my eyes constantly checking the time. A plastic tray is shoved in front of us, an order barked to fill it. I leave nothing to chance, ensuring anything that could trigger the alarm on the detector is gone from our bodies.

  As I walk through the arch, I’m holding my breath, praying the alarm doesn’t go off. And when Georgia passes through, she looks stiff, like moving as little as possible might make her less conspicuous. The second she’s past the guards, I seize her hand, grab our things and start running through the conveniently placed Duty Free store. “Look for gate fifty-eight, Georgia.”

  “There, I see it!” She points up to a sign that shines the way to Raya.

  “Good girl.”

  After another five minutes running, she starts whining and I’m forced to pick her up, her little legs not built for speed or distance just yet. Her body bounces in my arms as I run and we follow the signs, dodging people, her little fingers dug into my shoulders tightly.

  “Over there, Dad!”

  I follow her flung arm, my pace slowing until I come to a stop. The sign for gate fifty-eight is beaming, the only light in my suddenly pitch-black world. The area is empty, not a soul waiting to board, every seat free. And the door to the tunnel that leads down to the plane is closed. Grief is a knot in my throat, filling it, making each swallow rough and painful.

  “Are we too late?” Georgia slips down from my arms and runs to the stretch of glass adjacent to the door, her palms slapping the window as she peers out.

  “We’re too late.” I drop to the nearest seat and watch as the plane slowly reverses away from the gate, my game lost. My girl gone.

  Elbows on my knees, I slide my hands into my hair and stare at the floor. The drop of water that splashes between my feet is the first of many.

  Chapter 14

  I can’t bear to look Jesse and Sam in the eyes when we’ve made it back to them. The grief clogging my throat still won’t allow me to speak. The mild shake of my head tells them that our mission was a failure, though my dragging feet, slumped shoulders, and wretchedness all speak for themselves. I get a rub on the shoulder by each of them, a move of sympathy, when what I want them to do is knock me out. Not to just put me out of my misery, but to punish me for being such an idiot.

  The journey back into the city is painfully silent, not even Georgia breathing a word. She just humors my need for closeness, cuddling into my side. I don’t question when Jesse offers to take her back with him for some playtime with Maddie. She needs to be a kid while her dad basks in his gloom and comes to terms with the fact that he is an award-worthy arsehole. And my trophy is the shitty ache in my chest that will never stop hurting. A constant reminder of my mistake.

  Feet heavy, I trudge to the kitchen, snag a bottle of red and drag myself to my bedroom. Overcome with regret, remorse, and a ton of other crappy emotions, I fall to my back on the bed and stare at the ceiling. Those chains squeezing my heart are tight, impenetrable, but that bastard thing called devastation still finds its way through the thick links and tears a hole in the muscle.

  For what point, I don’t know, but I call Raya. Maybe to give her an update of the events of which she is completely unaware. Or maybe just so she knows how gutted I am. It goes straight to voicemail again, which shouldn’t be a surprise since she’s mid-flight, but the reminder that she’s gone still hurts like hell.

  I switch my phone to speaker, dropping it to the bed beside me so I can unscrew the top of the wine while I leave her a message. “I went to the airport today.” I take a swig and do my best to savor the taste of something that will hopefully numb me by the time I get to the end of the bottle. “Georgia came with me.” I laugh a little, still not quite believing what I had my daughter involved in. “My mate stole some passports and boarding passes so we could make it through to the gates.” I smile, but it’s strained and sad. “My girl pulls off the best poker face. She’s seven, for fuck’s sake.” I laugh, taking another swing. “It was an adventure for her. An adventure to win a girl for her daddy.” I breathe out, rubbing at my forehead. “She was so excited.” Tipping the bottle to my lips, I glug down probably the equivalent to an entire glass in one go, gasping and wiping my mouth. “But we were too late.” Piece by piece, my hopes disappear. My happiness shredded.

  “Raya, I got scared.” I sigh, rubbing at my head. “I have no excuse. You did something to me that’s never happened before, and it scared me. My lifestyle, my daughter. It all became so real. I was going to tell you about her. I just didn’t know where to start.” I clench my eyes shut, regret eating me alive. “I should have had more faith in her. And in you.”

  Finishing the bottle of wine, I toss it on the bed, starting to feel the glorious wooziness of alcohol taking over my mind. “Georgia asked me if I loved you. And you know what? I do. What else could explain this madness?”

  I hear a knock at my front door, and I frown, pushing myself up to go answer it. I grab my phone off the bed and switch it off speaker, taking it to my ear. “You’re so young, Raya. And I’m so old and fucked up. With a kid.” I wobble through my lounge, blinking back the stars emerging in my vision. “I like binding women in chains, too.” I make it to the front door and clasp the knob. “And now I’m drunk and—” I lose my line when I pull the door open. “And you’re here,” I breathe, my phone plummeting to my side.

  “I’m here,” Raya confirms softly, holding up her phone. “I got your message when I was boarding the plane.” Her thumb blindly pads the blank screen. “But my phone died and I couldn’t call you back.”

  Hand lax on the door, I stare, lost in the moment, wondering whether I’m dreaming. Question whether I’m seeing things. Hearing things. “You weren’t on the plane,” I mumble, looking into the eyes that have consumed me whole from the moment I encountered them. There’s no sadness now. No dull, lifeless pits. I see only one thing. Hope.

  “I wasn’t on the plane.” She takes a step forward. “And I need you to tell me that I’ve not made a huge mistake.”

  Oxygen wakes me up when I inhale. My heart starts beating against those motherfucking chains, stretching them, forcing them to give under the power. I hold my phone up. No more holding back. No more questioning. No more caution and fear. “I’m a man touching forty and for the first time in my life, I’m in tatters over a woman. You, Raya.”

  Her smile, although small and nervous, is so fucking bright. “I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care that you have a daughter. And I love your chains.” Closing the final bit of space between us, she looks up at me, hands in my hair, clenching, determined. “Without my grandpa, I didn
’t know what to do with myself. “ A small kiss is pushed onto my lips. “I know he would have seen everything in you that I see. Strength. Devotion. I know he would have told me you’re worth the risk.”

  “I’m no risk, Raye. I promise. I don’t want to be another reason for you to hurt, and I’ll do fucking anything to make sure I don’t.” She has to believe me.

  She smiles. “I know that.”

  Relief chokes me. It builds so fast and so furiously within me, there’s no outlet for it.

  Other than my eyes. I breathe out and haul her into me, my face falling straight into her neck, needing to smell her, feel her. Needing to make such she’s flesh and bone and in my arms. “I’ve left you a really long voicemail,” I whisper. I want to remember what I said, want to relay each and every word, slowly and concisely, but they’re gone, vanished from my mind, something else replacing them.

  Raya.

  In my arms.

  And, really, only three of those words matter, the three that scream the loudest. The three that I need to say over and again.

  “I love you.”

  Epilogue

  I hope you’re happy here,” I say, handing the keys over to Annie Ryan.

  “Thank you, Drew.” She tosses the keys in her hand, looking around the hallway. “I think I’m going to be very happy here.”

  I take the handle of the front door and pull it open as she kicks a few of the letters at her feet, piles of correspondence that will never be read. Stepping out onto the street, I have a quick check of my phone. No missed calls. Where are they? “Any plans to knock the place about a bit?” I scan the street, left to right. Nothing. “Since you’re an architect and all.”

  “A weekend scrubbing and a lick of paint is all it needs for now. The second bedroom will be my studio.” Her green eyes glimmer with excitement that I just can’t help but smile at. “Are you waiting for someone?” She looks past me, scanning the empty tree-lined street.

  “Yeah,” I dial Raya, starting to worry. “Remember that really uncomfortable time when I asked your opinion on something entirely inappropriate?” I take my phone to my ear, and Annie smiles, wide and bright.

  “Oh, your friend’s problem?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “And the girl moving out of the country.”

  “Oh, you mean my girlfriend?” It sounds so strange saying that.

  “Ah, Drew!” Annie lightly punches my bicep. “So you asked her not to go.”

  My phone rings off and I frown, having another quick scan of the street. “I did. She’s supposed to be meeting me here with my daughter.”

  “You have a daughter?”

  She sounds shocked. What’s most shocking is that I have a girlfriend. “I do, but I get the feeling that I’m not her favorite person anymore.”

  Annie laughs, starting to collect up some of the envelopes littering the floor of her new hallway. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Her arm extends toward the road. “Oh, is this them?”

  I crack my neck, quickly looking in her pointed direction, grinning wide when I find Raya and Georgia skipping down the road hand in hand. “This is them.” Peace and contentment wraps me in its warm embrace and squeezes tightly. “Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

  They come to a stop at the bottom of the steps, arms full of cuddly toys and cotton candy. “Hey, Dad!” Georgia flicks her head to rid her face of hair. “We’ve been to the fairground!”

  I turn to Annie. “I’d better go.”

  She nods past me. “They suit you.”

  “I know.” I smile, sliding my phone back into my pocket. “Maybe your love’s next victim, Annie.”

  She scoffs, truly amused. “Like I told you, Drew. Not even sizzles, so definitely no sparks.”

  “Don’t sound so sure. These things bite you on the arse unexpectedly.”

  She smiles, though it’s a space-filler, something to do other than tell me that there’s no arse-biting in her life likely to happen soon. “Enjoy them.”

  “I will. Take care, Annie,” I say, because if there’s one thing I’ve figured out about Annie Ryan in the short time I’ve known her, it’s that she’s quite happy taking care of herself. She doesn’t need a man, but does she want one?

  I head down the steps and scoop up my girl, taking a bite of her candyfloss. “How much of this stuff have you had?”

  “There’s no hope of her sleeping on the plane.” Raya slides an arm under my suit jacket and attaches herself to my side, and like a magnet, my arm wraps around her shoulder and pulls her in, because she isn’t close enough.

  I drop a kiss on the forehead of each of my girls and start walking us to the car. “We all packed?”

  “Yes!” Georgia is about to burst with excitement. “I have two new bikinis and a sparkly dress, too,” she declares.

  “Bikinis?” I question, turning nervous eyes onto Raya. A shake of her head, no words, tells me not to worry. “And Grandpa?” I ask.

  “He’s all set.” Raya burrows her face into my chest, her palm resting on Georgia’s dangling leg down my front.

  “Then let’s get him back to Australia.”

  If happiness was a chain, it would be platinum with solid hearts between every link and entwined around my swelling heart.

  I’m chained, make no mistake, but I’m the most free I’ve ever been.

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  I gather up the remaining glasses and make to turn, being sure to maintain my stability. Not that I’m stubborn or anything. I’m not drunk.

  “Care to prove it?” he asks, pulling me to a stop. A challenge?

  I risk a peek at him out of the corner of my eye and find the most gorgeous smile on his already gorgeous face. Where the hell did he come from?

  Prove it? “How?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Take the shots to your friends.” He nods past me, and I look over to see my friends all now gathered around the tall table, Micky’s arms flying in the air dramatically, the girls laughing. I manage to note that Dishy Man here knows who I’m with. How long has he been here? There’s no way he would have slipped under any of the girls’ Hot-Man Radar. “Then come back to see me, if you want,” he adds quietly.

  If I want? Do I want? I have another quick peek up at him. He’s still smiling. It’s a dangerous smile. Very dangerous. He’s too handsome to be harmless.

  I slink off, shamelessly adopting a mild sway of my arse as I go, resisting the urge to see if he’s watching me. He is watching me. I just know it, and it’s got me all hot and bothered.

  Lizzy is on me like a pouncing tiger when I arrive back at the table. “Who in God’s name is that?” she asks, eyes wide with excitement as she takes a shot.

  “I don’t know,” I reply, downing the last shot myself instead of giving it up to any one of my friends, all the while feeling the magnetic pull of the man behind me, my body tightening with the strain it’s taking not to turn and seek him out again.

  “Annie, I know you’re pretty much immune to men, but this is taking the piss. He’s watching you.”

  Immune? I’m not sure I’d say immune. I’ve just never felt anything close to special. So why the hell am I tingling all over and trembling like a fool? I don’t feel very immune now. “He can watch.”

  She gapes at me. “Well, if you won’t talk to him, then I will, since I’m single now.” Pushing past me, she slaps a smile on her face and heads toward the bar, and my man.

  I have no idea what comes over me, but the next moment my hand has shot out and I’ve seized Lizzy’s wrist, yanking her to a stop. I squeeze my eyes shut, annoyed with myself. “Just hold up one minute.” I breathe in deeply and turn in to her. “A rebound fuck with a stranger isn’t the way forward.”<
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  She’s holding back a grin that will probably split her face if it escapes. She has me. For the first time—probably ever—a man has caught my attention. I shouldn’t read too much into it. I expect this particular man has caught every woman’s attention, the unholy, good-looking son of a bitch.

  Leaning into me, Lizzy pushes her mouth to my ear, just as my eyes fall onto him again. He’s still watching me. Intently, almost challengingly. “He looks like a hard fucker,” Lizzy whispers, giggling as she breaks away, giving me a coy look. “Do womankind a favor and get laid.” She nods past me. “By him.”

  “I’m just going to talk to him,” I protest, leaving my friend behind and giving in to the pull luring me back to him. I drink in air and start a steady pace toward him, dropping my bottom lip from between my teeth when I realize I’m biting it.

  He maintains a serious face, watching me as he leans on the bar casually. “I believe I saw a slight stagger,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

  He’s just too fucking handsome for his own good. And, undoubtedly, my good, too. “Sober,” I mouth, leaning next to him at the bar.

  Keeping his eyes on mine, he calls to the barman. “Two tequilas, please.”

  “Tequila,” I muse, looking over my shoulder when the salt and lemon land behind me. “Is that my challenge?”

  “Crying off?” he goads, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some notes.

  “Never,” I scoff, turning into the bar. I don’t know what his game is, but I want to play. With him. “You’re asking me to prove I’m sober by doing a shot?” I narrow my eyes on him, teasing. “Or is your plan to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”

  He smiles to himself as he pays the barman. “You don’t look like the kind of woman who could be taken advantage of.”

  “What kind of woman do I look like, then?” I challenge quietly.

  He turns into me, watching me for a few moments. “I don’t know, but I think I’d like to find out.”