“This is my office, if you recall, so I’ll say any damn thing I want,” I snap. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you want, I can tell you to go to hell, and then we can both get on with our nights?”
He glares across the desk, his hands clasped together. “You and your father are going to leave my granddaughter alone. She has responsibilities to this family, and whatever fucked-up sideshow the three of you have going is only going to ruin her reputation and make her undesirable to the men I have picked to marry her.”
The laugh that spills across the room takes me by surprise, especially when I realize it came from me. “That’s a funny way of saying Hannah making her own choices is inconvenient to you and your buddies.”
“I can ruin you.”
“You can try.” I shrug.
“I can ruin her.”
My stomach drops at the words. Would he really go so far as to hurt his own flesh and blood? But then I remember howhe’s always treated her. How he’s stolen everything from her and never once regretted it.
He would absolutely go to the ends of the earth to get what he wants, and that’s exactly why we’ve been preparing to take him down for years.
“Won’t that just make her look undesirable to whoever it is you plan to marry her off to?” I challenge.
He shrugs. “It looks far better for me to destroy her career and make her a failure than for her to be a whore for her stepfather and his degenerate son.”
I’m bent over the desk with my hand fisted in his shirt before he can take another breath. “You ever speak about Hannah like that again, and you won’t live to tell the tale.”
“You can’t threaten me!”
One of the cops looks like he wants to intervene, but I have a very public reputation from my years of fighting, and few men are brave enough to challenge me.
“But you can threaten me? Listen here, you old fuck, you are going to leave Hannah alone. You’re going to stop showing up here with your bullshit threats, and you’re going to pretend the three of us never existed.”
“Or what?” He sneers.
“You ever seen what Kovu can do with a knife?” I ask quietly, keeping my voice low enough the officers a few feet away won’t hear. “It’s truly artful…provided you don’t have an aversion to blood.”
I shove him back and stalk toward the door. I’ve said everything I need to say, and now I want to get home to Hannah.
But as I reach for the handle, Jeffrey’s laugh has me stopping in my tracks.
“You’re not the only one who can dish out threats, Mr. Cane. If you let her go now, I’ll ensure she marries someone who willtreat her right, who will come to love her. But if you resist, Trent will look like Prince Charming compared to who I choose.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
HANNAH
No matter how hard I try to put it out of my mind, I can’t stop thinking about the way that couple glared at me.
Objectively, I know they were busybodies who have nothing better to do with their time than to judge others. But I can’t help but wonder if this is what the rest of my life looks like if I allow my relationship with Rowan and Asher to continue.
What happens at parent-teacher conferences? Will our kids be bullied because they have two dads? Will the parents call me a whore behind my back?
I press my eyes closed and force a deep breath into my lungs.
I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve been doing whatever the hell it is we’re doing for a week. It’s far too soon to be considering things like children.
The problem is, these are the questions I need to be asking myself now because if I allow myself to stay in this, for our relationship to grow, it’s not just one heartbreak I’ll be left with. It’s two.
Just another challenge to add to the being-in-a-relationship-with-more-than-one-man pile.
I can’t help but wonder if I’m better off cutting my losses now and getting out before I can have my heart shattered.
“I can hear you thinking from here.” Rowan breaks the silence that fell between us the second he pulled away from the curb.
