Page 12 of Protective Phlox

“That’s all you know,” I asked, the toxic wasteland of rage returning.

“Enough,” Savannah said. “I am dealing with this, not you.” I rolled my eyes at her but kept my mouth shut. This was infuriating. She’d obviously never mentioned me. I was nothing in his life. Was she planning on saying something at some point? Or was lying and pretending she didn’t know easier?

“Cutter, this is really complicated to explain to you, so I’m going to start with a question.” Savannah cleared her throat. “What would you say if I told you that you were going to meet your father?”

His eyes grew wide. “My dad?” Savannah nodded, and he slowly smiled. “Yes. I say yes.”

“Okay, I know you’re going to have a lot of questions for me, and I will answer what I can, but Nathaniel here….” Savannah gestured toward me. “Is your father.”

Cutter’s head whipped in my direction, but I didn’t say anything. “But….”

“I know this is a lot to take in, and I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, but….”

“No.” Cutter jumped off the loveseat. Savannah looked as shocked as I was at the angry outburst. Savannah reached for him, and he backed away from her. “No. If…if you knew my dad, why didn’t you tell me? Why did we live with Marko? Why did you let me call him Dad?”

“Cutter, I told you over and over that Marko was only a friend and not your dad,” Savannah tried, but I recognized the fury on Cutter’s face. I’d stared at that same anger in the mirror.

“Why…if you knew my dad…why didn’t you tell me?” His hands clenched into little fists.

“Cutter asks a valid question, Savannah. Why didn’t you tell him about me?” I knew that I shouldn’t have said it, but I couldn’t help myself and immediately regretted pitting Cutter against her.

Savannah bolted off the loveseat. “Don’t you dare do that,” she said, pointing at me.

“Do what?”

“Try to put a wedge between my son and me,” she said.

“Our son,” I corrected. “And you put the wedge there yourself,” I yelled, taking a step toward her, but suddenly Cutter ran into my leg, giving it a shove. I looked down in confusion.

“Don’t yell at my mommy.” He backed up, looked at us, and ran from the room.

A flash of memory filled my mind. My father had always screamed at my mom for no reason, and I would yell at him to leave her alone. Warranted or not, I hated that in less than an hour, I made my son do the same thing to me.

“Cutter, come back,” Savannah called after him, but I grabbed her arm before she could chase him down. I nodded to Goran, and he followed Cutter out. “Let go of me,” she growled and tried to yank her arm away, but instead, I pointed to the loveseat. Savannah looked like she wanted to nail me in the nuts but obliged and sat down.

“Why the fuck does he not know anything about me,” I asked, but kept my voice low.

Savannah glared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Oh yes, let me tell our four-year-old that I had a torrid affair with his father and accidentally got pregnant. And we can’t be together as a family because his father is one of the bad guys that Mommy chases and puts in jail.” She pointed at the doorway. “You’ve seen how smart he is. Any little thing that I told him, he wouldn’t have been satisfied with the information. He’s like a bloodhound that way. So yes, it was easier to say nothing until he got old enough that I could tell him the truth. Then, if he wanted to find you and meet you, he was old enough to make his own decisions.”

“You really would’ve let him grow up without me if I hadn’t found you?”

“What else did you expect me to do, Nathan?” She jumped up and started pacing the fancy room. “We swore that no matter what, we wouldn’t be in touch. You made me promise I’d never contact you because it could literally get us killed. But there is so much more than that, and I don’t want to get into this now. I can’t.” She glanced at the guards, and even though I knew they’d never say anything, I couldn’t say the same for those who worked here at the consulate.

“Fine, we’ll discuss this later. What do we do about Cutter?”

“Now you care how we handle the situation?” I glared at her, and Savannah sighed and looked down. “Sorry, this is all very fast and sudden. It’s not even lunch, and I’ve been shot at, in a high-speed chase, and forced into a marriage with someone I didn’t think I’d see again. I also had to tell my son who his father is, and he may never forgive me. Cut me a little slack.”

I took a deep breath and realized that she was shaking. Swallowing my ego, I walked over to her and placed my hands on her shoulders.

“Breathe, Savannah. It’s going to be okay. This is not the end of the world, and we will figure it out together.”

“So, we’re calling a truce for now?” I nodded. “Look, he needs us to show him a united front, but he is going to be mad at me for a long time, so you can’t use that to turn him against me as much as I’m sure you’d like to.”

“No, Savannah, I don’t want that.” Disbelief was written all over her face, but she didn’t argue.

“The thing is, I’ve never lied to him. In fact, I make a huge deal of us having honest communication even when it’s hard to talk about. He’s not going to understand why I didn’t tell him about you. I wish you’d given me time to prepare him properly.” She covered her face and shook her head.

“He loves you, Savannah. That’s easy to see. He’ll get over this. Why don’t we tell him that we couldn’t say who I was because of our jobs? That way, it’s not all on you. It’s not perfect, but it’s not a lie.”