Reckless (Chestnut Springs Book 4)

Winter: Please don’t do something that will land you in prison.

Theo: Can’t make any promises.

Winter: Please? I’d still bail you out, but I’d be mad at you.

Theo: You being mad at me gets me hard. Angry sex is fun. This is not a deterrent.

Winter: Maybe I wouldn’t bail you out at all.

Theo: Nah. You’d miss my dick too much.

Winter: No. I’d miss *you*.

“Phone?” I place my hand on the conference room table where Kip and Geoff sit across from me. Kip is stone-faced and his employee is nervous—as he should be—when he places the phone in my palm.

“What did I tell you to do with my phone, Geoff?” I ask, voice clipped as I swipe into the phone and pull up the text messages without even glancing in his direction.

I search “T” and there they are. Tink. I glance through them, but they’re hard to look at. They gut me. Knowing Winter like I do now, I can’t help but think about how badly this must have hurt her.

Yesterday we spent the day in bed and really dug into those early days. We talked about her parents and her childhood. I cooked. We laughed. She and Vivi napped, and I lay next to them, watching them sleep.

For one day, we lived in the most perfect bubble.

And now I’m out for blood.

“To, uh, respond to your messages? Post some pictures on your socials?”

“And what about any important or personal messages that came through?”

“Forward them to you.” He gives me eager nods, like he’s proud of his work.

I slide the phone across the table to the two men and lean back in the chair, knitting my hands behind my head and crossing a booted foot over my knee as I wait for them to read.

It’s fascinating to watch. As they scroll, it’s like all the color that drains out of Geoff’s face is transferred into Kip’s by osmosis.

One turns white while the other turns red.

“That seems like a pretty important set of messages to pass along, wouldn’t you say, Geoff?”

“I thought—”

“You thought you’d respond as me? To a woman telling me she’s pregnant with my baby? And that’s how you responded?”

“I thought—”

“Nah.” I sit forward abruptly, my elbows hitting the table loudly enough to startle him. “You didn’t think at all.”

“I did you a favor! You wanted to clean up your image. You get all sorts of crass messages on that thing. Women asking you for stuff, sending you things I’d rather not see. This was no different.”

“This was my daughter,” I hiss, swiping the phone back from his incapable hands. “And I missed her birth along with the first nine months of her life because you’re a judgmental piece of shit who overstepped his boundaries.”

Geoff swallows and drops my gaze.

“You didn’t know?” Kip’s voice sounds hollow, his jaw popping as he looks between Geoff and me.

“Of course I didn’t know. What kind of asshole do you take me for?”

“Winter never told me.”

“She never told anyone because everyone always treats her like shit!” My fist slams down hard enough to rattle the table as I let them have it. “Her mom. You. Her shitty fucking ex, who is still harassing her. She’s convinced she needs to do everything alone because that’s what you showed her all her life. That no one will show up for her. That everyone always abandons her.”

The boardroom is quiet as I suck air in through my nostrils, trying to calm myself down. “Except me. I’m going to show up for her. Every goddamn time. So Kip, you’re fired. I used to like you, but I no longer respect you. And Geoff, if I could fire you twice, I would. You fucking suck.”

It was an immature final blow. But man, Geoff fucking sucks.

When I stand, Kip does too.

He meets me at the door and shakes my hand. Hard. “Theo, you may not respect me, but I respect the hell out of you, and I wish you the best. And I’m . . . I’m going to make this right.”

I don’t think he’s trying to make me feel bad, but he does. Bad for him. I don’t think Kip is a shitty person at heart, but he’s a flawed one. We all are. His best wasn’t good enough. Maybe he tried to be a good father to them both. I can’t say for sure. But what I do know is he failed. Monumentally.

And I think he just realized it. I can see the devastation on his face.

“Thank you, sir,” is all I give back before turning to leave.

As I go, I hear him say, “Geoff, pack your shit up and get the hell out of my office. I never want to see your face again.”

I smile to myself as I head to the elevator, because Geoff got fired twice today after all. And that makes me happy.

When I pull up into the driveway of Winter’s house, there’s a fancy car parked on the street, lined right up with the front gate. In my truck, I watch the vehicle through the rear-view mirror. I see movement, but the tinted windows on the car obscure any further detail.

Not that I need much more to make a guess. Winter has been tight-lipped about her ex, aside from mentioning he never went down on her. Which is enough to let me know he’s useless, no matter what the piece of paper hanging in a gaudy gold frame behind his desk might say.

I’m already fired up from my meeting with Kip, so I decide to roll with that energy. I grab my empty paper coffee cup and step down from my pickup to approach the car.

Three loud knocks on the window are how I announce myself. When the glass finally rolls down, I’m met with the face of a man who looks like he’s doing his best impression of the douchey trust fund baby ex-boyfriend in Legally Blonde.

I bet this guy has “the third” tacked onto the end of his legal name.

“Hey, man. You lost? Something I can help you find?”

His smile is greasy and terse. Not real at all. “Yeah, buddy.” He’s also condescending, but I’m not surprised. “Just here to see my wife.”

Wife. That word makes me want to break something.

I prop a hand on the top of his car, pulling my sunglasses off to look him in the eye. “No married women live here. But if you’re here to harass your ex-wife by hand-delivering bills, she’ll never pay. I’ll take that envelope right there on the passenger seat and save you a trip to the mailbox. Cause I promise you . . .” I lean in and lower my voice. “If you keep showing up here like a fucking stalker, all you’re gonna do is make it real easy to get a restraining order.”

He glares at me, teeth clenched tight. Too much of a coward to respond. So I needle him where I know it’ll hurt. “Wouldn’t be hard to consult my lawyer friend about it. You know Summer Hamilton, don’t you?”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he bites out, hands twisting on his steering wheel.

I smirk. “Just a guy who knows the medical board would have questions about why someone had to take a restraining order out against you.”

He scoffs, giving me an exaggerated once-over with an almost impressive level of fake bravado. “I get it now. Enjoy my leftovers.” He tosses the envelope out the window, and it sails past me.

I make no move to pick it up. I’m too busy smiling at Dr. Rob Valentine. “She’s no one’s leftovers, and I’ve been enjoying her since before you ever saw the divorce papers, buddy.”

I shouldn’t have said it, but my patience for assholes is shot today.

His only response is to rev the engine while still in park, like we’re gonna race or something. But the joke’s on him, because I already won.

Winter isn’t his leftovers. She’s the gem too precious for him to keep.

“You drive safe now,” I call out over the sound of his engine as I knock on his roof.

As he pulls away, I toss my empty coffee cup in through his front window. Just to be petty.

Then I stand there, arms crossed over my chest, watching him gun it to the end of the street. He rolls through the stop sign like the rules don’t apply to him. His license plate reads DRHEART and I grimace at the sight.

So lame.

“Did you throw a piece of garbage into his car?” Winter shouts on a laugh from the front porch.

“Just putting it in the trash, Tink!” I turn, swiping the envelope off the grass boulevard, and grin at her. She has Vivi slung on her hip. Blonde hair pulled back in a loose braid, little wisps sneaking out to frame her face like a halo.

The face I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at because I can never get enough.

“So, now you’ve met Rob . . .” she utters.

“Yes. Such a pleasure.”

Truthfully, I hate him more than he deserves. What I want to feel is indifferent. But I’m not there yet.

I hate him because he almost had all of this instead of me, and the circumstances that led me here still feel so fraught and fragile. I’m not an insecure person, but now and then a thought pops up. A thought like . . .

Without Vivi, would Winter be interested in me?

I do well, but I don’t drive a McLaren or own a massive McMansion and I didn’t go to university.

But I brush those thoughts off. This is new. These feelings are normal. Plus, I’m the one walking up the front sidewalk to the woman who’s been stuck in my head for almost two years.

“I can’t believe you married a guy with a personalized license plate. That might be the worst part of it all.”

“He thought it was so witty.”

“I can think of a lot of words for him, but after that exchange, witty is not one of them.”

“Sorry.” Winter nibbles at her bottom lip as I take a couple of stairs at a time to stand before her.

“Winter, apologize for him again, and I’ll take you over my knee.”

Her eyes widen, and I reach for Vivi. I need a hug after the last few hours and something about a squishy baby just hits different. The way she rakes her fingers through my stubble. The way she smells. The way she babbles away at me like I understand her happy little nonsense language.

“I thought he’d have given up by now. He did this to Summer too.”

Cupping the back of Winter’s head, I press a rough kiss to her forehead, brushing my stubble against her temple as I tug her into me.

The three of us.

Just because I can.

“Well, what happened when he got reported for all that? I mean, Summer was his patient. A minor.”

She stills. “I never reported him.”

I draw away. “What?”

Winter sighs, and it’s a heavy, exhausted sigh. “I was going to, but he trapped me in a place where I can’t, and he knows it.”

“Why can’t you?”

Vivi fusses, getting sick of being carried. She wants to crawl and cruise and climb and channel her inner daredevil. So, I bounce on the spot, hoping that entertains her.

“Because if I do, it will drag Summer into it. That’s what’s always held me back. She’s finally happy. Finally free of all that shit. And I don’t want to do that to her. He knows I won’t. That’s the only reason he feels secure enough to keep showing up here.”

I grit my teeth. I hate this, especially for Winter. But I also hate it for myself because I hate the feelings it stirs up. Jealousy and insecurity and anxiety.

I don’t like Rob Valentine, and more than that, I don’t trust him.

“Well, I told him he’s making a great case for a restraining order today.” Winter nods, twisting her lips together. “What?”

“I don’t know. He’s just so . . . prideful. I hoped he would eventually get bored and fuck off. I’ve thought about the things I could do, the action I could take. But the truth is, I just want to be so inconsequential that he gets bored with me and moves on.”

I reach for the screen door and open it for her to walk through. “I don’t think he’s moving on.”

“No, I don’t think he is,” she says, as she ducks back inside. “But I’ll deal with it. I don’t want you to worry.”

I snort and lock the door behind us.

How can I not worry when two of the most important people in my life are living under this roof and I’m weeks away from going on the road again?

“How’d it go with my dad?”

“Very satisfying. I am officially agentless, and Geoff is jobless,” I reply, kicking my lace-up boots off. “How about here?”

Winter is standing in the middle of the house, wearing ripped denim shorts and a baggy Hamilton Athletics T-shirt. Looking all tanned and luminous and tiny in the open space.

She shrugs and glances away, not able to meet my eyes. “Honestly, we kind of missed you.”

“We?” I quirk a brow as I approach her. “Did Vivi tell you that?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “No.”

“So, how do you know?” I tower over her now, waiting for her to turn her face up to mine. I’m trying not to get my hopes up that she might give me a little something today.

On a day when I need it.

Her chin tips up, blue eyes so crystal clear, a light shimmer of gloss on her lips.

“Okay. Fine. I missed you,” she confesses.

And then she hugs me.