He underlined that by dancing the tip of his finger over her clit until she went all warm and boneless.
Vaughan did that. Touched her and made her forget everything. This was different. He still touched her in all the right ways, but now there was no forgetting. But a knowing that had changed.
They’d taken another step. Perilous though it might be, surviving it, turning to one another instead of away was a new process for them. And when it happened as a matter of course, it meant everything.
He came hard and fast on the heels of her climax, holding her close, continuing a slow and easy stroke for long moments after that. “Better than drinks out at a fancy bar.”
Standing, he managed to keep her in his arms as they headed inside.
“And you don’t even need bottle service to have the best seat in the house.”
“Not our patio, Legs. Deep inside you. That’s the best seat in the house. And it’s all mine.”
As she fell asleep, she let the words sink in. Allowed herself to be happy as she lay sheltered in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TWO DAYS LATER, Kelly, Vaughan and the girls, returning from a quick trip to the market to grab supplies for dinner, nearly made it to the elevator when she heard a voice and it sent a shiver up her spine.
“Take them upstairs,” she told Vaughan, planting herself between her family and her mother.
“Why? Who is that?” He peered closer and swore under his breath as he recognized Rebecca. “What’s she doing here?”
“I don’t want the girls exposed to her. Please.”
“I’m coming right back down.” He headed into the elevator with the girls, who’d begun to notice something was going on and had started to ask questions. Kelly just wanted those doors to close so she could deal with the trouble on her heels outside the view of her daughters.
“They wouldn’t let me upstairs. I said you had me on the list. They said I needed a key card.”
Kelly led her mother away from the elevator and back to the front doors. “Why are you here?”
“Ms. Hurley, is everything all right?” the daytime doorman asked.
They never should have let Rebecca in. Her mother wasn’t allowed in the apartment. She didn’t have a key card on purpose. But Rebecca had a way. She most likely freaked the guy out into letting her inside.
“It should be.” Kelly turned back to her mother. “Not going to ask again. Speak or get out.”
“I knew it. I saw those pictures and your rep and his were totally silent. I knew then that you’d let that bastard back into your life. What’s wrong with you? Didn’t he embarrass you enough the first time? How can you do this? Are you going to quit even the few jobs you do take now to be home at his beck and call?”
“Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with your bank account.”
“You need to think. With your head and not what’s between your legs. A man will always steal your vitality,” Rebecca hissed, bitterness flowing from her. “You let him ruin you before. Are you so desperate for love you have to do this again? What sorts of jobs can you get when people think of you as rejected goods? You were young the first time. Still vibrant.” Her mother looked Kelly up and down, clearly displeased with what she saw.
Kelly started to fall back into that place where she felt fat, ugly and not good enough. And then she caught the look on her mother’s face that said it had been her intention to push that insecurity.
Ugh. Twisty, crafty bitch. “Shut up. I know I asked you to speak, but that was a mistake. Shut your mouth. You’ve registered your opinion. I’ve given it the weight it deserves. Don’t come here again. Or to the store. If you want my money to keep your lifestyle up, you will shut up and leave me alone.”
“I’m your mother. I made you!”
“Thank God I survived it. My children are upstairs. Where I’m going. Don’t come back. Don’t talk to the media. I’ll continue to put money in your account but if you start shit I will cut you off for real this time.”
“After all I’ve done for you? You ungrateful bitch. Always have been lazy. If I hadn’t pushed you where would you be?” Her mother used a patented Rebecca move, grabbing Kelly by her upper arms to shake her.
“Take your hands off her. Now.” Vaughan had returned, full of rage.
“You! I don’t—” Rebecca cut off in midrant as Vaughan pushed himself between them until her mother had no choice but to let go.
Vaughan pulled out some money from his wallet and shoved it at her. “Cab fare.” Without moving his body, he turned his head to get the attention of the doorman. “Can you please hail her a cab?”
“Right away, Mr. Hurley.”
Vaughan moved to give the guy a tip and Kelly heard him also say that Rebecca was not to be allowed back inside for any reason.
Kelly looked at her mother, shaking her head. This was what the woman brought to her life. Dread and negativity. There was no way she’d let her kids be exposed to this creature.
Sharon might be toxic in her own way, but this was hatred, pure and simple. She was there because she couldn’t deal with the idea of Kelly being happy.
Again Rebecca and her superfast violence struck, her mother grabbing her arm and yanking in a way that felt far too familiar.
Kelly righted herself and pulled free as Vaughan rushed over. “You can’t hurt me into compliance anymore. I’m bigger than you are now. Get out of here before I reconsider my generous offer and call the police instead.”
“Get out, Rebecca. Don’t think of harming my family again. You’re done now,” Vaughan said.
“Or what? You gonna hit me, big man?” Rebecca taunted.
Vaughan’s smile was not joyous in any way. “I don’t need to use my fists to beat the hell out of you. Understand that. Money and power are far more painful and far less trouble for me to use to shove you out the air lock of Kelly’s life.”
Kelly wanted to hug him, weeping. He’d protected her. Not just physically, but he’d made it totally clear he’d fuck Rebecca up if she kept on.
Rebecca saw that, too, and stepped back. “Don’t come running to me when he dumps you. Again.”
“I only run from you, Rebecca.”
Rebecca yelled one last volley of insults before heading outside.
On the way back up, Vaughan took her hand. “We have a lot to talk about. But it can wait until you’re ready.”
“How about never? It’s bad. She’s awful. She’s gone. The end.”
He didn’t say any more because the girls needed to be distracted when they got back. She’d shielded the girls from Rebecca for many years and planned to keep it that way.
* * *
VAUGHAN WAITED UNTIL after they’d gotten the girls down and then after an interview she did, before he circled back to the scene in the lobby earlier that day.
She came into their room, paused to drop a kiss on the top of his head and that’s when he moved fast, bringing her into his lap. “My evil plan worked.”
“Oh yeah? Is this where the pillaging comes into play?”
“Tell me about Rebecca.”
“Thank you, Vaughan.”
“For asking about your fucked-up mother?”
“For protecting me.” Her voice broke and she hated that weakness. “You got between us. You made her leave.” Not many people would have done that for her. It left her off balance.
“Legs.” Vaughan blew out a breath. “I should have a long time ago. She’s an awful person and the way she handled you tonight makes me want to punch things. I’m here now. I will protect you.” He kissed her quickly. “So, tell me about her.”
“What is there to tell? You know she was awful when I was young. I send her money and she usually behaves herself and keeps out of my life. She showed up at
the store here a while back. She causes a scene and demands free things. I told her to knock it off. I send her clothes all the time. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. That’s why I keep a continent between us when I can. Because when I don’t, stuff like what happened earlier happens again.”
“She’s why you count your calories and freak out about food. I hate that. How old were you when she started that stuff?”
“Being a model is why I count my calories. But—” Kelly paused, heaved a sigh and kept going “—I can’t recall a time it wasn’t done. She had a little book she always kept tucked in her purse that listed calories for everything you could imagine.”
Kelly stopped and tried to change the subject with a wiggle of herself over his cock.
“Not going to work.”
She laughed because he was hard. “I beg to differ. Seems like it’s working pretty fine from where I’m sitting.”
“Ha. That part always works when you’re around. But I’m not changing the subject.”
“What do you want, Vaughan?” Her tone went a little thready, just a breath. “For me to tell you she was a horrible mother? That she’s cruel and self-centered? She was. She is.”
“I already knew she was a terrible mother. I got that from our first meeting.” His new mother-in-law had been derisive of entertainment money and show people. And when Kelly had announced she was going to take off some time when she had Maddie, that had been an ugly scene.
Vaughan would never forget hearing Rebecca tell her daughter that it was bad enough she was ruining her body with childbirth, but that the clock was ticking and Kelly only had so much time to wring value from her looks before she turned into an old hag.
“Can’t we please change the subject? I’m working to keep her away from the girls. She hasn’t seen Maddie since she was two. She has no relationship with them. I don’t send her pictures or have the girls make her pottery.”
“But you do for my mom.” Yeah, another thing he’d taken for granted was how much she did even in the face of hostility from his family.
“They love your mom. She loves them. It makes everyone happy. But my mother wouldn’t appreciate it. Eventually she’d do something to hurt them or scar them and for what? They miss nothing by not having her in their lives.” Kelly shrugged.
He slid his thumb over her bottom lip. “What about you? What do you miss?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I don’t miss a thing. The only reason I pay her is out of some sense of responsibility. If I keep her housed and taken care of in the Hamptons, she’s not trying to stay with me in Oregon. She has other things to do besides deciding now is the time to get interested in her granddaughters as a way to get something from me. It’s only money. I have it, thank goodness. And I’d rather spend it on keeping her away than bags or cars.”
Kelly’s gaze went far away for a bit, and then she spoke again. “I can’t risk her telling Maddie she’s fat. Or trying to bribe Kensey into performing with treats she’d then berate her for eating later. Rebecca would see those beautiful little girls and start taking them to auditions the moment my back was turned. There’s no letting her into my life. Not remaining sane and healthy after. She would take our children and strip them of their sense of beauty and joy and she’d twist it. She’d make them hate their bodies and their looks.”
In his zeal to get her to reveal this to him, he’d forgotten how tender she was. Stupid for him to forget, when he saw a dozen times every day just how strong she was.
“I know I’m fucked up with food. And even when I’m not modeling it’s still there. But I will die before I’d let the girls see it, or before I’d let them grow up in a home with a mother who hates her body. There was never a single time in my house when my mother wasn’t on a diet. No fad went untried. She’s the one who taught me that amphetamines suppressed your appetite and gave you energy you didn’t have because you were starving yourself.”
“Hey.” Vaughan took her cheeks between his hands. “I know you’re protecting the girls. I know you do the right thing for their sake. I’d like you to do it for your sake, too. Because you’re worth it.”
“Don’t try to fix me. It’s not that simple. I do the best I can. This is the healthiest I’ve been my whole life. I’ve constructed enough rules for myself that I have the control I need but I’m not obsessive. I exercise and when I’m not on a job I eat a pretty normal diet. I like myself. I’m not just saying it because it’s what you want to hear.”
She exercised every single morning for an hour. Sometimes he joined her. On her yoga days he liked to watch her as she moved. Sensuous. Lithe. Powerful. But at the same time, there was a sort of ritual to it that he understood better now.
He hated that she had to fight off stuff her mother had ingrained. What sort of person did that to a kid? He said it out loud, not meaning to.
“I don’t think she ever really thought of herself as responsible for someone else. My grandmother was a very severe woman. She picked at my mother nonstop when we were around. Which wasn’t that often. When I think back on the times we saw her, I realized how much she browbeat my mom about her looks and what she ate. She got married pretty young. I’m betting it was to get away from home. But he wasn’t enough for Rebecca. Hell, we weren’t enough for him.”
The father who’d walked away without bothering to look back.
“I don’t know that you can take responsibility for that, Kel.”
Kelly rolled her eyes, ignoring him. “My mother sees everyone in terms of what they can do for her. I was pretty and learned fast so she pushed me into modeling. Once it looked like it could be a real thing for me, she tossed him aside and we moved to New York. In her mind, she sees all the stuff she did when I grew up, the heavy physical discipline, the rationing of food and affection to get me to do what she wanted, as good mothering. She gave me a career. And she did. But the cost, huh?”
“Did you get therapy? I mean, that’s a personal question and you don’t have to answer. But you’ve done a lot of work and you’ve done it to protect our daughters. It’s a pretty amazing place you’ve ended up in with your mother and your childhood.”
“I started going when I was pregnant with Maddie.”
“I never knew.” How could that have happened? He was still married to her then. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wouldn’t have cared. Not then. I know you think you would have. And I know the man who just threw himself between a crazy stage mother and her meal ticket certainly does. But you just... I needed someone solid.”
Defensiveness rose in him. “That’s unfair.”
“Oh, is it? It was pretty unfair from my end, too. And yet, it needed doing and no one was there to lean on so I handled it.” Her anger wisped away and she sighed. “I was freaked about the weight and the changes in my body. I saw her for several years. I still call her up from time to time when I need it. But mainly, I’m better.”
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t loved her back then. But the shame of her being right about how he just wouldn’t have given it the importance it deserved hit hard. “How did I not see? I mean, I knew you were concerned about your weight in general. I knew about the speed before Maddie. And even the chocolate counting. But I had no idea of the entirety of this. I’m sorry I didn’t pay enough attention. So fucking sorry. Again.”
Her gaze roved over his features; the light in her eyes was affectionate. “I think you should see this in a positive way. I’m done looking back. You weren’t ready for a family. I didn’t have the tools to deal with that or fix it then. After fruitless years, I left because there was no other choice if I wanted to respect myself. But I don’t want this past stuff to be something you have to beat yourself up over time and again. You asked me and I told you because I trusted you enough to share. That’s the point. Don’t miss it.”
He hugged her, kn
owing how lucky he was even as he hated that he hadn’t before. “All right. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for giving me a real chance. I love you.”
“I love you, too. But I’m so glad to be going home tomorrow.”
Harvest would start Thursday and Jeremy was going to be in town so he’d have to deal with some band stuff. He wouldn’t be around as much because of it so he wasn’t as excited as she to be leaving.
He’d gotten spoiled, spending all his time with them. He had to split that attention and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Now that he understood the joy of family with his women, he was loath to leave it even for just a short time.
“Come to bed.” She kissed him. Teasing.
“Always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“YOUR MOTHER IS HANDLED.” Stacey settled onto the couch next to Kelly. “She’ll behave. I spoke with her about the importance of boundaries. And that yours needed to be respected. Essentially I told her to back the fuck off or she’d be a lot poorer.”
“Thank you so much. You should have seen her in the lobby of my building. I wanted the ground to swallow me up,” Kelly said. “But Vaughan was so protective. He got between us and made her go.”
“She told me about how he threatened to ruin her.”
Kelly shrugged. “He underlined that it wasn’t about his fists, but he’d make her pay with his money and power if she fucked with me again. I’ve been half expecting her to try to charge him with assault or something.”
“I’ve impressed upon her that she’s to operate as if there’s a protection order in place. She needs to avoid your building and your boutiques. I’m having some papers drawn up. An agreement that should she violate your rules she’ll be waiving all future financial support. That’ll do the trick.”
Her friend had urged Kelly to do something like an agreement with her mother for years. Stacey didn’t like it that Kelly paid her mother at all, but if she was going to, Stacey had told Kelly to at the very least cover her ass so she could use it to keep her mother in line and out of Kelly’s life.