Complete We (A Her Billionaires Novella #4) (9 page)

Laura left, but Franks’s eyes were only for Jillian. “She looks so much like…” Frank’s voice faded out as he gave Dylan a skeptical look, clearly comparing the dark hair, darker-toned skin, and Italian features with Jillian’s light hair, hazel eyes, and coloring that made it seem impossible for Dylan to be her dad.

It wasn’t like anyone else hadn’t questioned it, too, but
this
guy? Dylan’s flush of anger returned. Being judged by strangers was one thing. Being judged by an entitled asshole who seemed to think he could sweep into his niece’s life and dictate the terms?

No fucking way.

“Like?” Dylan growled the word out.

“Like Laura,” Frank said softly, taking the diplomatic way out.

Dylan snorted. “Little girls tend to do that.”

“And Laura looks so much like my sister. Speaks like her as well. You never met Sharon, did you?”

“She died long before I met Laura.” Dylan measured his words carefully, saying “I” instead of “we.” Normally, he and Mike coded their words, trying to be as inclusive as possible. Even though he knew Frank knew about their permanent threesome, something made Dylan do into lockdown mode, giving away as little information as possible in an effort, however possibly misguided, to control what was going on here.

Where in the hell were Laura and Mike?

Jillian toddled over to Frank now that Dylan had put her down. She reached a grubby, gummy hand out to her great-uncle and said, “Dada?”

A hearty laugh poured out of Frank. “At this age they think every man is a daddy, hmm?”

Dylan had to give him that.

“And around here, it goes double!” Frank added.

Dylan could have done without the extra dig. He couldn’t soften toward the guy, who stared at Jillian and pretended he hadn’t said what he just said. Going against instinct, Dylan kept his mouth shut, hoping Mike and Laura would make an entrance soon. Not knowing what had happened between Mike and Frank earlier was killing him, though. He’d already ordered Frank to leave and that hadn’t gone so well.

Hopefully, Mike was filling Laura in right now and that was why they were delayed.

“Fang,” Jillian said as Frank let her play with his nose.

“Frank,” he said, clearly amused.

“Fang.”

“Uncle Fang it is, then.” Frank made a quiet chuckle. “I’m sure your other daddy thinks that’s about right.” His lips twitched with a condescending amusement that made Dylan momentarily homicidal.

Dylan frowned. “Why would Mike think that?” If Frank thought he was being funny, he was wrong. If he thought he was a master of manipulation and that the comment would undermine Dylan, all it had done was to make him more suspicious. Frank fail.

Frank swallowed audibly. “I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier today. I went to see him at his office and he seemed very angry. I’m going to assume he’s a hot-headed guy—”

“You assume wrong.” Dylan’s words sounded like a gong in a Buddhist monastery, ringing forth and permeating every cell with the vibration of the refusal to be ignored.

Frank cocked one eyebrow, refusing to back down, and yet… “Then perhaps I caught him on a bad day. He seemed abrupt.”

“Perhaps he didn’t like what you had to say.”

“Had he allowed me to say it, I might think as much,” Frank snapped back with a smile. “But he didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you come straight to Laura? Why go to Josie, then Mike, and now here?”

“Jealous?” Frank asked.

“Of…?”

“That I didn’t come to you first?” Frank shrugged, as if
that
were the problem here.

Letting the question hang in the air, Dylan took long, slow breaths through his nose, not rushing. Frank pretended to scan the room and bent down to pick up one of Jillian’s stuffed animals, a caterpillar of different colors. Dylan knew damn well Frank was monitoring his every twitch, every sigh, each breath and each blink. The blasé attitude wasn’t working.

Thank God Frank had decided to come when both he and Mike were home with Laura and the baby.

That gave Dylan pause, cracking his facade slightly. Why did Frank decide to come today, knowing full well they were here? Damn it, he wished he had time. Time to talk privately with Laura. Time to catch up with Mike and learn what happened. Time to get Jillie settled more.

Time to
think
.

Instead, he was being stared down now by Frank, who had made a calculated decision to change his entire demeanor, pinpointing Dylan in place and trying to mindfuck him.

Might work on Laura, but on him? Nope.

“I don’t care who you came to first,” Dylan said, his words belying his attitude. Because he didn’t care—not one whit. What he cared about was—

“And you came to Josie first, Uncle Frank. Why?”

Laura’s interruption jarred both men, Frank practically jumping an inch off the ground as her soft, feathery voice inserted itself between them. Dylan couldn’t help but take in her appearance: hair wavy from being wet, skin flushed with the excitement and anxiety of this situation, body wrapped in a gorgeous maxi dress that covered her, neck to ankle, in curvaceous rapture. If Frank weren’t here, he’d ogle and admire.

Protect and defend
was more his approach in this instance.

“Because you ignored my emails,” Frank said in a fake hurt voice.
Oh, please
, Dylan wanted to hiss, trying to catch Laura’s eye. The guy was a walking phony.

She was looking at Frank so solemnly, chin down and eyes upturned, that he caught a glimpse of what she must have looked like as a chastened child.

Oh, hell no. No way she was falling for Frank’s crap.

“You wrote her an email for the first time in years and waited two days before barging into her life!” Protectiveness rose up in him like the swell of a tsunami, taking over half a mile of inland beach as it destroyed everything in its path. Laura had done nothing wrong. Not one fucking thing. And yet this guy was dismantling her, emotional brick by emotional brick, right before Dylan’s eyes.

“I should have replied,” Laura said in a shaky voice.

Frank’s eyes gleamed with victory, his mouth stretching into a facsimile of gentle caring. “You’ve been busy. I understand.”

Dylan’s head exploded. “Get
out
.”

“These two really are a pair,” Frank mumbled. Dylan had no idea what the hell that meant until Mike walked in the room, wet hair matching Laura’s, angry face matching what Dylan imagined he himself looked like.

“I said the same words to him a short time ago,” Mike said quietly. Too quietly. Dylan’s alert level rose to flashing red. Mike was trying to say something without words, but all Dylan could sense was danger.

Laura’s eyes jumped from Frank to Dylan to Mike, her emotions changing as she looked at each man. Then she said:

“Frank, you really need to see this from our perspective. You emailed me, waited less than two days, appeared at my place of business and questioned my work associate, then you went to Mike’s workplace. Now you appear here, out of the blue, and you act as if you’re the injured party.” Laura took a slow, deep breath, eyes unwavering, staying on her uncle. Her voice shook. Her hands shook.

But damn if her essence wasn’t ramrod straight. She was feeling the fear of saying what she needed to say and doing it anyway.
Attagirl
.

Dylan caught Mike stand a little taller, dip his chin a little lower, and fixate on Frank, as Laura finished her words. He wanted to cheer for her.

Frank’s next words, though, made everyone shake.

“I do not see anything from your perspective, my dear, because your perspective is untenable.” He took two steps closer toward the door, then paused to make eye contact with each of them. “I learned about your…
arrangement
from a business associate who remembered hearing about your dating company on talk radio. When I put two and two together and realized that the Laura Michaels they discussed on the radio was my little Laura, I was appalled.”

So
that’s
where this was going. Dylan didn’t hold back rolling his eyes. Mike joined him. Frank had stainless-steel balls to come in here with a morality play. It wasn’t just about the money.

It was all about shaming them.

Not gonna work, bud
, Dylan thought.
Never in a million years
.

“You think I came here for money,” Frank said with a jerk of his head toward Mike. “And you think I came here to scare you or creep you out,” he said to Laura with such an even tone that Dylan felt like this was quickly turning into the monologue in a bad B-movie.

“But I came here because I am deeply concerned about the welfare of a poor, innocent child—” His eyes cut over to Jillian. “Who is the victim in this mess of a relationship you claim to have.”

Of all the statements Frank could have made, this was the most incendiary he could possibly have spat out. The words whipped through the room like a wildfire on a windy day, igniting Mike, Dylan, and Laura.

She sprinted across the room and swooped down on Jillian, scooping the baby into her arms. “Leave now,” she ordered. The look she gave Mike and Dylan made both move, instantly. Poke the Mama Bear and watch out.

Mike and Dylan were at Frank’s sides in seconds, bookending him but not touching him. Yet.

“Are you threatening me?” he asked, clearly amused. Any normal man would have backed down, but this guy was a piece of work.

A piece of disordered, entitled work.

“We’re not
anythinging
you,” Laura snapped. “But if you think you have the right to waltz back into my life and judge me in my own home, critiquing how I choose to live my life, then you are wrong, Frank. Dead wrong.”

He pulled his arms away from Mike and Dylan as if they’d touched him. Hands burning, wanting so much to grab the guy and shove his foot up the man’s ass, Dylan held back.

And then Frank said: “Sharon would be so disappointed. And so would my mom and dad.”

Tears pooled in Laura’s eyes and Dylan’s heart cracked in half. If he could have, he’d have yanked it out of his chest and beaten Frank to death with it, but instead he swelled with pride as Laura said in a cold, deadly voice:

“On the contrary. Grandma and Grandpa were disappointed in you. Did you know that Grandpa called you ‘Shiftless Frank’? It was only when you came for family gatherings that they put on the whole fawning bit. When you were gone, Grandma cried into her pillow. When you wired Grandpa for money, he took it from their own funds and boasted to Grandma how your ‘new investment’ would pay off ‘this time.’” Her fingers made air quotes, face twisted with mocking sarcasm.

Frank didn’t respond. At all. His face was as blank and polished as a granite counter.

“And then when it didn’t?” A shrill laugh filled the room. “They’d eat rice and beans for the next month. Grandma would take half her heart medication instead of the full dose, making it stretch.” She handed Jillian off to Dylan and marched right up to Frank, finger in his face.

“You have a lot of nerve coming in here and judging me. Trying to shame me. It worked, though, didn’t it? After Mom died?”

Frank’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t look away.

“You shamed me and bullied me into giving you half of her estate, and I did. I really felt like you ‘deserved’ it. And now you think because I’m with two guys who have more money than you ever imagined, I’m some kind of mark you can pressure.”

“I’m here because your daughter is being raised in depravity,” Frank finally responded, chin jutting out. “And I’m certain child services would be very interested in…this.”

Dylan broke out into a laugh he didn’t know he had in him. “You’re threatening to call child services because we…what? Have a clean, loving home for our daughter? Because Laura lives with two men? Good luck, buddy. Not only will you be laughed off the phone for making a call like that, we’ll countersue you so fast that judgmental chip on your shoulder will boomerang through the air and slice your head off before you can say ‘boo.’”

Frank just snorted and ignored him, eyes on Laura. His face shifted to concern. “I know it was hard after your mom died, honey. But this? This isn’t the kind of life you were raised to have. Not you, and certainly not my great-niece.”

“I asked you back at the office how much you want to go away,” Mike said. “You get one check, Frank. One. Make it a good number.”

The room grew still, the only sounds Laura’s ragged breath and Jillian’s little baby noises.

A stillness filled the room, making baby Jillian pause and gawk, first at her mother, then at Frank. Her great-uncle’s eyes narrowed, then flared, as if the muscle in his body were expanding and contracting on instinct, uncertain which way to move.

Dylan felt the same way.

Mike’s challenge hung in the air, and as Frank’s eyes moved to Laura, Dylan wanted to see genuine emotion in them. Something that tied her own flesh and blood to her, a deep-seated need inside Dylan to believe that family actually meant something to the man, and they’d all misjudged him.