Despairing Tides (Fate's Intent Book 12) (29 page)

“Cadence, listen to me.” Ruby pulled her away to look at her. “You need to stay strong for her and remember your father is here to make sure you never have to come back to this place ever again.”

Cadence looked at me. I could see her mother in her eyes but I also started to see traits of me in a feminine way that reminded me of my mother. I was starting to see it the more I believed it. She truly was mine.

“Daddy?”

I tried not crying in front of her, that would have only been embarrassing but I took her into my arms as my daughter for the very first time. She was completely soaking but I didn’t care. I was just glad I finally knew the truth and was holding her here.

Ruby was watching us and trying not to cry with us but then she slid her hand down to her stomach. I remembered we still had one more thing to tell her. I was going to be a grandfather and the thought alone made me nervous about how we would explain.

“I’m so glad you’re okay and you’re more than deserving to be a part of this family but there’s something else.”

She seemed nervous as well. “Something else? Mother is dead, you’re my father, I’ve been completely abused and mistreated by my own brother, what more could their possibly be?”

I still didn’t know how to say it but I was glad Ruby was here because she just as easily did it for me. “You’re pregnant.” Cadence’s eyes got wide and she started breathing heavily.

“Now, wait a second. It’s not how you think. It’s not Blake’s.” I said.

“It’s not?” Cadence slowly stopped worrying. “But how do you know?”

“We just had Bryce confirm it. It’s too far along to be Blake’s. It’s Seth’s.”

Cadence let of a sigh of relief and closed her eyes for a moment to think about this. I know it was a lot to take in all at once but she was strong even if she didn’t believe it. She could handle it.

“Does he know?”

“Not yet but he’s waiting to see you. Bryce went to get him.”

Cadence nodded and the door opened again. It was Seth.

Ruby smiled and pulled me up. “We’ll leave you alone. Tomorrow is when we shall be gone for good.”

“Thank you.” Cadence said taking her hand for a moment. “Father.”

I smiled and leaned down to kiss her sweet forehead. “Be subtle about it.”

“I will.”

We walked to the door and I was last to pass Seth, still staring at her. “Seth?” He turned his eyes to me and I took his hand.

“Are you still okay with this, sir?”

I smiled when he thought he needed to use a formality with me. “Of course I am. I know she’s in good hands.”

“Thank you.”

I nodded and followed Ruby back to the galley so they could do this alone. As I remember, we still have something to deal with in here; Meg.

Chapter 56

Seth

Of course I wanted to see her. I’ve been waiting for this and we were left alone.

I still stood by the doorway and didn’t want to pressure distance onto her so soon. I knew she was still going to need time and I sat down on a stool by the door.

Cadence started getting a sad look on her face and her eyes started to water. “Seth?” I didn’t say anything but continued to sit back away from her and a tear rolled down her face. “I need you.”

I still didn’t move. I didn’t know if it were a good idea yet but Cadence started to get up out of the water. She stood up out of it and held her arms around herself, shivering from the sudden temperature change. That’s when I got up and reached next to me for a blanket. I walked over to her as I unfolded it and wrapped it around her. Once she had a hold of it, she stepped out and I held her in my arms like I’ve been wanting to do for a while. She wanted me to and that’s the only reason I was going to do it but she was still crying and she had her head pressed up against my chest.

“I’m sorry.” She muttered.

I was confused and slowly pulled her away from me and looked her in the eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for. This was not your fault.”

“I tried to stop it but the more I resisted the worse it got. I was just so scared.”

“It’s all right.” I pulled her head back to my chest for comfort. “You’re with me now and I won’t let anything happen to you, ever. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you be rid of this.”

“Really?”

“Of course because I love you and no matter what happens, I always will.”

Cadence paused and stepped away from me. “Then you should know something.”

“What? I know Darius is your father.”

“I know. Not that.” She took a breath and looked at me. “I’m pregnant.”

My whole body just locked up and I was so disappointed that we couldn’t have stopped this sooner. I had to look away.

“Seth?” She went to reach for me but I just pulled away and didn’t let her touch me. I couldn’t believe this was happening. “Is this how it’s going to be? I never thought you’d show hate to your own child.”

I looked back with wide eyes. “What?”

“It’s not Blake’s. It’s yours. It’s ours.”

“You sure?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. It’s been confirmed.”

I felt myself relax with a smile and stepped towards her for a kiss. Cadence let the blanket fall to the floor and started to remove her wet clothes.

This caused me to immediately step back. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“It’s all right. I need you to. I want to feel what real love is again and celebrate this news.”

I didn’t know if she should have been ready yet but she’s the one that said so and I reached for the bottom of her shirt as she lifted up her arms. I slowly pulled it up off her wet body until it was over her head and I dropped it on the floor, still looking at her.

Cadence lightly smiled at my desired facial expression and put her hands around the waist of her skirt, slowly inching it off her hips. It fell to the floor and she stepped out of it as I picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her again. She held onto the front of it around her chest and looked up at me. I was looking into her eyes and leaned in to kiss her again. Cadence leaned in the rest of the way and we were locked in a passionate trance for just those few short seconds.

I knew I wanted this now. I picked her up and carried her out of the bathhouse to the bed, gently laying her down. She bit her bottom lip while she watched me and pulled me closer. I smiled and leaned down and kissed her then stood up and pulled my shirt up off over my head. As it dropped on the floor, I started taking off my boots and Cadence quickly lifted herself up and pulled the blanket out from around her to get under it.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry. Apparently, you’re not.” Dirk had opened the door and saw her in bed with me still standing by shirtless.

“What do you want?” I asked, aggravated that someone had interrupted us.

“I just came to tell you that food is ready if you wanted any but I can see you’re busy.”

He seemed nervous and I shared a look with Cadence. “Are you okay with this?”

“Okay? Yeah. Of course I’m okay. You’re about to do my sister. I’m completely fine.”

Cadence giggled although I still sensed that he wasn’t fine but I replied to stay normal about it. “Can you give us fifteen minutes?”

“Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. It’s good to see you getting back to normal, Cadence and oh yeah, congratulations on impregnating my sister, Seth.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying to hold back from letting his eyes turn red.

“It’s okay, Dirk.” Cadence said. “We’ll be right out.”

Dirk nodded quite a few times to show his level of uncomfortableness but he headed out the door, closing it.

“He hates this.” I said.

Cadence took my hand. “Oh, don’t say that. He’s just trying to get used to it like we all are.”

I sighed and looked down at her. “The moment passed, hasn’t it?”

She smiled. “Now, I wouldn’t say that. We can still celebrate. We’ll just have to start it up again, that’s all.”

She pulled me onto her and we started kissing.  It was enough to help me change my mind and I got under the blanket with her but still had my pants on when she rolled on top of me. We were still kissing until she started kissing down my neck and the front of my body.

I just laid there and took in the feeling while she reached the waist line of my pants and started pulling them down. I helped as best I could but when she grabbed a hold of me and wrapped her lips around me, I was almost paralyzed. All I could do was lay there and take it, not wanting it to stop but she suddenly did stop and I wasn’t ready for it.

I looked down at her, taking slow deep breaths and watched her wiped the saliva off the corner of her mouth and smile. I dropped my head back on the pillow still taking slow deep breaths and Cadence moved up and straddled me where I laid.

I brought my hands down onto her hips and assisted in the motion they were making and enjoying every second. She kissed me and I brought up one of my hands and put it on the back of her neck, stopping her from pulling away. We continued to kiss while Cadence kept her hips in a slow steady motion then I flipped her over and was the one on top. She smiled at me and I took control of the motion and speed from here.

This was when Cadence was really starting to show she enjoyed it. She had a tight hold around my back and I was watching her reaction to my presence. Her breathing started to pick up and I lowered myself down onto her all the way and her grip got tighter. She started moving her hips opposite of mine and it intensified the feeling.

With every thrust of my hips against hers, she let out a series of pleasurable moans, signifying her completion of total relaxation. I gradually started to slow down when her grip started to loosen until I finally stopped.

We laid there for a moment and I watched her breathing heavily. She was showing signs of exhaustion when I rolled off her to the left and supported my head with my right hand. With my other, I moved around Cadence’s hair as she slowly turned her head towards me and opened her eyes. “That definitely had to be the greatest sex we’ve ever had.”

I smiled as I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “It definitely was. Too bad it’s over.”

“I’m okay with that. It was good.”

I kissed her forehead again but started getting up. “Well, we better get to the galley and get something to eat before it’s gone.” I slipped my pants back on.

“You go. I’m too tired to move.”

I smiled and pulled my shirt on over my head. “All right. I’ll bring you something, how’s that? My baby’s got to eat.”

Cadence laughed. “Sounds good. Thank you.”

I nodded and put my last boot on then started walking out. I walked across the upper deck to the galley and everyone turned their heads as I entered. “What?”

“Nothing.” Bryce smiled as he took a bite of food.

“Oh, that’s funny coming from you.” I picked up a plate and started putting food on it. “You’re the one that knew first.”

“Yeah, well, sorry we had to miss the celebrating.”

“Yeah, so you should fill in the blanks for us.” Rory added.

“Please, you’re the last person I would share that story with. Them being the others.”

“Well, thank you for including us in that.” Darius said. “As you are definitely right.”

I tried not to make this awkward. “See? Show some respect.”

Rory smiled like he wasn’t going to let it go and everyone was watching him. “What? You saw her.”

“Yeah, and she was very naked but nothing like that ever crossed my mind.” Dirk said. “She’s actually my sister.”

“Well, I guess that would be awkward but you have one hot sister.”

“Can you stop talking for one second, please?” I said. “You’re lucky Vera’s not here to listen to you talking like this.”

“What would she do?”

I sighed. He clearly didn’t know a thing about women.

“It must be the Hintin air.” Bryce said. “It’s clouding his mind about women again.”

“What?” Rory laughed. “You’re so wrong.”

“I doubt it. That never happens.”

Rory started laughing and everyone just looked at each other.

“What’s so funny?” Dirk wondered.

“I’m sorry.” Rory said, trying to calm down. “This is too easy it’s almost amusing.”

“What?” I asked.

“That you actually believe that.”

“Because it’s the truth.” Bryce replied.

“Then why are you sitting here still believing Jinx doesn’t go for women?”

“What?” Dirk, Bryce and I said it at the same time, wondering what he really knew.

“Yeah, because he does. You’ll believe anything.”

“How do you know?” Bryce asked. “You’re source could be wrong.”

“My source?” Rory wondered, raising an eyebrow. “You do know that I can read minds, right? I don’t think it’s a secret.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, my source shouldn’t be wrong if I heard it from him. He’s constantly going on with himself about some girl he impregnated. Someone named Kieleena?”

“What?” I asked. “Who is she?”

“Clearly a woman. Isn’t that all you need to know?” We looked at each other, getting angry about this. “See? You’re not always right but if you don’t want to believe me, ask him. Good evening, Captain!”

I turned my head and Jinx walked in for dinner but he scowled. “Why are you sucking up to me? What’d you do?”

“Nothing. More to the point, what did you do?”

He still seemed unsure what was going on.

“Just take the question and ponder it. I’m going to bed.”

Rory left but I was just getting more heated about this the longer I was seeing Jinx. I confronted him openly. “You’ve been lying to us.”

Jinx looked around like he was wondering if I was actually talking to him. “I have?”

“You don’t really go for men, do you?”

He was still trying to figure it out. “How do you mean? Like—sexually prefer men because I’m kind of involved if you’re asking because you’re interested.”

“No. We were told you only went for men and I dropped my quarrel with you about being around Cadence because of it.”

“Your quarrel with me?”

“Because you’re close and you only kind of proved what she was saying when you aimlessly start laughing when I pointed out you trying to get with her?”

He laughed a little. “Is that what this is about? I was hoping that maybe you put the pieces together yourself when you found out who my mother was.”

“Who is your mother?” Father asked.

“It’s Sharlet.” Dirk said. “The one that saved Lana.”

My father’s eyes widened and he rose to his feet but I still didn’t know why. “Venny’s Sharlet. The exiled?”

Jinx nodded.

“Then you’re the true heir.”

“Wait.” I cut in. “What’s happening?”

“Venny was Wyatt’s older brother. They said he died in a training accident but Sharlet knew it was actually Wyatt so he would get the throne. When he found out, he had her exiled out of the country when she probably later gave birth.”

My eyes widened and I looked right at Jinx. “You’re technically related. That’s why you’d never get with her.”

“Technically, yes.”

“Then you could do something. End his reign when he’s going to try and deny that Darius is her father.”

“I could but I’m like the rest of you in the way that I look just like my father. The moment Wyatt sees me, he would have me killed on the spot.”

“So, that’s really the reason why you didn’t come with us ashore that night.” Dirk figured. “You didn’t want him to see you.”