I was focusing so hard on keeping myself together, I didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs until Eva rounded the corner with a baby on her hip and her free arm loaded with bags.
“Oh! Knox. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” She had to dance around my feet to avoid tripping over them.
As I pulled my legs in closer to my body and gaped up at her in horror, she grinned back, having no clue how close to detonating I was.
“Thank God you decided to come back. I got you some clothes this morning. I guessed on sizes, so fingers crossed that something actually fits.”
I stood because it seemed wrong to sit in front of her while she was standing there, loaded down with so much weight.
“I can carry something.”
I reached for the bags, but she handed me the kid. I froze, scared out of my mind, as soon as the little girl landed in my arms.
Why the hell was she handing me her child while I was like this? I could lose my control at any second. But neither mother nor daughter seemed to care. As Eva strode ahead of me toward their apartment door, Skylar grinned at me, clutched a handful of my shirt and babbled out a greeting.
My stomach clenched as I stared back. She could’ve been Bentley if her hair had been red. She could’ve been my sweet, innocent niece who’d died a tragic death, but she was a real live girl, here in my arms and gazing at me with absolute trust.
A cold sweat dripped down my back. I hurried after Eva and halted just inside the doorway, hesitating when Pick and Julian entered the living room from the kitchen, the scent of coffee following him. He paused when he saw me, and I remembered what he’d said the night before. He trusted me with his children.
Except all the responsibility his trust bore on me only made me panic more. What if I accidentally hurt one of his babies?
“What do you think?” Eva asked, pulling something from the first shopping bag. “I went with dark colors because they seem to suit you.” She turned to me and held up a navy-colored shirt as she came forward to measure it against my shoulders and see how well it would do. “I got a couple hoodies too. All sized extra-large. But we can take them back if they don’t fit.”
When she held one of those up next, I blinked in confusion. “You really bought me clothes?” I wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. “You didn’t have to do that.”
She shrugged and turned away. “We wanted to.”
I glanced at Pick. He shrugged too.
Well, shit. I owed these people more than they could ever know, and how had I repaid them? By wrecking Pick’s office. By pushing him against a wall. By giving one of his favorite employees a black eye.
Bile rose in my throat.
“It was nearly impossible to find long pants,” Eva went on, tugging a pair of blue jeans from her shopping bag. “But I’m not a shopping queen for nothing. I just hope these will be comfortable enough.”
She tried to come at me with them next, but Pick intercepted her. “Tink, maybe we could do this later. I need Knox to help me at the office with something for a while. Okay?”
She squinted at him as if she knew he was lying. But she shrugged and smiled. “All right. You guys have fun. See you later, love.”
After smacking him on the lips with a kiss, she took both kids from us and herded them toward the kitchen. “Let’s see what Daddy was making for breakfast, shall we?”
As soon as they were out of sight, Pick sent me a hard glance. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out the door, without a word. I had no idea what he had planned, but if he brought up Felicity, I wouldn’t be able to take it.
My fists would fly.
Once we were in his car and heading in the opposite direction from the club, I glanced over. “So where are we really going?”
I expected him to tell me he was dropping me off at the first curb he found that was sufficiently far away from his family. But he said, “I came up with an idea for you, a place I think you could go when you’re like this.”
My jaw clenched. “Like what?”
Damn it, could he tell? Did he realize just how close to the surface my violence was getting, when the rest of his family had been utterly oblivious?
“Don’t dick me around, Parker. I’m betting a hell of a lot on a gut feeling I have about you, and risking even more if I’m wrong. The least you can do is be honest with me. And you have the same look in your eyes as you did last night before you destroyed my office.”
Humiliation sliced through me. Gripping my fingers around my knees, I watched how white my knuckles grew. “I wouldn’t have hurt your family,” I muttered, even though I wasn’t too sure of my own claim. I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt anyone, but I wasn’t sure if I could control myself enough to stop it.
