Page 82 of The Disputed Legacy

32

SAUL

In the middle of the night, I watched Willow sleep. We showered together after making love, and we both fell fast asleep right afterward. I had wanted to talk to her, but as soon as we got out of the bathroom, being quiet so as not to wake Oscar in his room, I could tell how she was barely keeping her eyes open.

I’d told myself that I would need to keep my hands to myself tonight. To talk to her. But when I tried to start that conversation with all the feelings I wanted to express to her, she broke. Hearing her admit so woefully that she was owned forced me to do all that I could to correct her.

We hadn’t been in each other’s lives for long, yet there was no way she could lie to me and tell me that she wasn’t mine. There wasn’t a chance that she could convince me that someone else owned her.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand, distracting me from wondering what she’d meant when she told me that she wanted to be mine but was owned.

Her wording seemed off. She hadn’t said that someone specifically owned her, but that she was owned. The differencewas subtle. Her emphasis on being owned threw me off. She was stating the action, the process, not that someone had a hold over her.

I picked up my phone and looked at the screen, a little surprised that my brother was setting up a meeting with me. It seemed too soon to have the results for the paternity test. I had guessed it would take another day, but then again, Maxim probably had requested and paid for the tests to be expedited.

Nik:Tomorrow at the dock.

Saul:I’ll be there.

Nik:What the fuck are you doing up this late?

Saul:What are you?

He sent a picture of him holding his daughter, her face scrunched in a cry as Katerina lay on the bed in the background pressing a pillow over her face.

I chuckled.

Nik:Let me guess. Trouble in paradise for the bachelor?

I rolled my eyes. He was right. There was no paradise to imagine when Willow thought she belonged to someone or something else.

Nik:I was kind of hoping this would work out for you.

I held in a growl.

Saul:Who says it’s not?

I would make this work. Willow would be mine. She already was mine. I texted him one more time that I’d be there, and I spent the rest of the night imagining how I’d bring Willow and Oscar to the house. How I’d take it slowly and make sure she wouldn’t want to go running scared.

With this meeting so early in the morning, I wouldn’t have much time to talk to Willow before she went in to work at the diner. I was starting to get the impression that I would need to be creative about having private time with Willow. Private timewhere we could talk and not be distracted and fall into bed together.

For the rest of the night and into the morning, I held her and slept as soundly as I could. When I got up and got dressed to leave, I leaned over and nudged her gently.

“I need to go take care of something,” I told her.

She rolled over more, opening her sleepy eyes just a bit. “Hmmm?”

I smiled. “I’ll see you later. I need to go handle something.”

Nodding lazily, she mumbled something that might’ve resembled a word, but I had no clue which one.

“I’ll see you later tonight,” I promised before kissing her.

She murmured another sound that seemed like an agreement before reaching up to hold the back of my head and pull me down for a kiss. Her eyes were already closed again, and she steered me toward her chin, not her lips. I corrected the course and kissed her.

“M… later.”

I grinned at her, already sleeping again. She was so irresistible, even like this.