Page 9

Chapter

Eight

C olton paced through the bottom floor of the long shotgun house, noting all the historical features still in place. It was a row home, a company store mining house for sure, but it would have been for a manager or a higher-up, not a hard rock hammer kind of guy.

The woodwork still gleamed, the carved newel post and built-in china cabinet just gorgeous. Sebastian’s family had never painted all that beautiful wood white or godawful gray or any of the other crimes against nature so many people did.

God save him from fucking chalk paint.

And the windows were still wavy glass, even if the casings were newer and the seals fortified against winter weather.

“That fireplace is a work of art, huh, Boss?” Mason said.

“No shit.” And that was an amazing picture of his child.

His baby.

His baby that he hadn’t known about.

He’d been calling his mom. His dad. Their lawyer. Their assistants. Everyone.

No one was calling him back. He was getting no love, and it wasn’t like he could go back to California and deal with it, because he had to handle shit here in Colorado. He needed to get to know his child and try to understand Sebastian and what was going on.

He had to figure out what the fuck his parents had been thinking, too. It was just insane, to deny him his child.

Because he believed Sebastian. In fact, he wanted to see the check. Sebastian hadn’t offered it, but he’d said something during the interview that made Colton believe it was in his desk drawer. So he was going to snoop a little.

He needed to find Sebastian’s desk. It was either on the third floor or down here. Possibly he had one on both.

Colton prayed it was down here. His leg was sore.

So he combed the first floor, and he was starting to despair when he saw the desk tucked all the way to the back of the kitchen. Where Sebastian could look out into the tiny yard.

Right. Baby girl.

The desk drawer was locked. Okay, so he would have to ask Sebastian?—

The desk drawer flew open, a box of staples flying out to land on his foot.

Well. It wasn’t locked anymore.

There were a half-dozen pens. A pair of scissors. A couple of sets of keys to God knew what. Some sticky notes, a few batteries, and there in the back, in the middle of the drawer was a folded piece of paper.

He pulled it out, knowing before he even got there what it was going to be because he knew his father’s lawyer’s—Rocky Allen’s—letterhead.

The letter was straightforward.

“I, Colton Everette Maxwell, the Third am the biological alpha of Abigail Theresa Belle, a female child who was born October 31?—”

His eyesight grayed out a little bit, and he focused first on easing himself down into Sebastian’s chair, forcing himself to take a few breaths before continuing.

“After thoughtful and careful consideration, I voluntarily give up all my parental rights to my child. Additionally, I voluntarily waive service of process and give my consent to voluntarily relinquish any further right to participate in parental proceedings pertaining to said child.”

Jesus, this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

“In doing so, I am fully aware that this surrender and written voluntary release of parental rights will terminate all of my parental rights to my child. In other words, I am fully aware that terminating my parental rights means I will forever lose custody of my child, and I will no longer have the right to make any decisions regarding my child’s care, support, education, and welfare. ”

He was going to throw up.

He could only imagine how Sebastian had felt.

It wasn’t his signature at the bottom of this form.

He’d seen his signature his entire life. He knew exactly what his signature looked like, and that wasn’t this. Not that he’d thought that he’d ever signed it. He knew better. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was he hadn’t signed it.

Attached to the letter was a business check. And that, his mother had signed. It was a check for two million dollars.

It was an uncashed, unsigned check.

It wasn’t fair. This whole thing wasn’t fair.

His heart aching, he grabbed his phone and called his mother again, rage burning in him.

“Answer your motherfucking phone,” he snarled.

“Colton, Colton, is that you? Sorry, honey, we’ve been out on the boat. We haven’t been back in for not even fifteen whole minutes. How’s it going?”

He was so angry for a second he couldn’t even breathe, much less speak. How could she sound so normal, so easy, so all right when his whole world had crashed like a burning zeppelin.

Bang.

The letter slid across the desk, and he grabbed it.

“Colton, are you there? Honey, I think we lost him.” She had no idea how true her words were.

“You tried to buy Sebastian so that he wouldn’t let me know that I had a baby. He tried to get hold of me. Let me know that I have a daughter, and someone signed my rights away.”

There was a moment of silence, and then his father came on the phone. “Now who knows what that greedy little son of a bitch told you?”

The pictures on the wall began to shake, to shimmer like they were in an earthquake.

“He hasn’t told me anything. He doesn’t have to tell me anything. I’m looking at the paperwork that I didn’t sign that was notarized. I’m looking at the unsigned and uncashed check. Try again.”

His father was silent for a long time. So long that he imagined his father had put him on silent mode in order to talk to his mother. Things started to drop to the floor, thankfully not breaking like he was. Not yet, at any rate.

“I know what you did!” he roared. “How the fuck could you do this to me! I have a daughter! How could you just throw her away!” He was going to stroke right out.

“You were ill; you were hurt. The last thing you needed was a gold digger who got himself pregnant bothering you.”

“What? That was my?—”

“We gave him plenty of money to raise the child. You don’t need the hassle.

” They sounded so calm, so logical. They could deny him the chance to know his daughter, to be with Sebastian without a single care.

“It’s not like you can marry the young man.

This way we guaranteed that you didn’t have any trouble. ”

The blood rushed in Colton’s ears and suddenly he couldn’t hear. “Trouble?”

“Sorry, but—” Mother started, and he growled.

“Sorry?”

“Don’t apologize, honey. He’ll be fine. You can have other children. We’ll find you someone suitable. An omega who’s qualified to deal with the kind of lifestyle you lead. Not some…person from wherever.”

He was just going to have an apoplexy. “How can you say that? That’s your granddaughter.”

“No, she doesn’t belong to us. She’s not one of ours. She’s not yours either. There’s paperwork.” Mother was beginning to crack around the edges, and it felt so good.

“I didn’t sign it.”

“Prove it.”

A delicate-looking hourglass that sat on Sebastian’s desk floated up and spun, and he picked it up, snatched out of the air.

“No breaking things.” That would make Sebastian unhappy.

“What? Son, are you well? Do you need a doctor?”

“Jesus.” Colton scoffed. “Are you about to have me declared incompetent now or something? And I will prove this isn’t my signature. I know a forensic document guy. In my line of work, I know one of everything. You should know that by now.”

“Now, Colton.”

“No. Don’t you try to guilt me.” He wasn’t going to make a loud, public stink.

That would kill Sebastian, and he would never do that.

But that lawyer was going down. Hard. He would sue the bastard and report him to the bar association.

Make sure he never did anything fucking illegal for his billion-dollar parents again.

“I don’t think I can ever forgive you for this. ”

Knowing he had a child? Knowing Sebastian was waiting for him? That would have given him something to recover for. His gut was sour, his head ached, and his leg might just fall off.

And books were pelting him.

“Sebastian was… Sebastian was my person.”

Suddenly, the cookbooks fell to the ground with varying thuds, and everything went quiet for a moment.

“I’m sure we can find someone else to be your person. Omegas are a dime a dozen. You can have children.” His father’s voice was just so damn pompous. Like they were going to arrange his marriage like he was a hero in some romance novel about the Regency era.

They didn’t understand, they weren’t going to, and he, to be honest, had other things he could spend his time on, namely getting to know his child and convincing his person that he wasn’t a total jerk.

He didn’t bother answering; he just hung up the phone. And didn’t answer when it rang back right away. Then he looked around at the floor. “Well, you guys made a mess. I think you should clean it up.”

Colton noticed that, while the ghosts were perfectly happy to throw things around and make things messy, much like a child, they didn’t come and pick them back up and put them where they went.

“Assholes. You’re all assholes.” His cane clattered on the floor.

Iago came in, looked around. “Well, you’ve been busy. What were you doing, and did you take any readings?”

“I was on the phone.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Mom and Dad?”

Colton tilted his head. “What?”

“Oh, come on. I saw that little girl. I saw that picture. She’s got your eyes. I saw how you reacted to Sebastian Belle. You were all over him like moss on a rock. That’s your daughter.”

“I didn’t know about her.” Iago’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head. “My parents tried to pay him off. They sent paperwork saying that I gave up my parental rights. I didn’t sign it.”

“If your parents paid him off, why is he living here with the ghosts?”

“He didn’t cash the check.”

“Oh, I like him!” Iago actually applauded.

“You just like anybody who fucks with my parents.”

“So, what if I do? Maybe it’s petty? It’s still pretty cool, and he’s done a good job raising that little girl. She was a sweetheart.”

“She is. She’s a doll baby.” And his. God. He rubbed his leg. “I have no idea what to do.”

That damn hourglass tried to float again, and he yanked it back down. “Not helping! Can’t you be ghosts who do automatic writing or some shit? Help me out in some real way? Oh, and whoever is being mean to my little girl? Cut it the fuck out.”