She checked the number, then shot a lethal glare at him over her shoulder. “It’ll wait a few.” She tapped her ear. “Hey, baby, is everything okay?”
Those words slapped him hard and furiously.
Until he realized it wasn’t a man’s voice on the other end of her call. Or her sister’s.
It belonged to a young boy. “Hey, Ma! Do you have a few minutes?”
“For you, precious, always. How was school today?”
“Do I have to keep going? Isn’t there a law against torture or something?”
“Not for school kids, sorry. That’s just par for the course.”
He made a sound of supreme annoyance. “I miss you, Mama. When you coming to see me?”
“As soon as I can. Promise.”
“Okay,” he said petulantly, then sighed heavily—as if the world were coming to an end. “Well, Aunt Cin says I have to go do homework and not bother you. But that she’ll call you later. Love you, Ma!”
“You, too, doodles.” She made a kissing noise at him as he cut the connection.
His gut tight over the fact that the love of his life had a child with someone else, Bastien struggled to not let the hurt he felt show. But it was hard. Practically impossible as images of her in bed with another guy ate him raw.
While he’d known life wasn’t fair, this was a kick to his stones he really could have done without.
Trying to be a bigger man than that, he took a deep breath and leveled his tone. “Is your husband all right with you flying out on this mission?”
With me.
She shot a furious glare at him, over her shoulder. “I don’t have a husband, jackass.”
For reasons he didn’t want to think about, that made him feel better. A lot better. “Divorced?”
“Never married.”
He wanted to shout out in happiness. But that would definitely make him the jackass she’d proclaimed him to be. So with as much dignity as he could muster—which wasn’t much—he launched them.
After they were safely away, he tried to let the obviously sore topic go.
He couldn’t. Curiosity ate him and sank its nasty talons in deep. So deep that he couldn’t think about anything else. “What happened to your son’s father?”
That only seemed to irritate her more. “My baby has a name. Florian.”
Florian? Bastien mouthed the horrific name in mockery, grateful she couldn’t see his actions. Truly that was the only thing he could think that was worse than the awful name his mother had saddled him with.
Clearing his throat, he tried to tell himself not to say anything. To stay out of something that was none of his business.
He couldn’t.
For the kid’s sake, he had to speak up. “Florian? I can’t believe his father let you get away with that god-awful monstrosity.”
She let out a fierce, angry growl. “His father wasn’t around when he was born.”
“Where was he?”
Ember sat there, silently fuming, as a million caustic responses played through her head. A part of her wanted to cut him to the bone, but as he reached around her to control the ship and she saw the scars on his hands and arms from all the years he’d had to fight hard for his survival, she bit them back.
Worse? The scent of him filled her head and the warmth of his body cocooned her. And all the years she’d missed him slammed into her with such ferocity that it was all she could do not to turn around, strip his clothes from him and hold him skin-to-skin.
Don’t, Em. Let it go.
For too long, she’d thought him dead. There was no reason to hurt him more.
“Ember?”
A tear slid down her cheek at the sound of her name on his lips. Yet it wasn’t just that, it was the tenderness underlying that deep, fierce rumble. No one had ever said her name the way he did.
It carried the weight of his love and concern.
She wiped the tear away before he saw it. “He left me.”
Bastien fell silent as he remembered the guy he’d beat the hell out of on her behalf. From the sound of the kid’s voice and his approximate age, that would be around the same time. He most likely was the father. It would explain the conversation he’d overheard between her and her sister.
Which made him all the gladder he’d trounced the bastard.
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
Those words had the opposite effect than what he intended. Instead of cheering her, she burst into racking sobs the likes of which he’d never witnessed from her before.
Switching on autopilot, he gathered her into his arms. “Ember? What’s wrong?”
“I hate you!” she screamed before she started slapping at his hands. Not in a painful way, because he’d seen her actually lay a man low with a single punch, so he knew she wasn’t really hitting him. This was more what an angry mother would give to a child reaching for sweets at dinnertime.