Betting the Bad Boy (8 page)

“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” Duke said softly. “I’ll get rid of it.”

Ryder looked at him for a moment as if not sure how to take that. “If you think you can buy me stuff and I’ll like you, you’re fucking crazy.”

Duke took a deep breath. “I’ve been your father for about five minutes, but I’m going to remind you to watch your mouth around me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I pull your tongue out and feed it to my dogs.”

Ryder’s head snapped toward him.

“I’m not your mother, boy. Or your grandfather. You aren’t going to run over me.”

“Where were you?” He looked and acted like a tough kid, but Duke saw a little boy in there and he was hurting.

“I didn’t know about you. I promise I didn’t.” Obviously Grace hadn’t told their son about him because she didn’t want him knowing that his father had spent half of his life in prison. Duke almost didn’t blame her for that.

Duke had to walk around knowing that at best his own father was a careless drunk, and at his worst a cruel bastard. He knew what it was like to be ashamed of his old man. His kid shouldn’t have to be ashamed of him. “Why did you leave my mom?”

He didn’t do it willingly … but then again maybe he had. He had broken up with Grace after learning she was going to turn down admission to an Ivy League school to be with him. They had fought about it and it had been nasty. He had been nasty, saying what had to be said to ensure she didn’t want him anymore. But he had to do it. He was setting her free, giving her a chance that she’d never have if she stayed with him. He would never have thought that his plan could backfire the way it did. He would never have thought he’d get into the fight that led to the loss of his freedom.

Grace, he assumed, never made it to that Ivy League school. It was probably too hard to attend school while she was nursing his baby. “I went away. We had different plans in life.”

“I hate her.”

“Don’t hate her,” he said even though he was so pissed at her he couldn’t see straight. “Raising you alone probably wasn’t easy.” Duke could see that he was taken care of, that his clothes were new and clean, that he was well fed and loved. He could see that it was Grace who went without so that Ryder could have. “I was bad news when I was younger. I had to get my shit together.”

“She should have told me.”

“You’re right.”

“You don’t have to agree with me,” he snapped, sounding incredibly surly “It’s not going to get me to like you.”

“I don’t really care if you like me. But you should know I’m not going anywhere. I’m moving in.”

“Why?”

“Because I am your father and you are my son and we should know each other.”

“You don’t expect me to call you Dad, do you? Because I won’t. You’re not my dad. You’re just somebody who slept with my mom.”

Goddamn it, this kid was going to be tough. This kid was going to be just like him. “Call me Duke for now.”

Ryder was quiet for a long moment, and Duke felt bad for him. He knew how bewildered he had been when he learned. He could barely imagine how it was for the kid. “Okay.”

“Now, the first fatherly thing I’m going to do is tell you to get your ass inside and apologize to your mother.”

Chapter 8

Grace watched Duke and Ryder push their dinner around their plates that evening. It could have been that given the emotions of the day, neither one of them was hungry. But Grace suspected, at least in Ryder’s case, that he just wasn’t a fan of her broiled fish, steamed broccoli, and brown rice. Getting Ryder to eat healthy had been a battle and she suspected the only reason he went willingly to his grandfather’s house was so that he could eat whatever he wanted.

“Are you ready for dessert?” she asked as she got up to clear their plates. It was the only words that had been spoken during the dinner. She knew they were both too angry with her to attempt conversation, and she was too exhausted to be bothered by it. It was weird sitting there with Duke and Ryder like they were a family. There were so many times she had wondered what it would have been like if Duke had never gone to prison. Would they have gotten married? Would they have stayed together if they had?

“What is it?” Ryder asked, refusing to look her in the eye. He’d apologized for telling her he hated her when he came back in the house with Duke. She didn’t believe that he was sorry and she didn’t blame him. It was her fault. She hated herself.

“I’ve got fresh strawberries and homemade, low-fat whipped cream.”

He pulled a face. “No thanks.”

“Come to the store with me, boy,” Duke said.

“But what about dessert?” she asked feeling oddly abandoned.

Duke stood, tugging Ryder by the collar of his shirt. “Eat your strawberries, Grace.” The two of them were gone after that, leaving Grace to wonder if she was going to end up losing her son to Duke.

They returned an hour later, Ryder sipping on a huge milk shake. She didn’t like for him to have sweets so late in the evening. She also didn’t want him to have food in his room, but she said nothing to him, figuring she owed him at least that.

They watched Ryder go upstairs to his room after he said a gruff good night to them. He usually allowed her to kiss his cheek before he went to bed, but not tonight, and it stung a little bit.

“He sleeps upstairs?” Duke asked her when they no longer heard his footsteps.

“Yes. I sleep on this floor in that room over there.” She pointed down the hallway. “I was nervous about letting him sleep upstairs alone, but I figured if somebody broke into the house they would kill me first.”

“Is that a joke?” he asked her, his face blank.

“It’s supposed to be.”

“It’s not funny.”

“I know.” The air was so thick with tension that she almost couldn’t breathe. “I made up your room while you were gone.” She looked up at him. He was so tight with anger, but so beautiful to look at in his fitted black T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and black boots.

He grabbed his bag off the floor and followed her down the hall to the basement door. “You planning on keeping me down here so the neighbors don’t see me?” he asked her as they walked down the stairs.

He was taking a jab at her. She stiffened but didn’t respond to his anger, too exhausted. “I thought you would appreciate the space.” She turned on the light to reveal a finished apartment with its own bathroom and kitchenette. “The Phillipses finished the basement for their son. They put a lot of money into this instead of the rest of the house.”

This space was the reason she had brought the house, because while most of it was ugly she felt that love had gone into making this room. The walls were painted buttercream. There were built-in shelves on the walls and framed paintings. The furniture down here was fairly new and in nicer condition than the stuff she had upstairs.

“The bathroom is in the corner. I put washcloths, towels, and soap in there for you. There’s also a full bathtub in case you ever feel the need to take a bath.”

“Are you saying I need to bathe?”

She shut her eyes before they filled with tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of him anymore. “Duke … No. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know. But I’m mad at you so I don’t really feel like being all that nice.”

She opened her eyes and nodded at him. He was staring at her, searching her face. She wished she knew what he was looking for. “Where did you take Ryder?”

“To the burger shack off Route Four.”

“Oh, you got milk shakes for dessert?”

“No. I fed him. He ate a double bacon cheeseburger, a hot dog, and a large order of cheese fries. The milk shake was just to wash it all down with.”

“What? You can’t feed him stuff like that! Do you know how much saturated fat and processed crap was in that food?”

“I might be a little too simple-minded to understand how unhealthy that meal was. But you can’t tell a boy that he does indeed have a father after going thirteen years without him and then feed him broiled fish and broccoli. He needed something else. Something to make him feel something other than what he is feeling, because if he’s feeling anything near what I’m feeling, he is confused and pissed off and rubbed raw.”

“Did he talk to you about it?”

“No,” he said. She felt relieved. She couldn’t bear the thought of her son opening up to a man he barely knew, even if that man was his father. “We didn’t say anything. I don’t think either of us is used to the fact that we’re father and son. When did you know you were pregnant?”

She thought back to that time and briefly closed her eyes as that wound was sliced open again.

“I was at the end of my third month when I figured out what was wrong with me.” She walked away from him and sat on his bed, her legs feeling too wobbly to support her weight. “My parents sent me to Rhode Island. All the way across the country to stay with friends of theirs. I didn’t want to go, but they told me it was just for a few days until things blew over. I was supposed to relax, they told me. I stayed in a big house right on the ocean. They figured I would be happy there once I forgot about you. I should have realized then what my father was up to. He was furious when he found out how involved we were. I had embarrassed him and the family name. He wanted to punish me.”

Duke’s nostrils flared and he shook his head. “Lolly told me they sent you away. I just assumed you never wanted to come back.”

“You would have heard it from me if you had bothered to read any of the letters that I sent you.”

Duke’s head snapped up. “You never sent me a damn thing.”

“I sent you twenty letters. One every single week.”

“You’re lying.” He looked more stricken than furious, but his voice was full of anger and she wanted to flinch at the accusation.

“Don’t you dare accuse me of lying. I loved you, damn it. I stopped writing when I realized you didn’t love me back.”

“I never got them. Not one fucking letter, Grace. You can’t tell me that all twenty of them got lost in the mail. You can’t tell me that there wasn’t a phone for you to reach me.”

“I tried! They wanted me to forget about you. I was set up on dates with nice young men, from good wealthy backgrounds. They told me how bad you were for me at every single turn. They wouldn’t let me out of the house unescorted. I couldn’t use the phone or get anywhere near a computer without supervision. I was a prisoner there. It may have been a mansion, but I was a prisoner.”

“Maybe, but your sentence was a hell of a lot shorter than mine.” He paced away from her. “Tell me more. Tell me about how you found out.”

“I was sick for those three months. I couldn’t get out of bed. I stopped caring if I could go out of the house. We all thought I was just depressed, but when I missed my period for the fourth time I realized it was more than that. I knew I was having your baby, and I thought you didn’t care.”

“That’s bullshit,” he spat. “You know me better than that.”

She nodded. “I thought I did, too. But silence hurts a hell of a lot more than any words could. Besides, you told me you didn’t want me, remember? I assumed you were just reminding me of that.”

She watched his chest heave as he took her words in. “I would have killed for you. I nearly did.”

She nodded. That was the truth. That night she thought he had loved her. She thought they were going to get back together and have a good life. That it would all blow over and they could start over together somewhere new.

“What did your parents say when they found out?” he asked, his eyes focused on her.

“My father wanted me to get rid of him,” she said slowly, remembering the painful time. “He even made an appointment at a doctor for me, but I refused to go. I loved Ryder from the moment I knew I was pregnant. My mother had him cancel it. She never spoke up to him, but she told him that he went too far. She made him apologize to me, but it was too late then. I knew I could never look at him the same after that.”

“You should have tried harder to tell me. You had to have known that the jail blocked me from getting those letters. You had to know that Patrick Andersen’s father had such tight control over me I couldn’t fucking breathe. You should have sent the letters to Colt or Lolly. Hell, a goddamn carrier pigeon would have been better. You should have done more.”

Now she knew that. But then … “I was so ashamed of what I’d done. I couldn’t face your family. It took everything there was in me to write those letters to you.”

She thought back to the night of the fight. She had worn Duke’s favorite dress, and the cheap perfume he had bought her for her birthday, and gone out on a date with a guy Duke had always hated, just to get back at him for breaking up with her.

Patrick Andersen was as cocky as they came. But his father was chief of police. His mother had come from money. Their entire lives, people tried to put them together. The police chief’s son and the judge’s daughter. The perfect match.

But Patrick got a little too bold that night and slipped his hand up her dress and tried to stick it between her legs. She slapped him and he slapped her back hard, calling her a bitch and a tease. Then out of nowhere, Duke came and punched him with so much force Patrick’s head snapped back. Blood flew from his mouth, and his look of pure shock mixed with drunken rage was one Grace would never forget.

The fight that followed was brutal, each of the men giving it their all, but it was Patrick who ended up with the broken ribs and the concussion and it was Duke who ended up in prison. Ten years was the original sentence. Attempted murder was the charge.

It was the police chief’s son and there were witnesses there that night who said Duke had intended to kill him. She could never guess what was going on in Duke’s mind that night, but she knew that Duke wouldn’t have tolerated any man hitting a woman. And even if Duke hadn’t intended to kill him, she knew he wanted to teach Patrick a lesson he would never forget.

“I wanted to testify on your behalf. But I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me help you. And when my father found out that I wasn’t going to get rid of Ryder, he tried to marry me off to some man who was twenty years older than me. It was then I ran away.”