Page 13 of His Custody

“So what was that phone call about?”

“Right, that.”

He started pacing, so she held the glass in her hands, and it grew warmer as she passed it back and forth. It was pretty, looked almost like earth from space. She waited for Jasper to talk. He wasn’t one for hesitating. Gavin hadn’t been either, but she suspected their reasons had been different. Gavin couldn’t even help it, words bubbled right out of him, whereas Jasper was so sure of himself there was no reason to wait.

“Deja’s been trying to access information about your parents’ financials, but their attorney has been resistant.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means...” Jasper put his hands on his hips and shook his head, blowing a breath out his nose. That was never a good sign. “It means that whatever’s there probably isn’t good news.”

***

He shouldn’t have told her. That was clear. She stiffened and blinked too fast, and her eyes darted side to side, like she didn’t quite understand and was trying to see if he’d stashed the answer around the room somewhere. He wished. At least he’d had the good sense not to mention the other phone call he’d had with Deja this morning.

Sean and Deborah, apparently not knowing when they’d been beat, had filed a custody suit. Judge Pollard had refused to consider it... thus far. His stomach lurched and he needed to find something else to focus on.How about the scared shitless girl in front of you who’s doing her best not to have a panic attack, asshat?

Yeah, that’d be a good start.

“Hey, what’re you doing for the rest of the day?”

Her nose wrinkled up like a bunny’s and all of a sudden she was a kid again. “Freaking out about possibly being a penniless orphan?”

“You’re not penniless.” His voice was gruffer than he’d intended, but regardless of what shook out, she wouldn’t be destitute.

True, though, that speculating about the state of the O’Connells’ affairs would be what was running on a loop at the back of his thoughts, too, but he didn’t want her obsessing about it. He needed to do something. She needed to do something. Even if it was something frigging useless, as long as it could give them the illusion of having some control.

That’s when it hit him, and he needed to make a call. But first, he had to occupy Keyne while he did. What did she love best that he could give to her? She had a worn copy ofPeter Panin her room, she’d grown out of her horse phase, and she’d never been much for TV. What she did like though...

He strode over to a bookshelf and knelt in front of it, digging around on the bottom shelf for what he knew was there, if only he could find it. Ah, there it was. The thick volume wasn’t as heavy as its bulk would suggest, and he grabbed a pencil off his desk before he thrust both of them at Keyne. He traded her the paperweight, and when she’d read the title, she looked up at him.

“You want me to do crosswords?”

“You like crosswords.” Didn’t she? She and Gavin would do them together on the deck of the boat or lounging together in the hammock in her parents’ backyard.

“I do.”

He couldn’t help but grin at her reluctant concession. “See? I need to make a call, so you can get started, and then I’ll need to do some more work, but we’ll do something special this afternoon. Get us out of the house, okay?”

“Yeah, all right.” It delighted him to no end she’d already cracked open the book and was flipping to find a puzzle that hadn’t been started yet. Wasn’t even looking at him when she answered.Good call, Andersson. Way to not totally fuck up.Hopefully he could tally up another point in his favor later today. He drew out his phone from his pocket as he strode out of the room and scrolled through his contacts until he found what he’d been looking for.

“Alice, darling. It’s been a while, but I’ve got a favor to ask. How busy are you this afternoon?”

***

Keyne pushed the sweat-matted hair out of her face. Jasper was insane, and he was so going to pay for this.

“Again!”

Ugh.But she wasn’t about to not do what this woman asked of her. So she punched the mitt on the woman’s hand with one hand—a jab—and then with the opposite hand—a cross.

“C’mon, Keyne, hit me harder. Or is that all you can manage with those spaghetti arms?”

Oh, so that’s how it was going to be? Fuck this lady. She wasn’t any taller than Keyne, and yeah, maybe she was built like a lithe and attractive tank, but Keyne wasn’t going to stand for this “spaghetti arms” nonsense. So she hit her harder. Harder and harder until her hands hurt and the sweat was streaming down her back and she had to take a break to wipe it out of her eyes, and then she hit her some more.

Alice. When Jasper had said they were going to go visit a friend of his and she should wear some clothes she could move in, she’d been expecting a hippy dippy yoga place with too much incense—which frankly, was any amount of incense.

What she’d gotten instead was an MMA studio that looked like it was abandoned from the outside, and smelled like a legion of sweaty dudes on the inside. She’d glanced around at the built guys who looked like people she wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley and wondered which one of these meatheads was friends with Jasper. To be fair, if you took Jasper out of his suits and put him in the ring... Yeah, he’d fit in fine.

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