Page 7 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
“Now that you’ve met me?”
“Not so much,” Savannah said. “But four baby mamas? I don’t care what color they are. That’s a lot. What are their ages?”
It wasn’t a subject he was comfortable discussing she could tell. But tough. “Olivier is twenty-four. Scotford is twenty-four. Nikolas is twenty-three. Fredrick is twenty. And my baby girl Kalayna is seventeen.”
Savannah was surprised. Niko had never mentioned twins. “You have twins?” she asked him delightedly. She always loved twins.
But Marcellus frowned. “Twins? Where did you get that from?”
“You said you had two children the same age. I assumed . . .” Then she realized what that meant. He didn’t have twins! He had two of his baby mamas pregnant at the exact same time. “Oh,” she said, when she realized her error.
Marcellus smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He was embarrassed himself that he would be that callous. Although, to his defense, he was only seventeen when he was sleeping around as if it was his job to populate the earth. “Does that disqualify me?” he asked her.
“Depends on what you’re trying to qualify for.”
Marcellus was as blunt as she was when he wanted to be. In that moment, he wanted to be. “Would I have a chance with you?” he asked her.
Savannah was stunned when he asked her that question. It hadn’t even entered her thought process. He seemed so out of reach! And all those baby mamas to contend with? And the age difference too?
When Marcellus saw her distress, he smiled it off even greater. “Don’t answer that,” he said. “I was only kidding.”
It seemed as if Savannah had sighed relief to Marcellus. But Savannah might have looked that way, but a part of herwas disappointed that he didn’t mean it. She would have surely entertained it had he meant it. Who wouldn’t? A uniquely gorgeous man like him? And he wasn’t a bad person from what her instincts were telling her. Maybe a whorish one, but not a bad one. She would have definitely gave it some consideration for his seeming goodness if nothing else. But he already shut the door.
But he kept coming back to the subject, she noticed. “Have you ever been in love, Savannah?”
“I thought I was a time or two,” she said, “until they showed me who they really were.”
“Which was?”
“Cheaters and liars every single one. I never been with a man that didn’t end up hurting me. I would say they broke my heart, but I careful not to get in that deep with them. Thank God they showed their true colors before I got in that deep.”
“That’s a sad commentary on those men,” said Marcellus.
Savannah frowned. Was he that blind or just plain stupid? “You, a man with five children from four women, don’t put yourself in that category?” she asked him.
“Me? No,” Marcellus said firmly. “I was never in a monogamous relationship. I told them that I was emotionally unavailable for them up front. I didn’t hurt anyone. If they ended up hurt, it wasn’t because of anything I said or did. It was because they didn’t believe what I said and did and thought they could change me.”
“But you’ll never change,” said Savannah.
For some reason that comment hit Marcellus hard. He wasn’t the man she thought he was. “I would hope I will eventually. If you aren’t changing, you’re dying.”
Savannah didn’t expect to hear him say that. “I guess you’re right,” she said.
But that comment got Marcellus thinking. “How would you describe my relationship with my son? And don’t tell me you haven’t been around me long enough, because you have.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you that,” she said. “It doesn’t take long to size people up.”
Marcellus nodded. “Right you are. So what’s the verdict?”
“You love him. You just don’t have enough time for him.”
It was like another gut punch to Marcellus. “What’s that supposed to mean? I love my child. All of my children.”
“But love is time,” said Savannah. “It always has been. If you don’t give your time to a person, how can you profess to love them? How much time you give to somebody, is how much you love them. Period. Where your time is, that’s where your love is. Period.”
If she said period one more time, Marcellus was going to kick her ass. Who in the world did this chick think she was talking to?
But once his anger subsided, he knew who she was talking to. She was talking to that deep, dark part of him that nobody ever addressed. They knew it was there, but they didn’t have the balls to let him know that they knew it was there. She had balls.
