Page 73 of Owned

Thank God for that, especially when I hadn’t thought of how I was going lose Atlas for an hour while I slipped out of the club.

“Okay, good,” I said. “I can’t have him know you’re there.”

“Of course not. I can arrange a private room upstairs. I’ll let you know when I’ve arrived.”

After we’d worked out the logistics and I’d ended the call, I leaned back against the sofa and sighed.

I was committed now and I just hoped I hadn’t ended up making a terrible mistake.

26

Atlas

My phone vibrated, so I held up a hand to the group of people who were doing a site visit with me, and stepped out of the room into the echoing concrete corridor.

I was at the construction site of an office building, surveying the plans and taking a look at the building now the exterior was done. The floor of the planned hallway was littered with sawdust, wood offcuts, concrete dust, and various tools and other detritus, so I had to pick my way down it and into the huge echoing space that would one day be the office foyer. Right now the wind was blowing through the holes where the windows would be, the familiar sound of machinery and the construction team shouting at each other filling the air.

I glanced down at my phone then hit the answer button. “Did you find anything?” I demanded without preamble.

“No,” Caleb said. “My contacts were worse than fucking useless.”

Fuck. Fuck.

I gripped the phone hard. “There must be some solution,” I growled, even as my brain provided me with one. Something lasting. Something…permanent.

“The only one I can think of would put us all in jail,” Caleb said brusquely. “Not that I’d allow Isabel’s grandmother to be hurt.”

Isabel’s grandmother. A not-so-subtle reminder of who Charlotte was to the woman he was with, making me think of my own woman. Charlotte was Rowan’s grandmother too.

Shit, what was I thinking? That’s what this feeling inside me was driving me to. This…possessive rage. Was this how my father felt about my mother? This burning need to possess and control, so strong that he was willing to kill someone for it?

“No, Atlas,” Caleb growled, even though I hadn’t said anything.

“It’s my kid,” I growled back as if he didn’t know that already.

“Chill the fuck out. We’ll find something.”

I paced over to one side of the concrete hallway and turned, pacing back the other way, my brain going flat out, turning over the options. “Easy for you to say. It’s not your ass on the line,” I said.

“Why the fuck did you volunteer for this bullshit in the first place?” It was as much an ‘I told you so’ as I’d ever heard from him, which I did not appreciate one bit.

“You know why I volunteered,” I snapped. “I was helping Ten and I thought….”

“You weren’t going to turn into a fucking monster at the thought of your child being taken?”

I didn’t dignify that with an answer, because of course I’d thought that.

“Look,” Caleb said after a moment. “I’d probably feel the same way about it, but the fact remains that we need to be smart about this. So taking an illegal option will not be in our favor.”

“I know that.” I turned and paced again. “But I need to think of something fast because Charlotte’s going to start issuing demands once she’s figured out that we’ve been trying to avoid the doctor’s appointments she’s setting up. And then once she finds out Rowan’s pregnant, I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides Rowan’s better off where she can keep an eye on her.” I stopped mid-pace. “And if that happens…” I didn’t finish, but I didn’t need to. The darkness in my voice said it all. If that happened, all bets were off. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Rowan and my child safe where they belonged. With me.

“I get it,” Cal said. “The nuclear option. If Rowan is anything like Isabel, I’m sure she’d love that.”

I gave a mirthless laugh. Rowan would probably kill me if I did something stupid like locking her up in a tower for the rest of her life while I stood guard by the door. As it was she was getting impatient with me insisting she stay in the loft for her own safety, arguing about being ‘trapped’ there.

I couldn’t let her out, though. I couldn’t risk her or the baby being taken by Charlotte. The thought ate away at my guts like acid, a gnawing pain that I couldn’t get rid of.

“An understatement,” I muttered, then decided to change the subject. “We good for tonight?”

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