His Custody Read online

  She had not been charmed by him at all. It’s not like that never happened, but here it might cost him more than a lost opportunity for a date or a scene, or an advantageous business deal. Here it could cost him Keyne, and that was . . . “unacceptable” was not a strong enough word. It would be unendurable. Granted, he’d already set things in motion to get his way, but making this happen through legal channels was far more desirable. Keyne deserved as normal a life as he could give her, and being kidnapped by a fugitive on the run from the law hardly qualified.

  At this very second though, he was losing patience with said legal system and was preparing to hunt Keyne down wherever they’d stashed her in the labyrinthine building and haul her off in a fireman’s carry. His trademark unflappability was, well, flapping, and he needed to do something instead of sitting here, watching his chances of taking Keyne home at the end of the day ebb away.

  Despite Deja’s best efforts, they were still talking about the validity of the will and whether that should take precedence over anything else. If it did, Keyne would be off to Miami with Sean and Deborah where they’d do everything they could to get their hands on her money, all the while likely neglecting her at a time when she should be with people who loved her and would do their best to support her. Plus, being in a place where she didn’t know anyone and would be too isolated to ask for help if she needed it?

  Not acceptable.

  He pushed back in his chair, the screeching drawing the attention of everyone in the courtroom.

  “Mr. Andersson—”

  “Your Honor, before this goes any further, could I say something?”

  Deja shot him a look that said Don’t you fucking dare. Most of the time, he followed her advice because Deja Wright was one of the smartest people he knew and a top-notch attorney. He’d gone to business school with her, and his company had been taking off when she’d graduated from law school. He’d snapped her up with the promise of a hefty salary and the lure of a challenge. Who else would be able to keep him in line? She’d shaken her head. No one. I’ll consider it my mission in life to keep you from crashing and burning. Also, I want a car.

  He’d had the keys to a brand-new BMW messengered to her apartment along with an employment contract the next morning. His respect for her and her advice—legal and otherwise—had kept him out of a lot of hot water, and he was almost always smart enough to listen.

  Not today. He ignored her and her black-as-night glower, tenting his fingers on top of the table.

  “And what is so important you feel the need to interrupt these proceedings, Mr. Andersson?”

  The bull inside him charged and gored the judge before she could get the last word out, but the man—and he needed to be a man, not an animal—took a deep breath. “Your Honor, I have known Keyne O’Connell since she was born. I held her in the hospital, I saw her take her first steps. I could tell you which wrist she broke when she fell off her horse in the third grade and that her favorite book is Peter Pan. I could tell you she’s allergic to penicillin and that she’s afraid of ladybugs. Ladybugs. Who’s afraid of ladybugs?”

  He had to stop and take a breath because he was a quarter inch to the left from losing it. “These people,” he ground out, pointing a shaking hand at the O’Connells, “don’t know any of those things. I’ve spent more time with Keyne O’Connell in the past month than they’ve spent with her in her entire life.”

  “That’s all well and good, Mr. Andersson, but we’re not talking about Miss O’Connell’s favorite cereal—”

  “She doesn’t like cereal,” he muttered, unable to stop himself. You couldn’t get Keyne O’Connell to eat something that wasn’t hot before eleven o’clock. Oatmeal, eggs, pancakes, sure. Offer her cereal or yogurt and she’d rather starve. She wouldn’t even drink juice. You’d be pushing it with a banana.

  “We’re talking about what’s best for a seventeen-year-old girl. It would be highly unusual for the court to award custody to a single, unrelated man such as yourself. You’re going to have to come up with a case more compelling than trivia to get me to believe you would be a fit custodian of Miss O’Connell.”

  Oh, he had a case all right. He’d been building it since the second Deja told him he wasn’t listed as next of kin. He knew this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but he wanted to throttle Sean for making it even harder. And that bastard, looking like a bulldog who’d been stuffed into a too-tight-suit, came across as too damn smug for Jasper’s taste.

  “I live here. She wouldn’t have to leave her school or her friends. I’ve already been coordinating her care with her doctors and Mr. McCarthy.” He darted a glance at the social worker, compelling him to agree. McCarthy took the hint, and dropped a nod. “I’ve gotten her into grief counseling. If she wanted to stay in her own home, her own room, I’m willing to live there with her.”

  So far Keyne had only managed to go back to her house once and showed no interest in going back, but that might change. Not that he would blame her if she never wanted to step foot in there again. Too many memories, too many ghosts. He’d never admit it, but he’d been avoiding his parents’ home as much as possible for the same reason. Had been sending Ada or Deja over whenever he could.

  “And you have an empire to run, Mr. Andersson, do you not? How many hours a week do you work?”

  “Seventy, give or take.” Give. About twenty. But Judge Angela Pollard didn’t need to know that.

  “You believe that’s going to give you enough time to see to Miss O’Connell’s well-being?”

  He gritted his jaw against her skepticism. “I’m willing to take a leave of absence. I’ve already handed over some of my responsibilities and I’m prepared to delegate more of them for as long as I need to.”

  “You’ve also a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

  Jasper swore in his head but managed to bite it off before the curse made it out of his mouth. “I’ve been in my current relationship for four months.”

  He wished Sarah were in the courtroom so he could point at her, fine, respectable woman she appeared to be. She was filthy as sin in the bedroom and he knew a few less-than-savory tidbits about her as well. You could never be too careful about who you climb into bed with. But she wasn’t crazy about the idea of him being Keyne’s guardian any more than this hard-ass judge appeared to be and she’d declined to come, which was for the best. Still pissed him off though.

  “And what about your own mental state, Mr. Andersson? You also lost your parents and your younger brother and your godparents in the accident, did you not? You must be grieving. Caring for a child, never mind a traumatized child, is difficult under the best of circumstances and you’re in just about the worst, wouldn’t you say?”

  A crack formed in the wall Jasper had been using to keep his own grief at bay, his sorrow threatening to leak through the cracks. This was no time to think about the fact his own parents had been taken from him far too soon and he’d never get to watch his kid brother become a man. Or that the people who’d been like a second set of parents to him were gone now as well. He used some mental mortar to seal up the cracks and cast about for another emotion, locating anger in the stead of bereavement.

  Jasper saw red and had to dig his nonexistent nails into his palms to keep from yelling. But snapping in front of the judge would hardly make her more likely to trust him with Keyne. He could put on the façade of a reasonable, responsible adult. He could. “I would not say that. Yes, I suffered a loss. A heartbreaking loss. I wake up in the mornings and have to remind myself I won’t be going to my brother’s basketball game, I won’t be meeting up with my parents for dinner, I won’t be going sailing with the O’Connells next weekend because they’re dead and rotting in a crypt. But that also means when Keyne wakes up in the morning and has to face the same thing, when her guardian says, ‘I know how you feel,’ I’ll fucking mean it.” The judge raised her eyebrows at the last and J
asper dragged in a breath to his aching lungs. “I apologize, Your Honor, for the language. It was disrespectful and it won’t happen again.”

  He wasn’t a big apologizer, but he would get on his knees and beg if it meant he’d be able to keep Keyne away from her father’s family. He’d crawl across the courtroom if the judge asked for it. But she was staring at him from the bench, her dark eyes sharp with appraisal. He didn’t break eye contact with her. “I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Andersson.”

  She shuffled some papers on the bench and then looked up, surveying her courtroom. “Unless anyone has anything else to add, I think I’ve heard enough. We’ll recess for lunch and reconvene at two when we’ll hear from Miss O’Connell.”

  ***

  The bailiff showed her into the courtroom and up to the stand where the chair was turned toward the judge. It was the kind of courtroom that doesn’t make it on film: no high ceilings or stone, just linoleum older than her, brick, fake wood, and pilling burnt orange upholstery. It was a comfort in some ways. They’d never show this on TV. The media fire that had started after the accident had died down some, but it wouldn’t take much to be reignited, and a custody battle over a poor little rich girl would be good kindling.

  There were lots of eyes on her—the judge’s sharp but warm brown ones, the O’Connells’ like needles on her back, and Jasper’s grey ones. Flinty and hard, but familiar and safe nonetheless. When she sat down, she twisted her fingers in her lap and looked over her shoulder at all the people sitting there, watching her. Most of them she didn’t recognize. She wanted to sink down behind the half-wall between her and them, and stay there.

  “Keyne.” She jerked her head toward the sound of her name; the judge was talking to her. “Do you mind if I call you Keyne?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  Jasper had coached her how to talk to the judge. Asked Ada to help her pick out appropriate clothes. Had tried to make her understand how important this was without scaring the shit out of her. He’d tried his best, but her stomach was knotted up anyway. She’d be stupid not to be afraid. It wasn’t even like she knew Sean and Deborah well enough to truly dislike them, but she had no reason to believe they cared for her at all.

  “If I’m going to call you Keyne, why don’t you call me Angela?”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Keyne turned her head again like someone behind her had sunk a hook in her cheek and was reeling her in but snapped it back when the judge spoke to her again. “Keyne. Can you look at me? We’re going to talk like no one else is here, okay? Just you and me.”

  Easy for her to say. “Okay.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  She swallowed hard. “It’s nerve-racking. Being here with all these people. Not knowing what’s going to happen to me. And my arm hurts.”

  The judge nodded, like she understood. She didn’t understand.

  “Could someone get Miss O’Connell some aspirin?”

  She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Jasper, raising his hand the way he did. Two fingers pointed toward the ceiling, his thumb and ring finger nearly touching but not. The judge acknowledged him with a nod. But when he spoke, it wasn’t to the judge, it was to her. He looked her right in the eyes, like she was the only person in the room. When he looked at her like that, she felt like she was. Just the two of them. He was the only person she could see clearly through the haze of her grief. Everyone else was smudged out, like she was looking through streaky windows, but Jasper and his craggy face were clear as day.

  “I’ve got your meds with me, Keyne. You can have more in half an hour. Can you make it that long or do you want me to call Dr. Ettleson?”

  “I can make it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” It came out a whisper, but he nodded like he understood. If anyone could understand, it would be Jasper.

  “If you change your mind, you let me know.”

  “I will.” Her voice had steadied, because what she wanted, what she needed mattered to someone. To Jasper, in particular, and Jasper always got what he wanted. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

  “Keyne?”

  Right, the judge. She turned away from Jasper and everything went dim and muffled. “Yeah.”

  “You’ve been staying with Mr. Andersson?”

  “Yes.” Yes. Jasper’s big house with his stout, manly furniture and the vaguely familiar spaces. Of course she’d been there before, many times, but it didn’t feel like home the same way her house did, or Gavin’s did. Which was probably better right now. She couldn’t bear to go to her house. The one time she’d managed it, she could’ve sworn she’d heard her parents’ voices echoing through the empty halls. She’d rushed to the bathroom and puked up her guts before she started crying and Jasper took her back to his house.

  “You like it there?”

  “As much as I like it anywhere right now.” She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, and Jasper couldn’t be happy with them either. Not with the way he’d made it clear how important this was. When she looked at him though, he didn’t look angry. Sad, really.

  She should have said, “Yes, very much. Please let me stay with him.” But her thoughts were slow, like they were swimming through split pea soup and the truth slipped out before she could stop it. She could at least try to clean up some of the mess she’d made. “I like my room. At Jasper’s. He redid it for me.”

  It was funny, in a way. The rest of Jasper’s house was all dark colors and musky brown leather—she could imagine him playing poker, drinking whiskey, and smoking cigars in almost any room. But he’d had a work crew there who’d made one of the guestrooms a lot more comfortable, even though all the pastel colors and softness probably made him twitchy.

  “You understand we’re here to decide who’s going to be named your legal guardian until you turn eighteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your aunt and uncle, Mr. Andersson, and everyone here want what’s best for you.”

  She blinked and the judge looked back at her, the raise of her eyebrows asking for confirmation, but Keyne couldn’t give it to her. The only person she believed in in the whole room, maybe in the whole world, was Jasper, and the thought of being sent away with someone else made her feel like she was drowning.

  And there it came, a crashing wave of panic, like she was back in the open ocean, not knowing if anyone would come for her, and half wishing they wouldn’t. She couldn’t breathe. “Please don’t make me go with them.”

  “Who, Keyne?”

  “My aunt and uncle. I don’t know them. I don’t want to go to Miami. I want to stay here. I want to stay with Jasper. Please.” Her fingers were clutching in her skirt and she wanted to dig her nails into her thighs. Her voice was shaking and she hated that everyone could hear her begging, on the verge of tears. She might be sick. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up in the morning to Gavin’s puzzled face.

  “What were you dreaming about, Tiki?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she’d tell him, not wanting to upset him, not wanting his eager puppy face to fall. “It was a dream. It’s over now.”

  She closed her eyes tight, tight and tried to keep her tears in. But she ended up sobbing. “I can’t—lose—anything—else. Please.”

  She crumpled in on herself, feeling like an empty soda can being crushed, all awkward angles, empty spaces and jagged edges digging into each other. There was noise, but it all sounded the same to her: far away, buzzy and not real. Maybe people were yelling and the judge might have banged her gavel but it was hard to tell with all the scrap heap compactor noises in her head. Until someone laid a hand over hers and she opened her eyes. They were blurry with tears, but she could see him. “Jas.”

  He leaned in close, put
a hand on her shoulder. “No matter what happens, Keyne, I swear to god you will be with me. It might not be today, and it might not be tomorrow, but even if they send you to Miami, I promise I will come for you. I don’t care how much it costs, what laws I have to break. I’ll break every one there is, spend every penny I have to get you back. Cross my heart. But you have to do something for me. You’ve got to be good, Tinker Bell, no matter what happens.”

  A laugh, high-pitched and hysterical, shredded through her, burning her lungs. She shouldn’t be laughing, but it had to get out. He’d called her Tinker Bell. No one had called her Tinker Bell since . . . since she was eight.

  Jasper had graduated from college and they were celebrating out on the boat. She’d thrown an epic tantrum because she was sick of being called Tallulah. Tallulah Tinker Bell. No one takes you seriously when they call you Tallulah Tinker Bell and she wanted people to take her seriously, because, dammit, she was serious.

  She’d stormed down to her bunk and thrown herself into the berth. She’d thought Gavin would come, but it was Jasper who’d knocked and come in even when she told him to go away. He sat on the bunk while she turned away from him and clutched her Peter Pan doll.

  “I came to tell you there’s cake.”

  “Cake?”

  “Yeah. I graduated from college. It’s kind of a big deal. I would’ve yelled, but I didn’t think you’d answer to Carrot Top.”

  She rolled over to glare at him. If there was anything she’d hated being called more than Tallulah Tinker Bell, it had been Carrot Top. “I hate you.”

  “I’m just a guy trying to give a girl some cake.” He’d shrugged. “So what’ll it be?”

  Her glare softened slightly. At least he’d asked. “I don’t want to be Tallulah Tinker Bell anymore.”