He couldn't stay at the house, where all the memories of Tatum lurked. The place which had once been his sanctuary would be a prison without Tatum there to share it with him.
Damn it.
But he would find him.
He'd directed Jonathan to find him. The searing bitterness went some way to disguise the agonizing pain in his chest.
I miss him.
It had already been 4 months since Tatum vanished and the pain in his chest was just getting worse, he had started working again and had been pacing up and down his office daily waiting for news from Jonathan who had gone off to London to find Tatum, while he stayed and actually ran the company for the first time in 10 years.
He had completely come out of his self-imposed isolation.
...
Four months later in Mud chute London.
"What are you thinking, Tatum, in your condition?"
"Give me it back, Mel." Tatum scowled as his sister wrestled the heavy spade from him. "I'm four months pregnant. I'm not an invalid."
"You're four months gone and on your own." His sister's blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "If you're after planting a garden, why didn't you say so?"
"This is my cottage and I'll do as I please." He'd moved into the quaint stone house on the edge of his family's farm as soon as he'd returned from New York. Keeping anything a secret from his sisters had proved impossible—pregnancy included. Dealing with their overprotectiveness, though, had soothed his battered heart in the early days after he'd arrived home. But now it was starting to annoy him.
His bull-headed sister refused to relinquish the shovel.
Figures.
"Suit yourself," he said. "I'm off to the village to get some groceries."
He stomped through the back door before his sister could insist on helping him with that too. But after stamping on his boots and donning his raincoat—this was London, there was bound to be rain at some point in the afternoon—he stepped outside… And stopped dead in his tracks.
A shiny black SUV he didn't recognize was travelling up the track. Sunshine glinted off paintwork flecked with mud. But when the all-terrain vehicle stopped and a tall figure climbed out, his insides coalesced into a lump of raw emotion.
"Andrew?" he whispered. He tried to bolt but Andrew was faster by far, he grabbed onto Tatum's arm and yanked him back into his chest.
"Hello, Tatum."
Was it really him? The man he'd run from four months ago? The locks of golden hair were gone, the darker hair beneath shorn close to his scalp. But the forbidding frown and that voice—raw, rugged and disturbingly intimate—were exactly the same.
Panic consumed him. Why was he here? Surely he had gotten his note? The white lie he had told him to set him free?
He tried to break free to dart back into the house, to barricade himself in if necessary—he didn't want to speak to him, any more than he had four months ago—or he would know how hard he had fallen for him, and then his pride would be in tatters along with his heart. But before he could make a clean getaway, Andrew tightened his grip around his belly.
"Don't run from me again, damn it," Andrew said. "I know you didn't take the money."
Oi!!! You mother fucker let go of my brother or you're gonna squeeze the baby right out!
"Wha-?!" Andrew looked confused
Andrew looked up into a set of angry blue eyes, then down at Tatum whom he held close to his chest he started letting go, but then moved his hands and splayed them onto Tatum's belly, there was a small pregnancy bump,
"Who do 'a think you are grabbing onto strangers like that, my brother has a man thank you very much, and a bun in the oven so don't go squeezing his bump," Mel shouted
"WHAT?!! He has a man? Who? Where is he?" Andrew went into aggressive mode
"Isn't your business now is it?" Mel ground out
"Not my business? It bloody better be my business, I've been searching for Tatum for 4 months and over my dead body will I give him up to anyone." Andrew exclaimed
"But…how did you find me?" Tatum whispered. He'd been concerned at first he might find out, he might come after him, making the clean break he knew they both needed unbearably messy… But after four months, he'd thought he was safe.
"Did you think Jonathan wouldn't tell me? Once I'd finally got my head out from up my butt long enough to ask?"
He tried to pull free, Andrew's touch causing heat to rise across his skin—the emotions he'd held so carefully at bay for so long erupting inside him.
He knew Andrew had gotten his life back on track in the past four months because he'd scoured the internet for news of him as soon as he'd landed back in London. And he'd taken some solace in that.
He'd read of how he'd left his estate and taken up the helm again of his business. How he'd reappeared on the social scene. He'd had to stop looking a few weeks back, though, because although he'd not been seen dating anyone yet, he'd known it would only be a matter of time. He'd had to protect himself, once the discovery of his pregnancy had confirmed what he'd already known.
His heart would always be lost to him.
"I'm still speaking to you mister, let go of my brother this instant. Or I'm going to call his husband." Mel said vehemently
"You shouldn't have followed me here," Tatum added, folding his arms over his chest to hold in the tell-tale shudders at his nearness.
What was he doing here? He couldn't bear his pity, but what else could this be about?
"Really? Do you think I had a choice?" Andrew said, the destructive emotion in his voice only confusing him more.
"And who's this fella, now?" Should I be calling the coppers? A new arrival queried suddenly
Tatum's brother-in-law strolled toward them purposefully.
"Who the hell is he?" Andrew snarled, letting go of Tatum and fronting up to his brother-in-law like a billionaire scorned. Literally.
"Oh, for pity's sake," Tatum cried. Trust the most dramatic moment of his life to turn into a farce. "Jacko go back inside the cottage. This is no business of yours."
"The hell it isn't…" He shot back.
"Jacko? He's your sister's husband?" Andrew supplied, the tension in his shoulders releasing.
"And you would be..?" Jacko asked, the enquiry deceptively calm.
"The man, who loves your brother-in-law and wants to win him back," Andrew declared.
"What?" Emotion rose in Tatum's chest as Andrew turned to him, the light shining in his eyes, something he had dreamed of often but never imagined he would see.
Was this real? Surely it couldn't be. Perhaps it was a trick of the pregnancy hormones…
"You heard me. I can't live without you, Tatum. And believe me, I've tried," he said.
But then he turned into the light, and Tatum noticed for the first time the shadows that had always lurked in his eyes in the past weren't there anymore. Where had they gone?
"After you left…" He huffed. "Hell, after you ran out on me with that dumb note of yours, I wanted so badly to get over you, to forget you ever existed. I just wanted to go back to being safe again. To not feel anything. But I couldn't."
Tatum could hear the pain, the echo of vulnerability he had caused, and his guilt increased exponentially. "I'm so sorry, Andrew, I never meant for you to—"
"Don't!" He stepped toward Tatum, cradled his face in unsteady palms, and ran his thumb across his lips. "Don't be sorry. It wasn't you, don't you see? It was them."
"Who?" he asked, his heart bleeding now, for him, for all the pain he had endured, the pain he was terrified he had increased.
"The kidnappers…" He shrugged the movements stiff. "My grandmother, too, according to the therapist I've been seeing. I'd made it my business not to care, long before I ever found myself in that cellar. So it was surprisingly easy to close myself off when they captured me and kept me in the dark… What I didn't realize was that I'd been in the dark for years before that, and less than a man. Until you." He sighed, the light in his eyes intensifying the blue to a rich sapphire. "I need you to come back to me." He glanced at the ramshackle cottage perched on the edge of the moorland gilded with heather. "Or I can come to you. I don't care where I live anymore, as long as you're there."
"But…why?" Tatum asked.
Jacko gave a disgruntled huff behind him. Tatum ignored it.
"I gave myself willingly…" he murmured, still unsure, and still scared to trust his feelings or the hope starting to bubble in his chest. "You owe me nothing, Andrew," Tatum said softly
"Don't be an eejit, Tat. The man's a billionaire," Mel said, clearly having figured out who their visitor was.
"Get lost, Mel and you too Jacko." Tatum turned; ready to eviscerate his sister and brother-in-law, but then Andrew clasped his shoulders and shifted him around to face him.
"You're wrong; I owe you everything, Tatum. I owe you my life. I was furious about that at first, that you'd made me feel again. All those months in that hole… Being able not to feel anything, not to care what they did to me was my salvation. But once you came into my life, I finally figured out that protecting yourself from hurt is also a prison. Sure, you're safe, but you're also trapped. You gave me the courage to see past that. To see there was so much more I could have if only I could break out of that prison."
"But…" Tatum tried to speak
"But nothing," he interrupted. "You rescued me from the tower I'd locked myself into, with your endless chatter and your beauty, both inside and out. You made me want to live again. Not how I used to live before the kidnapping—partying too hard and not giving a damn about anyone but myself—but better." He cupped Tatum's cheeks. "Please tell me you feel the same way, and that you'll let me love you. That maybe, one day, you could love me back. I don't want to be half a man anymore."
"Are you sure?" Tatum asked the hope painful now as his heart expanded in his chest.
"Dead sure," Andrew replied with a smile
"Good lord, Tatum, say yes already," Jacko added, but even his nosy brother-in-law couldn't spoil the moment.
"Back off," Andrew said.
"Backing off, bro," Jacko said, lifting his hands. "But just so you know, once my brother-in-law has come to his senses, he has something important to tell you." Then he and his wife finally disappeared back into the cottage.
Tatum could see the flicker of doubt in Andrew's eyes. And suddenly the only answer he could give him burst out of his mouth. "Yes. I want us to be together because I love you too."
…
"Seriously? You…you do?" Andrew asked, not sure he could believe it, as his heart turned over in his chest.
He'd been ready for Tatum to reject him. Had a whole plan mapped out to get him to say yes, which included camping on his doorstep if necessary…and seducing him all over again.
He needed him, more than Tatum would ever know. Nothing had been the same. He'd left the house determined to find Tatum and buried himself in work while Jonathan searched. In his heart, he knew he had to get him back. Because he couldn't sleep, couldn't eat without thinking about him, without wanting him. Not just his lithe, eager body, but those sweet smiles, that quick wit, the endless chatter. He wanted it all.
And when he'd quizzed Jonathan about his whereabouts yesterday, he'd fuelled up the company jet and headed straight to London.
"Yes, really, I'm all yours if you want me." Tatum grinned up at him as the euphoria suffused his whole body. But then he glanced over his shoulder to where his family had disappeared into the house. "I should warn you, though; you'll be getting my whole chaotic family, too, because we're a package deal."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said, grasping him around the waist and spinning him around as his laughter added yet more joy to the perfect day.
When he finally placed Tatum back on his feet, his face was flushed. And his heart was full enough to burst. But as he dipped his head, ready to take Tatum's mouth in a kiss he'd been anticipating for months, Tatum braced his palms against Andrew's chest.
"There's something else in the package deal you should know about," he said, the guilty flush like a beacon.
"Uh-huh?" he said, knowing whatever it was he would agree to it.
But then Tatum pressed his hand to the loose sweater he wore.
Andrew's gaze fixed on the small mound of Tatum's belly as he pulled the wool tight.
Andrew couldn't speak the joy was so intense it was hard to quantify. Was it possible that he'd not only won him and a family but a chance to build a new family of his own too?
I thought your sister was joking earlier about me squeezing out a baby.
Tatum shook his head, the sheepish look as endearing as all his others. "You're not mad about becoming a daddy?"
"No," he said, the rough laugh bursting out echoing over the stark landscape as the rain started to patter down. Then he clasped Tatum's heart-shaped face in his palms and added, "I'm overjoyed."
...
And five months later, he cradled his newborn baby daughter. Anastasia Pearce screamed her lungs out with indignation
"Waaah Waah!" Baby Anastasia cried
"You can definitely see who your daddy is little one!" Tatum laughed
"Ha-ha, are you talking about me?" Andrew asked nonplussed
Andrew knew the man by his side and the child in his arms had rescued him from his tower for good.