Grey Clouds On The Horizon

Without Ill Intentions

Christian's POV

I sipped on a cognac and waited in the great room while Ana laid down and Emilia got Delilah to sleep. My blood only resisted boiling when I doused the flames with dark liquor and stomped out the embers that fueled it with hope for the future. If I had any say in it, all of us would become a family. Truth be told, it didn't matter how much Ana or Emilia resisted it. I knew them both far too well, better than they knew themselves, and with that I knew that they would grow to love one another. Both of them loved nursing a broken bird back to health.

Her closed toed heels danced down the stairs like fingers on the keys of my piano and I wanted to look up at her with a smile. Emilia was home. But betrayal tainted the very joy that I'd bee chasing and so much had been left unsaid.

"Mr Grey?" Em questioned, tilting her head to the side and standing the customary ten feet away. "Sir, whats wrong?"

My white knuckles shook with tremors and I threw back the last of my drink to avoid spilling it on myself or the furniture. "When were you going to tell me, Emilia?"

Her dark wide eye softened with knowing and she shrugged her shoulders.

Controlling the fury that ravaged through my frame became too much and my glass shattered against the marble floors. Standing over her, not quite remembering how I got there, my hands wrapped around the sun kissed skin of her throat. Our embrace was a delicate dance to music that lead armies to destroy nations.

"Let me ask again." My words came out a bull frogs croak. "When were you going to tell me, Emilia?"

Miss Stewart's lips tightened into a hard line and she swallowed under my firm grip. "I didn't plan on telling you at all, Sir."

An impulse well beyond my control tightened every knuckle in my hands and my eyes bored into hers. "God dammit, Em! That little girl is my daughter too! And you were going to keep her from me for the rest of our lives. I knew you were cold but I had no idea you were this fucking heartless!" The connection between us, window to window, remained unbroken as my saliva and hot breath battered against her cheeks. Always my fighting spirit, the girl was not afraid of me. No, she wasn't afraid of anything. For her, death was always a welcome visitor to her unlocked door.

"I'm sorry, Mr Grey. " She gasped for air and I shoved her backwards onto the couch so spare her from what was to come. "I promise that I can explain everything. Please, just trust me. We were friends once"

"Trust you?" I marveled at her daring words. "Do you think that I can just look past the years I've missed out on because you decided to keep me in the dark?"

A plump bottom lip quivered form where it searched on her face. "You'd worked so hard, Grey. I couldn't be the reason that your company came crashing down around you. GEH was already your baby. You didn't need another one."

My dress shoe stomped on the last solid chunk of glass. "That wasn't your place! That was not your call to make. Delilah is my daughter, Em. You kept her from me when we could have been a family. How am I supposed to look past that? Do you expect me to forgive years of lying and intentionally deceiving me?"

Emmy's lips quivered. "I suppose it'll... we just need time. Neither of us thought that this was going to be easy and it won't be. You have to get to know our little girl and I have to get to know Anastasia and..."

"Were you going to say that we need to get to know each other again?" I raised an eyebrow and shook my head. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" Em snipped back.

I rolled my eyes and settled next to her with a fresh drink. "Pretend that either of us have changed. I'm the same man that I've always been and you're the same girl you've always been. Or a woman now, I guess, but the same otherwise. And this conversation is us. This is who we are together. A fucking mess."

"And yet you wanted me back here." She eyed my hands wearily. "Why? Any judge in the state of Washington would give you full custody of Delilah if you wanted it so what am I doing here?"

From there, I didn't know where to begin. This wasn't something I wanted to fight about but my choices were becoming less plentiful with every word I spoke. The way Miss Stewart made her way under my skin turned me from a ringmaster with all of the power to a tight rope walker with only one path laid in front of him.

"Fucking hell," I cursed under my breath and pressed my lips into hers, savoring the distinct taste of rose water and honey that was her breath. My free hand wedges her face against mine as it settled at the nape of her neck and a calmness rushed over me where the fury has resided. Breaking away for a breath was less of a loss and more of an opportunity to get lost in the eyes I thought of whenever I flew after dusk. "Because I love you, Emilia. I want you to be mine."

Her blank stare was hallow and haunting. "Oh."

Pulling breath through my clenched teeth, I threw back a swig of liquor. How can I be so stupid? Who am I to assume that Em would love me, or could even stand to be around me, after all if put her though? I knew I'd never be able to look at myself in the mirror without seeing the monster that Miss Stewart knew I was staring back at me.

A head of wild blonde curls rested itself in the divot between my neck and shoulders and I hesitantly wrapped my arm around her quivering form. Emmy's fragile body racked with sobs and I tried to selflessly shoo her worries away. "Don't worry, Kitten. I'm not mad at you. You can go ahead and leave any time you want. I'm not sure what I was thinking bringing you here. Taylor will take you home when Delilah wakes up. My lawyers will send over weekend visitation papers and a child support agreement."

"No, Sir." Em gasped out between cries that spilled the shoulder of my jacket. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No no no." I rubbed her back and shushed into her ear. "It's okay."

She pulled back and looked me in the eyes, her dainty hands gripping my face on either side and reddened cheeks burning me more than they did her. "I don't want to leave, Sir. I love you too but I'm not going to take you from the mother of your child. And still... I just can't imagine seeing you and raising our daughter together without missing what we had every single day of my life. Don't do this to me. Let me pretend that you hate me. Let me be afraid of what will happen if I don't keep my distance. Don't tempt me and say that I could be back here with you at any time. My heart can't take it, Grey"

My fingers wrapped around hers, the hand I longed to hold when only one of mine was empty, and I kissed the very knuckles I'd seen bloodied and bruised. Slowly my lips made their way across every scar I'd put on the girl before me and I tried to imagine that when I pulled back she would be fresh as a daisy to walk out that door and leave this life behind. But, of course, when I pulled back she was the same scarred beauty that I'd molded from naive to initiative, weak to a warrior and ordinary to incredible. And she was mine.

"You're not going anywhere, Emilia." The pull between us lessoned as I let the rubber band snap. "This is your home now and we're going to be a family. Do you understand, Kitten?" A harshness heaved in my breath.

Those night sky eyes dropped down and she nodded with a slight smile that she fought to embrace. "Yes, Sir."