phone and I’m on her plan so my name doesn’t show up anywhere.”
He understood why Code had never had her name pop up anywhere. She was smart, and she wasn’t using her own name—something he’d taught her. “Your boss put her name on your apartment?”
“Yes, I was terrified Bridges would find me. He thought I left you, didn’t he?”
“No. I told him straight up I sent your ass away because I was done with you. Told him I wanted you gone, didn’t want to see your face anymore. I made it clear I wanted you banned from every Swords clubhouse. He wasn’t happy, but I was spoiling for a fight and he let it go.”
He saw the relief on her face that he’d protected her enough to tell the truth—he had sent her away. It would have been so easy for him to tell her father she’d run off and Bridges would have sent an army of Swords after her. As it was, he couldn’t do that; Steele had made certain by saying he didn’t want to see her around.
She indicated her phone and he forced himself to look down. His heart stuttered. The boy looked about two. He had wild tawny hair and, just like Bree’d said, his eyes. He looked beautiful. Perfect. Innocent. Everything a child should be. He looked healthy and happy. She’d done that without him. Breezy had given birth to his son and she’d kept him healthy and happy.
He wanted to hold his son. Get on his bike and go after him right at that moment. Yell at Code to hurry up and find Bridges so he could beat out of the man where his child was. The need was so strong in him that he turned toward the door, dropping his hand on the knob. He stood there, head down, breathing in long, deep, calming breaths.
“You have to be going out of your mind, Bree,” he said.
“I have been, but I tried to stay calm and think it through. Not at first,” she admitted. “At first I did a lot of screaming and crying. When I got that out of my system, I thought things through very carefully. I knew I had to get to you, warn you, provide you with evidence that you had a son and hope you’d go after them if I wasn’t able to get him back.”
He turned back to her, looking down at the screen, picture after picture breaking his heart, and yet, at the same time, giving him hope. His son was a miracle. Never, not once, even when he was with Breezy, did he think he could actually have a child.
“Steele.”
Her voice. It was a warning. He tried to keep the grin from his face as he slowly raised his gaze to hers. He let one eyebrow go up. She’d lost this battle and she knew it.
“All of these photographs are of me.”
“You’re my woman.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t keep saying that to me, not when you crawled out from under a pile of naked women, Steele. That ship has sailed.”
“And circled right back.” He indicated his phone. “No one else is there. You can search it all you want. Only you.”
She suddenly went still, and he knew what she’d found. He moved closer. Her lashes fluttered. Lifted. “When did you take these? Who took them? Oh, my God, Steele. These are so wrong. In every way. I can’t believe you took these. And kept them.”
He reached out and snagged his phone, sure she would delete the pictures. They’d saved him more than one night. “Needed them. Once I knew I was sending you away, I had to have them. Only thing that ever gets me off.”
“He says, after crawling out from under three women,” she repeated. Breezy snapped her fingers. “Give that back to me.”
“Not happenin’. I know exactly what you’ll do. You’re not deleting my photographs. I’m programming me into your phone and taking some of these pictures of Zane.”
“Steele, those pictures are …”
“Beautiful. Fuck, Bree, you’re so beautiful in them I can barely breathe lookin’ at them.”
She rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers at him again. “Hand it over or delete them yourself.”
“Babe. These pictures are going up in my den.”
“They are not.”
“Then in our bedroom.”
“Who took them, because it wasn’t you, and I didn’t give my consent. That’s so wrong.”
She had a point, maybe. He needed those pictures, the proof on her face that she was into him. Completely. She