pay you a generous amount.” Aviana waved at the inside of the store. “You certainly wouldn’t have to trudge your days away in this dump.”
This supposed dump was her livelihood. Amelie gritted her teeth and spoke as calmly as she could. “I don’t trudge my days away and I’m not sure what Roan has told you but I’d never sell my child. Fleur is mine. Not Roan’s, mine, do you understand? And neither of you are taking her from me!”
“If you want to play hard about this, I will.” Aviana’s tone dipped and her eyes narrowed to slits. “This was your last chance to come to an amicable agreement and you blew it. Be prepared for us to prove you don’t deserve her. We’re here for another three days and when we leave, Fleur will be our daughter. In fact, she’s young enough for us to change that ridiculous name you gave her.”
“Are you threatening my bond mate?” a voice calmly asked from the front entrance.
Both of them spun around in shock. Sulen walked in with a confident stride, his black leather coat trailing behind him.
How had he come in without her hearing him? The sensor hadn’t gone off, or she would have heard it. The sound was ingrained in her conscious after hearing it so often. Amelie leaned back to check her comp. The screen remained blank, no vid image.
“Because I wouldn’t like it if you were.” He drew to a stop beside Amelie and placed a hand on the curve of her hip.
She controlled the urge to flinch and watched Aviana. The other woman’s gaze leisurely roamed over Sulen’s muscular form, hesitating in a noticeable and blatant manner at his groin area before continuing up. Her smile was seductive, the red paint giving them a plump texture.
“Amelie and I were just talking. I came on Roan’s behalf.”
Her voice was simpering and grated on Amelie’s nerves. Sulen didn’t react at all. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t Amelie’s real bond mate and she didn’t have a prior claim on him.
Aviana smoothed her hands down her hip and dragged a finger to her mouth to tug on the bottom lip. “He’s devastated by the discovery that this...that Amelie would keep his daughter a secret all these years. Being a father is a dream for him and—”
She paused on a sob. How she managed to get a tear to well up, Amelie didn’t know. Aviana drew in a deep trembling breath. “A-a-and, I have personal issues that have prevented us from being able to make that happen. Learning about F-fleur when we came here seems like it was meant to be.”
“Mmm.”
Sulen’s response to the pack of lies was non-committal and Amelie was eternally grateful he wasn’t falling for it. She didn’t know if Roan had told his wife the truth but the fact the woman chose to believe him about Amelie keeping Fleur a secret without any proof and was determined to take her daughter was inconceivable.
“I came here to see if we could all get together and discuss the matter like civilized adults but Amelie has been very resistant to finding a workable solution.”
Sulen tugged Amelie closer and her hip smacked against his side. He looked down at Aviana from his greater height and glared. “Considering your husband’s aggressive approach toward her at the community center, wouldn’t you say she has every right to be leery?”
Aviana’s cheeks took on a fiery cast as she shook her perfectly coiffed hair over her shoulder. “Roan was justifiably upset.”
“So upset he sent you here to threaten Amelie?” Sulen shifted his weight to the side and his long coat swung back briefly to reveal the weapons strapped to the left side of his body. Two knives and a blaster that Amelie could spot before the material dropped back in place.
There was also a definitive bump on her left side where his right hip was pressed against her. How many weapons did one man need?
Aviana’s gaze rounded then snapped back up. “I hoped that as women we could resolve this peaceably. Surely you can understand a man’s desire and right to be aware of his unknown child’s existence.”
Sulen shrugged. “Maybe if he had been of better character, a woman wouldn’t have felt the need to hide a child, or better yet, maybe a woman didn’t hide it and the man chose to ignore the idea of being responsible for a baby. I can’t say since I’ve not been in that position.”
Amelie swallowed and pushed back