Free MINE 1 by Kristina Weaver Page A

feel included in everything to assure him that his place as ‘our child’ is rock solid and not to be doubted.
    Suits me, since I’m a little afraid of being totally alone and without a buffer to temper all that wildness I’ve glimpsed beneath his surface.
    In short, my life seems to be absolutely perfect.
    The phone rings just as I’m putting the finishing touches on a cake the Food Network taught me to bake. God, do I ever love that my husband is pretentious enough to have a flat screen TV and cable in the kitchen.
    “Hello?”
    “Is this Miss Ashley Munro?”
    “Nope,” I say, grinning like a loon. “This is Mrs Ashley Jasper. What can I do you for?”
    A throat clears tersely, and I lose my grin, dropping the icing bag to the counter beneath me.
    “Mrs Jasper, my name is Stewart Ingles. I represent your father, Wesley Munro.”
    Warning bells start ringing in my head at the mention of my father’s name. Especially since the guy on the phone sounds like a lawyer and not some chump.
    “Um, represent?”
    “Yes, Mrs Jasper.”
    He goes on to explain how Wesley is shitting a brick about Lucian filing adoption papers to make Ben his—something I didn’t know about, by the way— and by the time he’s done I am so fuming mad I have to force myself to slowly release the phone and not smash it to a million pieces.
    That piece of shit thinks he’s gonna come storming back in to take our boy? He’s got another freaking thing coming.
    “Lucian.”
    “What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately sensing my mood, even though we’re only on the phone.
    “I got a call from a lawyer representing Wesley. He wants our kid, Luc.”
    There’ll be time for tears later. For now I need to set my junkyard dog on Wesley’s ass before he gets any further in this madness.
    I hear a slew of the most vile cursing, something that is so not Lucian. He never curses in my company because—God, I want to laugh every time I remember it. According to him and Ben, ‘a real man does not abuse his woman with vile language’.
    “Don’t worry, love. I’ve got this. Okay. No, Brody, tell that son of a bitch I want the whole team in here NOW! I don’t give a bloody fuck what they have going. I need to get this sorted before that smarmy twat gets his filthy hooks into my son.”
    Maybe he doesn’t realize I’m still on the phone or something because he’s yelling at poor Brody and flinging around a few obscenities I didn’t know existed.
    “Tell Harry to go get my kid and take him home to Ashley. Then I want you to get Judge Masters on the phone.”
    Well, phew, if he has a judge in his pocket I feel much better about things. I know how bad it sounds, but now that I have money—Lucian’s billions—behind me, I won’t hesitate to use it in any way possible to get my way.
    “Luc?”
    “Love, ah, sorry.”
    “That’s okay. I’ll leave you to it and go wait at the door for Ben. See you later, babe.”
    “Ash, wait,” he says quietly, making me hold my breath.
    His tone is way too quiet and leashed for my liking, especially considering the ruckus he’s just made, so I wait, holding my breath.
    “Please don’t stress about this. I’ll handle it.”
    “I know. That’s why I love you,” I whisper before ending the call to run to the front door.

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Luc
    Being the kind of man that I am—yes, a controlling, paranoid bastard—I decide to go to the school and get my kid. When I get there to see him waiting on the steps with the principal securely holding his hand, I feel a thousand times better and release the breath I’ve been holding since my woman phoned me.
    I know why this is happening, and the knowledge that my vendetta against Wesley Munro has caused this makes acid churn in my belly. I’d contacted his new wife, a very nice woman by the name of Priscilla, and told her the whole sordid truth about his abandonment and theft.
    Of course she’d been horrified, and by the end of the call I’d given