Barefoot by the Sea

Before Henry could answer, Ian marched toward the door. Also, fuck the security and their trumped-up rules about review boards not having direct contact with program members. If some prejudiced, small-minded, idiot woman who read a negative report thought she could ruin his life, she was going to answer to him.

He shoved the heavy door open, instantly blasted by hot air and a scowl from a guard. Undeterred by the protective glass, metal detector, or the gun on the guy’s hip, Ian powered toward him.

“I need to see—”

“Me!” Henry barreled around the corner, still holding his phone. “I’ll clear him through,” he called to the guard.

Ian sailed through the metal detector and met Henry on the other side. “Don’t even try to stop me.”

“I warned them this might happen. She seemed to relish the opportunity to meet you.” Henry gestured for him to head down a flight of stairs into the chilly bowels of the building. “Last door on the left.”

“What’s her problem? The fact that I got in a fight in Singapore?”

“She’s hung up on stability. I told you it would have been better to wave a marriage certificate.”

Ian gave a derisive snort. That was one decision he did not regret in the least. “A fake, meaningless piece of paper that’s going to be annulled before this board convenes again? Why bother?”

“It makes them feel better,” Henry said, hustling to keep up with Ian’s long and furious strides. “They’re bureaucrats and you need to appeal to their love of red tape.” They stopped at a closed door. “Her name is Sarah Banks and she’s got an agenda. I don’t have any idea what it is.”

“Well, fuck Sarah Banks and—” Ian’s words halted when the door opened. “Oh. I already have.”

Bloody hell. It was only a matter of time until one of those many, many one-night stands would come back to bite him in the ass.

Sandy hair, blue eyes, and a smile he’d pronounced “pretty” the night he’d met her in Singapore. She’d probably been a government plant to see if he could stick to his story. And now she’d been promoted to a position in Canada.

He didn’t bother averting his eyes, but held her cold gaze as Henry made a brief round of introductions around a long conference table. He didn’t bother to listen to the names of the two men; they weren’t why he was in this room.

Oh, bollocks. Sarah. It all came back to him now. She’d approached him in a dive in Geylang and he’d been drunk enough to believe she was a British tourist who’d ended up in the wrong part of Singapore. Her accent had sounded like home and her hair reminded him of…

“We’ve met,” she said icily. “Unless you don’t remember.”

He ignored the comment, narrowing his eyes to remind her that even though she’d been a plant sent to test his ability to keep his identity secret, she’d also been a willing and eager sex partner. No doubt that wasn’t in her job description.

“I want my children,” he said softly. “And I’m here to find out exactly what I need to do to get them short of taking them, which I will do if forced.”

One of the men leaned forward. “We take threats like that very seriously.”

You ought to, Ian said with his glare.

“Your unstable lifestyle concerns me,” Sarah said, turning a page in a file he assumed was a blow-by-blow description of his many instabilities. “We have no issue how you choose to live in your government-granted identity when you are on your own, Mr. Browning, but bringing children into the mix is an entirely different equation.”

“Henry gave us the impression you were settling down, even marrying,” the other man said. “That would go a long way to assuaging our issues.”

He practically curled his lip and fought the urge to make a fist to assuage his issues. “You expect me to marry someone and not tell them my life story?”

Sarah shrugged. “It’s been done, and, frankly, we think that encourages you to fully embrace your identity, forcing you to become the new person we say you are.”

He managed not to spit or leap over the table and throttle her skinny neck, but only thanks to a superhuman effort. “I’ll never be the person you say I am.”

“Then you can’t have your children.” She leveled him with a look that sent his blood pressure soaring. “Unless and until you prove your stability.”

He closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath, mining every drop of composure he had. “I assume you don’t have children, Ms. Banks.”

“My life is not on the table.”

“My life”—he clenched his jaw and leaned closer—“isn’t a life. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in the personal hell you condemn people to every day?”

She launched one well-drawn brow. “You’d perhaps prefer a slow death at the hands of some London gang member?”

Just his bloody luck to have his fate in the hands of a woman he’d screwed every way possible. “I’d perhaps prefer to live exactly as I did before some maniac murdered my wife, left my children screaming, and stole any semblance of normalcy I’ve ever had.”

“It’s that semblance of normalcy we’re looking for, Mr. Browning. Get it and we’ll see what we can do about your kids. But you’ll have to hurry. They turn four in a few months.”

Next to him, Henry’s phone hummed and he checked it, pushed back his chair, and left.

After a moment, Ian pinned her with a long look. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“We need to believe those children will live in a secure and stable environment,” one of the men said.

“My children are on the third family in as many years,” he fired back. “They’re about to be separated after my son was hospitalized. What is stable and secure about that?”

It was the other man’s turn as Sarah flipped through the file without looking at him. “We need to see a record that shows you are prepared to raise and rear those children.”

“They’re mine. I was prepared to raise and rear them the day they were born. Before.”

Sarah fluttered the file. “Until we know you are completely safe, the children stay in Canada, in two different families. As you know, when they are four, you can no longer move them, so—”

He launched toward the table, ripped the file out of her hand, and stuck his face right in front of hers, eliciting a soft cry as she pushed backward.

“How many times do I have to die for you people to be satisfied?” He ground out the words. “Because I died in London, I died in Singapore, I died in Florida, and I’m dying here.” He balled the papers in fisted hands. “I want to live. I finally want to live so, for God’s sake, lady, let me do that.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

The door popped open, startling all of them. Henry held his phone, his eyes sparking as he seized the shoulder of Ian’s jacket and pulled him off the table. “Save your breath, mate. The game changed. This meeting’s over.”

Tessa gingerly set the plastic stick on the bathroom counter, washed her hands, and closed the door as she walked out.

A watched test never reveals two lines.

Exhaling softly, she went into the living room, paced from one side to the other, then closed her eyes. Time for the same prayer she’d said every single time she’d gone through this exercise in fertility-futility, as Billy once called her obsessive test-taking when her period was about four minutes late.

“Please, God, let this be the—No…” She shook her head, letting her voice trail off.

That wasn’t the plea she wanted to make. Deep inside, Tessa wanted to pray for something else. This time, the negative result was for the better.

Stunned, she unfolded her prayer-hands and pressed them to her burning cheeks.

Was it possible she was hoping for a negative test? How could that be?

Of course she wanted to be pregnant! That desire was as much a part of her as gardening or breathing. She’d wanted a baby for as long as she could remember. In front of the bookcase, she crouched down to her secret infertility shelf, remembering how John had discovered the books and pulled one out.

Five Hundred Ways to Get Pregnant. She could still hear the humor in his voice.