“No.” Colt narrowed his gaze on the ocean and tried to ignore the sudden, frantic beat of his heart.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m too pissed at their mother.”
Connor laughed shortly. “I’m guessing their mom’s not real fond of you about now, either.”
He turned his head to glare at his brother. “You think that matters to me?”
“No. But I know the kids do.”
Well, that took the fire out of him. “What the hell do I know about being a father?”
Connor shrugged. “We had a pretty good role model for that, I think.”
“Yeah, we did.” Their parents had been the best. Until... Guilt reared up inside him, shouting to be heard, but he shut it down as he always did. The past didn’t have any meaning here. This was all about the now. And the future. “Doesn’t mean I’ll be any good at it.”
“Doesn’t mean you’ll suck, either.”
Colt laughed and pushed one hand through his still-wet hair. “Quite the pep talk.”
Connor grinned and turned his gaze on the ocean. “You don’t need a pep talk. Unless you don’t believe they’re your kids...”
“No.” Colt shook his head and scowled. Naturally, he’d considered that for a split second, right after Robert Oaks had punched him. But he’d discounted it just as quickly. “One thing Penny is not is a liar. In spite of the fact that she hid them from me. Besides,” he reasoned, “if she was trying to push someone else’s twins off as mine, she’d have come to me for money right from the jump.”
“True. Still, you should do a paternity test. Cover all your bases legally.”
He would, eventually. Colt wasn’t an idiot. But tests or no tests, he knew, in his gut, those twins were his. Penny had been too panicked about him finding out about them to have him doubting it for a second. And she was right to panic, he told himself. Because things were going to change. Her life as she knew it was now over.
Because Colton King would do whatever he had to to make sure his kids were taken care of.
* * *
Maybe he’d forgotten to come.
Penny laughed silently at the very idea. Colton King might look like a wild, untamed, crazy adventurer—and he was. But he was also a brilliant businessman who never forgot a detail.
So then if he hadn’t forgotten, why hadn’t he shown up at the hospital this morning as promised? Penny had spent a long, sleepless night, worrying about what she would say to him when he strolled into her room again. Turned out, she needn’t have bothered.
All day, she’d been tied in knots, waiting for him to appear. And he never showed up. Why that should irritate her when she really wished he would just go away and stay away, she didn’t know.
But then, her feelings for Colton King had always confused her. That one week with him had fueled her dreams and her fantasies for months. Even when she was pregnant with the twins he had known nothing about, her mind continued to plague her every night, with alternative endings to their time together. But every morning, she was dragged back to a reality where happily ever afters didn’t exist.
“And you should remember that,” she muttered, giving herself a warning. Yet even while that thought squirmed through her mind, her body bristled with nervous expectation and she couldn’t quite seem to calm it down.
Penny had spent most of the day—when she wasn’t torturing herself with thoughts of Colt—trying desperately to be released from the hospital. Not only couldn’t she afford a lengthy stay—they probably charged a hundred dollars for an aspirin—but she needed to get home. To be with her kids. To be back at her cottage, tucked away from everything so she could... What? Hide? From Colt? Not a chance. Now that he knew the twins existed, Penny would never be free of him.
Her heart rate suddenly jumped into overdrive and she groaned. For heaven’s sake, would she always have that reaction to the man? Wasn’t being tossed aside once enough of a lesson? Did she really want to let him back into her life so he could do it again?
“No way,” she vowed and tossed an angry glance at the still-empty doorway.
A half an hour ago, her stupid doctor had finally arrived to give her one more check and sign her release papers. But had a nurse shown up to wheel her out? No. And every second that passed increased the chances of Colt at last deciding to make an appearance.
Which made her wonder again why he hadn’t come. What was he off doing? Was he at her house, insinuating himself with two babies who wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to protect their hearts? Or maybe, she thought wistfully, he’d changed his mind? Decided to ignore his children after all? Could she be that lucky?
Not a chance, and she knew it. One thing she was sure of as far as the Kings of California were concerned: family meant everything.
During their brief time together, how many stories had Colt told her about his brothers, his cousins, their wives and kids? He’d painted amazing pictures of family gatherings and weddings and christenings, and she’d been both jealous of their deep family connection and intimidated by it.
She didn’t know anything about big families. All she’d had in the world was her younger brother and for years it had been the two of them—united against all comers. Heck, she hadn’t even had a social life before she’d met Colton King and tossed her heart at his feet. She hadn’t exactly been a virgin, but the two encounters before Colt had left her convinced that every woman on the face of the planet was lying about the whole earth-shattering-stars-exploding-orgasm thing.
Which might explain why she’d fallen so hard and so fast for Colt. She actually had seen stars with him. She’d felt things with him she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of. He’d made her feel beautiful and sexy and desirable. He’d swept her off her feet so completely, she’d obviously managed to confuse lust with love. Just look where that had gotten her.
A marriage that hadn’t even been twenty-four hours old when it was dissolved.
She turned her head and looked out the window to a patch of blue sky just visible beyond an old elm tree. Leaves dipped and swayed in the wind she wished she could feel on her face. Maybe it would help clear away all the clutter in her mind.
Because now all she could think of was that last morning with Colt. The day she’d awakened as a bride and in less than ten minutes had become yesterday’s news.
For the past week, they’d spent every possible moment in bed, wrapped up in each other, shutting the rest of the world out of the bubble of passion they’d created. Then on the last night of the convention, they’d been married and had spent hours making love, unable to keep their hands off each other.