Defending My Mobster (BWWM Romance) (27 page)

Maybe I’d be lucky and fate would take its own course. I’d lose the child as I had before. I’d only been two months along, and one night I’d woken up in a puddle of blood. It had been a relief. I hadn’t had the money to be a new parent and no one wanted to hire someone who would go on maternity leave in five months.

At the same time it had been a nightmare in its own right. I’d thought that miscarriage would be a blessing when it had been a mistake in the first place. I didn’t believe in abortion and this was nature’s way of giving a get-out-of-jail-free card. What I hadn’t expected was the depression and the sorrow that had come with it, and nightmares about the little bundle of joy that would never be. I felt that somehow I’d been to blame for the death of the little soul before it had had a decent shot at life. Because I’d messed up so bad, because I’d left without giving Noah a fighting chance, and so I’d doomed our family before it had even formed at all.

It had taken me three years to get over it, to stop dreaming about babies screaming before they died a helpless death.

It had been a blessing in disguise, I’d thought. I hadn’t wanted to admit it had been hell in disguise instead.

My phone beeped and I snatched it up, hoping beyond hope that it was Noah. I’d watched my phone with hope for a week after I’d returned, answering every call on the first ring. After that I’d given up. That’s what I’d told myself.

Now the one thing I really needed was to hear his voice, no matter what it was he had to say to me. But when I pressed the phone against my ear it wasn’t the Texas drawl I was hoping for. Aaron’s smooth accent filled my ear.

“I’m back in town,” he said. “I was wondering if you wanted to meet up for dinner.”

I hesitated. “I’m not really feeling too well,” I finally said. It was true on more levels than one, even if it wasn’t exactly self-explanatory.

“That doesn’t matter. How about I come to you? I’ll grab Chinese on the way. Nothing weird, I just want to talk.”

I agreed and he told me he’d be around at six. I looked around the apartment and got up, walking to the broom closet. Cleaning the place up was something I could do, at least. I shoved the plastic packet with my new vitamins and supplements into the nearest cupboard and slammed the door shut. It didn’t have to exist if I didn’t want it to. At least for one more night.

By the time Aaron rang the doorbell the house was spotless and I was showered and dressed in clean jeans and a collared blouse. I opened the door and the smell of Chinese greeted me before he did.

“You have no idea what kind of heaven it is to be back in civilization,” he said. I wished I could feel the same.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“After you left, Larry was grumpy and irritable, Larry at his best. But the next day, as you know, he jetted back and left me to deal with things. I’ll tell you, I don’t know what Hart thought appointing Vanessa as executor. She had no idea what’s going on and I had to literally walk her through every little thing. It was like she was in school and I had to spoon-feed her.”

“She’s a different one,” I offered, walking to the kitchen and taking out bowls and glasses. I scraped sweet-and-sour pork into the bowls for us with fried rice and the vegetable side Aaron had gotten. The smells filled the kitchen and I embraced not having to cook.

“Was Noah involved?” I asked. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get into it. I wouldn’t make it weird. I didn’t care.

“Not really…” Aaron said, his sentence trailing off. I shook my head and poured us each a glass of soda.

“I’m sorry, I’m being ridiculous. I shouldn’t have asked.” Aaron wanted to say something but I cut him off. “You’re here to talk.”

We walked back to the lounge and I sat down on the couch, curling my feet under me. I took a bite of food so my mouth would be occupied and I wouldn’t say anything else that was stupid.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior in Ingram, actually,” Aaron said, studying the food in his bowl instead of looking at me. “I behaved like a child when I should have been one of the grown-ups. I don’t know what came over me, and I was an absolute jerk.”

I shook my head and swallowed. “Please, don’t,” I said. I’d messed up so much it was hardly his fault everything had gotten bent out of shape. “I couldn’t even deal with my past, how unprofessional is that? You really weren’t that bad. I left you stranded with a busted nose in a strange town, for god’s sake.”

Aaron chuckled. His black eyes were mostly healed up now, and he just had a thin plaster across his nose. Judging by the way he ate I could tell it still hurt like hell. No one knew that a broken nose meant that eating hurt unless they’d had one, or they’d had to take care of someone who’d had one.

“For what it’s worth, it makes you look like a badass,” I added.

Aaron grinned at me and we sat together in companionable silence for a while, eating.

When we finished our food Aaron collected the empty packets and put them in the trash while I rinsed out the bowls in the sink. It was quick work, doing it together, and I wondered if this was what it was like having someone who could share the load.

As a single businesswoman I didn’t have much of a load in general. What I didn’t have time to clean myself I hired someone else to do, and I wasn’t home a lot. But if I was going to have a family…

I stopped myself from going down that road. I didn’t want to think about it now. If I ignored it, I could still pretend it didn’t exist. There were no reminders.

The pills behind the closed cabinet door mocked me while I made coffee. I was acutely aware of them being there. Aaron sat in the lounge and I brought the cups through. He blew on his and took a small sip, tasting it.

“You still make the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,” he said and took another sip. We sat together on the couch, my knees pulled up with my feet tucked under me. He sat with his feet on the ground but leaning back a bit, slouching. I was close to him, and I was aware of how little space there was between us, and only two pieces of clothing.

I leaned forward and kissed him. He was surprised. I didn’t expect anything else. He was rigid under my lips, and for a moment his body was frozen with no response. But then his lips softened under my own, and I imagined it was a reversal of what had happened between us in the hotel room. When I opened my eyes, still kissing, I saw that Aaron had closed his.

I closed my eyes too, and kissed him like I meant it. It started off sweet and innocent, two people kissing. Tentative tongues, smooth lips that asked questions more than taking action. I lifted my hand and traced his jaw with a finger. The other hand was still wrapped around my coffee cup. Aaron breathed out against my lips, leaned towards me.

The kiss became more intense, and I threw myself into it. I stretched for the coffee table to put down my cup without breaking the kiss. I only managed to find the edge, and my cup teetered for a moment before it fell on the carpet. The coffee fell in an oblong splash of brown along the carpet. I didn’t care. I wanted this.

I needed this.

Aaron put his hands on my shoulders, and pushed me away, breaking the kiss. My neck was craned forward, my face having left his when my body had been pushed away far enough.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was gentle, but the sharp feeling of offense stung deep into my chest.

“What?” I asked and my voice sounded as thin and trembling as I felt.

Aaron sighed, his body collapsing in on itself with it. “You don’t want this. I know you don’t.”

I looked at him, my mouth slightly open. “Well, no one has tried that reverse psychology technique with me before,” I said. I was defensive. I was angry. I was scared. I was hurt.

Aaron shook his head and placed four fingers between his eyebrows. It looked like it hurt him to think.

“That’s not how I mean it.” He looked up at me. “But I have a feeling you know that. What’s going on? When I was throwing myself at you, you pushed me away. You didn’t want it then. I’m not going to believe you suddenly want it now.”

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” I asked and I sounded a lot more pleading than I’d wanted to.

“You’re not the kind of woman that just swings from one thought to the next. I know you, and I know you’re deeper than that.”

I looked down at my hands, and suddenly I couldn’t stop it. It was like a dam wall had broken, and every bit of emotion I’d shoved away came crashing down on me at the same time.

I burst out in tears.

Aaron looked like he didn’t know what to do. He squirmed on the couch. I tried to stop, but it just made it worse, turning the crying into hysterical dry sobbing. It felt like I was going to crack open and every last bit of me was going to spill out onto the floor. If I wasn’t careful I was going to end up like my coffee.

“Shit, Tamika… I didn’t mean… Dammit. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

I sniveled and hiccupped, trying to stop the tears. I kept wiping my cheeks with my hands to get rid of the tears but every time new ones replaced them.

“It’s not you,” I said through the sobs.

“It’s not me, it’s you?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. How many women have fed him that line?

I shook my head. My body was still convulsing with sobs that I couldn’t control. I’d never lost control like this. I had a feeling this was seven years’ worth of cry coming out all at the same time. I bit the bullet and managed to speak through my meltdown.

“I’m pregnant,” I cried. Saying the words out loud made it all worse. It made it all real. The tears kept coming and I felt like I was going to break in two. When I looked at Aaron, a blurry Adonis through my tears, his face was a blank slate.

“Is this what it’s all about?” he said after a while. I shook my head. Then nodded. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

Aaron was quiet for a moment, and then he did the last thing I expected. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me onto his chest. I sobbed against him like a child, hoping he had the strength to chase my nightmares away. He sat like that with me until my crying finally calmed down, and I was reduced to a few random hiccups here and there. My eyes were puffy and my skin and nose burned from rubbing it so much, but I felt like I could breathe again.

“You love him, don’t you?” Aaron asked, and the question was so out of the blue it smacked me full on in the face. I pushed up and looked at him.

“In case you were wondering, it is kind of obvious. But no, I don’t think he knows it the way I see it.” Aaron let me go so I could sit up, and he looked down at his hands, suddenly finding them very interesting.

“There was a time, not very long ago, actually, that I wished you would look at me the way you look at him. And I was jealous like you can’t believe, that that scruffy cowboy could have your heart and I couldn’t, with all my money and charm.”

“Aaron…” I started but he waved his hand so that he could finish.

“The thing is, he looks at you the same way. And no two people who love each other like that should be kept apart. And I realized that you’re an amazing friend, but unless a woman looks at me like that, she’s not for me.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest was a void, a hole that couldn’t take in air. My ears were ringing.

“He doesn’t look at me that way,” I said. Aaron hadn’t said that. It wasn’t true. I was going to deny it until it all went away.

“You guys are ridiculous, you know that? The whole world can see what’s going on between the two of you, except you and him. And Vanessa, obviously, but she’s a whole different kind of thick.”

I giggled involuntarily when he said that. It was true. I’d thought it too, and we were both too professional to admit to it. My laughter faded and turned into a sigh.

“He doesn’t love me like that. No anymore. Not since I got pregnant.”

“Does he know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t mean this time. I mean the first time. That’s why I left. Because I’d gotten pregnant and he just didn’t want to be a dad.”

Aaron thought about it for a moment. “A lot of things are making sense now,” he said.

I shrugged. “I’d managed to carry on without him. I hadn’t needed him. And then Larry made me go back there, and he turned my whole world upside down. And now I’m right back where I started. And Noah has Vanessa. He’s managed to replace me again.”

Aaron cleared his throat and I frowned. “He’s not dating her anymore,” he said. “He broke up with her.”

“What?”