Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (130 page)

I sighed, dumping the drained macaroni
into the empty pot and pouring in the ingredients to make the sauce. I stirred,
even while I thought about how good it had felt to kiss Zeke again, and how
much—in that moment, at least—I had wanted more. I wanted to be around him, I
wanted to be able to kiss him without feeling guilty, and I wanted to be able
to tell him how I felt without betraying my professional standing.
Might as well wish for the moon on a string
while you’re at it,
I thought wryly. I put the lid on the pasta pot and
started to turn my attention onto the rest of dinner; it would keep warm while
I cooked the chicken and the green beans that went along with it.

An idea flitted through my head. For an
instant I rejected it completely.
You
could invite him over to dinner. Brady’s here—nothing would happen.
But
Brady had been in the house the first time we’d had sex; he’d been in his
bedroom, though fortunately—to the best of my knowledge—my toddler son had no
idea what had happened between Zeke and I, or even that Zeke had been in the
house. It was a stupid idea, and I knew it. It would only give Brady the
impression that things were even better between me and Zeke than they were, and
it would be that much harder to explain to my son when Zeke and I parted ways,
either because I’d gotten him reassigned or because things didn’t work out
between us after I left the agency.
Surely,
if he’s not that interested in you, you can ask him to dinner and he’ll turn
you down and that will be that.
But Zeke had come to my rescue when I was
too shaken up to drive myself home from the meeting with Ethan. He had rescued
me in the midst of the first altercation. He’d come over in the middle of the
night. Even if he wasn’t interested enough in me to be a steady partner, I knew
that he was interested enough to come over for dinner—though that might change
when I made it clear that I didn’t want to push things any further than I
already had.

I stepped back from the stove. Everything
was in a kind of holding pattern. If I was smart I would go into the living
room with Brady, get involved in his game, and forget all about the tantalizing
idea of inviting Zeke over. I’d write up a report on my client and ask Katie to
reassign me because I’d developed feelings for someone I was supposed to be
working with.
Clearly, I am not all that
smart.
I found my phone, plugged into the wall, charging, and took a deep
breath, asking myself a final time if I was sure I was doing the right thing,
if I was doing what I really wanted to do, opening a can of worms I wanted to
deal with.

Hey,
Zeke,
I wrote.
Just a
random offer, and don’t feel like you have to accept: I’m making dinner for
Brady and me. Feel like joining us? Only if you don’t have any plans.
I
made myself stop typing at that point, because I knew if I didn’t, I’d just
keep rambling on. I tapped send and set my phone aside to stir the green beans
on the stove.

I heard the message received tone and made
myself wait another thirty seconds before I went to see what Zeke had said. For
that matter, I reminded myself, I didn’t even know that it was an answer from
Zeke. For all I knew, it was from one of my other clients, looking to confirm a
session on another day, or from Katie checking up on me.

Of course, the message was from Zeke after
all.
I’d love to come over! I’ll be there
in about fifteen minutes—is that okay?
I bit my bottom lip, considering; it
would be more than okay from the perspective of the food I was preparing, but
from the perspective of my state of mind, should I really go through with it? I
could text him back and say that I changed my mind—couldn’t I? It wouldn’t
exactly be professional, but then inviting him over to my house wasn’t very
professional, either. I took a deep breath and decided that I’d already
committed by inviting him in the first place. It would be shitty of me to back
out of it after he’d accepted. I wrote back that it would be fine and started
clearing up the little bit of mess that Brady had managed to make in the house
since he’d gotten home from the park, hoping that Zeke would keep things as
platonic as possible and wishing that I didn’t feel like I was making a
mistake.

Chapter
Thirty Eight

Zeke

“You like mac and cheese?” I looked at
Brady and grinned.

“It used to be my very favorite thing in
the world,” I told the little boy. “I think your mom probably makes it better
than mine did, though.” It was partially true. It was obvious to me that
Natalie had doctored the boxed macaroni with real cheese, and probably with
more ingredients that weren’t included in the container. My mom had done
something similar, but with slightly less success.

“Thanks for coming over,” Natalie said.
She looked almost flustered, and I couldn’t imagine why. I’d been in her house
before, I’d been around Brady before, and it wasn’t like there were any real
secrets between us on either front.

“It definitely beats eating dinner by
myself,” I pointed out, taking a bite of the chicken that Natalie had made. It
was the first home-cooked meal made by someone else I’d had in ages—and I was
more than happy to enjoy it. “Besides, I never get a chance to eat like a
regular, normal person.”

“What do you eat like, then?” Natalie
grinned, and I thought to myself that if she had any idea of how her eyes lit
up when she did, she’d use that expression more carefully.

“A bachelor.” I looked at Brady. “Let me
give you some advice, Brady—one man to another.” I glanced in Natalie’s
direction and saw the amusement on her face. “It really isn’t all that stylish
to be a single man. Find yourself a woman to love as young as you can and treat
her right so you don’t lose her.”

“Okay,” Brady said, looking at me in
confusion. He turned to look askance at his mother.

“It’ll make sense when you get older,”
Natalie informed her son, trying not to laugh. We kept eating, and I alternated
between talking to Natalie about (kid safe) adult topics and asking Brady about
his friends, his toys, his family members other than his mother. I cleaned my
plate—and Brady cleaned his—before I helped Natalie clear the table, thinking
to myself that it was the least that I could do after she went to the trouble
of inviting me over. Brady ran into the living room once more once his
particular chore of taking his plate and cup to the sink was finished, but
Natalie and I stayed in the kitchen. She insisted on washing the dishes, and I
stood there ready to dry them and put them away for her.

It was a weirdly comfortable and
comforting thing, doing the dishes together. I watched Natalie wipe down the
table with the kind of movements that told me she did it every night, and
watched her wash the dishes as if there was something about doing the chore
that she actually enjoyed. “You look like you’re actually having a good time
cleaning,” I said, taking a dish from her hands to dry it with a towel.

“It’s one of the few times a day when I
can just sort of let my mind wander,” she told me. “Brady always keeps himself
busy in the living room—without the possibility of injuring himself,
generally—and I just stand here and wash dishes, and think about the day.”

“That sounds weirdly peaceful,” I told
her. She laughed.

“Well before Alex and I split up, I was
basically a housewife,” she pointed out. “He wanted me to devote all the time
to keeping the house and taking care of Brady, and so I sort of got used to
doing it. Made it a lot easier to keep things tidy now that I’m single.”

“It’s good to see you’re already training
Brady to do his part,” I said. Natalie grinned and shrugged, handing me another
item.

“I want to eventually teach him to do the
dishes, but he’s definitely too small right now—especially since there are
knives to wash.”

“Oof, yeah that makes sense,” I agreed.
“He’s too young to handle anything that sharp.”

“But getting him used to clearing his
plate off the table seemed like a good step,” she said with a shrug. “I’m
catching him when he can’t even really question why he needs to do it.” She
snickered, and I put away the bowl she had handed me to dry.

“Make it an automatic thing and he’ll just
keep doing it,” I said, nodding. I glanced at her. “You know, you probably don’t
care all that much about my opinion—I’m not a real date or anything—but you’re
an amazing mom.” Natalie nearly dropped the cup in her hands and looked at me
sharply.

“Thank you,” she said after a moment. “I
actually appreciate that a lot. There are tons of people out there who want to
tell women how they should parent their children—and some of them are even in
my family!”

“You’re doing an amazing job,” I told her
again. “Brady is healthy, happy, bright, and kind.”

“All the things I hoped I could either
have built into him or developed in him over time,” she said with a smile.

We went into the living room when the
cleanup was finished and found Brady pretending to shoot at the car I had given
him with the water gun that his mom had bought for our date in the dark
together—fortunately the water gun was empty. Natalie checked the time and told
Brady that he had thirty minutes before it was his bedtime. I expected to hear
Brady whine and work himself up to a tantrum at the news.

Instead, he was perfectly calm. “Bedtime
story?” he looked from me to Natalie.

“Of course,” Natalie replied. “We always
have bedtime stories.”

“With Mr. Zeke?” Brady looked at me again.

“Do you want to be a part of bedtime
stories?” Natalie raised an eyebrow and I knew that she wanted me to say yes. I
would have said yes anyway, but the interest—the almost-fear—in her eyes at the
prospect of me just leaving without helping put Brady to bed made my heart even
warmer.
She might actually like me,
I
thought.
Not just as a client, but as a
person. She might actually…
I pushed the thought out of my head and decided
to see how things played out.

“I like a good bedtime story,” I said,
nodding.

I waited for Natalie to give Brady a quick
bath and get him into his pajamas; even as personal as we’d gotten, I didn’t
think that it would be right for me to be part of that aspect of getting the
toddler ready for bed—at least, not yet. I was surprised at the fact that Brady
made no fuss whatsoever about the going to bed process. Natalie told me quietly
as Brady brushed his teeth that it was because they’d always done it that way,
and after about a week of tantrums, Brady had learned that it wasn’t going to
avail him to throw a fit.

The story of choice for that evening was
The Poky Little Puppy
, and Natalie and I
took turns reading it, while Brady’s gaze switched from one to the other of us,
his eyelids drooping as he got sleepier and sleepier. “All right, bub,” Natalie
said quietly as we both stood. “You’ve got your water, you’ve had your story,
and now it’s time for dreamland, right?” He nodded drowsily.

“Night-night,” he mumbled.

“Sleep tight,” Natalie replied, and I
fought back the urge to smile at what was obviously a ritual between the two of
them. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,”

“Sweet dream,” he continued.

“See you in the morning,” she finished.
She crept out of the room and I followed her, watching as she closed the door
almost all the way.

In the living room, I sat down on the
couch and Natalie followed suit, briefly looking lost. Obviously, she had a
normal post-bedtime routine, and I was interrupting it just by being there.
“Should I go?” I started to stand up.

“No!” She looked sharply in the direction
of Brady’s room, blushing slightly at the tone of her voice. “No, you don’t
have to leave.”

Chapter
Thirty Nine

Natalie

When I told Zeke that he didn’t have to
leave, I was already nervous. I’d been nervous ever since he’d sat down to eat
dinner with Brady and me. If I was really honest with myself, I was nervous as
soon as he came into the apartment: flustered, worried, waiting for Brady to
act up or for Zeke to make a move or for an awkward question to come up.

But when Zeke sat back down, I felt some
of my nervousness starting to lift. I swallowed against the dry feeling in my
throat and took a deep breath. “I really just… I guess I wanted company,” I
said, smiling awkwardly.

“I’m happy to provide it,” Zeke told me.
For a moment, I had no idea what to do or say; all I could do was look at him.
Then, he began to lean in, and I had a second where I knew I had to make a
choice—let him kiss me, or tell him not to. The second passed, and Zeke’s lips
brushed against mine, almost tentative. I reached out blindly, closing my eyes
and wrapping my arms around his shoulders, and he took the signal to deepen the
kiss between us. I knew that I had let another boundary be crossed—I could have
stopped him—but I couldn’t make myself do the right thing. He kissed me
hungrily, his hands wandering slowly over my body, barely grazing my breasts,
drifting down to my hips, tickling my waist. My heart beat faster in my chest
in a way that had nothing to do with being nervous, and I leaned into Zeke’s
touches, already starting to get turned on, already hungry for more—just like I
had been when he’d driven me home after the attack a few days before.