His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington (23 page)

One: Ana’s niece.

Two: Ana refusing to so much as entertain his offer.

There was a reason his past mistresses, including Ana, had been forced to take birth control under the supervision of his assistants. No lived in a world where one unintended pregnancy could provide a woman with a lifetime of riches along with staining his family’s name. His father had warned him about the greed of paid and unpaid women. And the stakes were high. Several of No’s mistresses had complained about the birth control rules, and he knew without a doubt they would have agreed to stop taking it, if he’d asked.

Ana especially, he’d thought.

Flouting all American HIPPA laws, Montana-san had obtained her medical records for him. So No knew Ana hadn’t taken birth control in months. And according to the notes from her last OB/gyn, she’d checked the box asking for more information about having her eggs frozen. So he knew she was at least thinking about future offspring.

Yet she’d outright refused No’s offer. She’d actually said
no
to him.

He’d been completely unprepared for that. Just like he’d been completely unprepared for the sight of her in the hospital administrator’s office. She was as mesmerizing without make-up, dressed in a set of ridiculous, shapeless hospital clothes, as she’d been in anything Miyuki had bought for her. In fact, Ana was even more desirable to him now because her figure was completely hidden from view, leaving him with no choice but to remember the impressive curves he’d stared at so often in Japan.

She should be naked, his mind had screamed at him when she’d arrived in the hospital office, even as he fought not to fall back into their old erotic habits. He couldn’t just forgive her for everything she’d done simply because he’d become as hard as a stone
toro
at just the sight of her.

He’d thought maybe seeing her again would make the mad desire he’d been living with all this time finally loosen its grip on him. The need to feel her, watch her—he’d been certain it would go away with just one look at her duplicitous face.

But it hadn’t.

And then when she’d barged into his peaceful garden, demanding to see her niece….

There’d been so many missteps on his part after that, including the discovery that money wasn’t the reason she’d agreed to spy on him. When he’d first reviewed her file and found out what had happened with her parents—how just a few years after their divorce her mother had kicked her out of their house, he never imagined her family loyalty would be this strong.

“I didn’t do it for the money, I did it for my brother.”

No was coming to understand that Lilliana Tucker was more Japanese than her dark skin had led him to believe. Her reasons for betraying him. Defying him. Refusing him.

Everything seemed to come down to family.

She’d betrayed him to help her brother.

She wouldn’t speak with him until she was sure her niece was safe.

She refused to bear his child for fear of “messing up some poor kid’s head.”

Messing up an innocent child the way he had been messed up. No thought about his own early years. How he’d been raised from childhood to take over an empire, doing everything the Nakamura way for fear of being cut off from his family the way his older half-brother, Tetsuro, had. Only to have his father spy on him so he could provide Nakamura Worldwide with ample reason to remove No as the head of RoTeku.

As it turned out, Ana, the woman he still couldn’t bring himself to call by any other name, was extremely loyal to her family.

And she’d refused him.

Her refusal had surprised him. No lived in a world where anything—
anything
—

could be bought. So that surprise made sense.

But what didn’t make sense was how much her answer had enraged him. Her refusal shouldn’t have compelled him to tell her he’d keep her a prisoner here forever

if she didn’t agree to have his baby. Shouldn’t have made him break the one rule he’d made for himself when he decided to bring her here.

Don’t touch.
There wasn’t supposed to be any touching this time. Just a sterile exchange, with cups and instruments.

But he’d touched her anyway. And the memory was now seared into his brain. He could still feel her heavy breasts against his palms, her nipples between his fingers. And the way she’d come for him, whimpering as her body convulsed with the orgasm she hadn’t known he’d been conditioning her for.

I am not crazy,
he mentally explained to her.
But you…you make me crazy..

Not just crazy. Weak. She makes you weak
, his father’s voice chided in No’s head, full of disgust.

Regardless…

She would have his baby. That, unlike his sanity, was not up for debate.

Chapter Thirty-Two

A DECENT—not good—but decent night of sleep did nothing to improve No’s mood. Or sense of reason. He woke up just as angry as he’d been when he went to bed. And just as determined to have Ana submit to him.

So when Mrs. Santos knocked politely at the door of his home gym to say she’d just finished serving breakfast to “Miss Lilli” and her niece, he climbed off the treadmill.

Whipping his hoodie over his bare torso, he made his way up the sub-basement stairs that led directly into the open plan kitchen. No was fully prepared to do battle, but as he got further up the stairs, he could hear a battle already raging. Albeit one carried out in low voices.

“C’mon, Aunt Ana!”

“Ruby, I said no.”

“My appointment next week. You have to ask your rich boyfriend—”

“He is
not
my boyfriend,” Ana interrupted, her voice dull and weary.

“Then why we here?”

“Because
you
asked a complete stranger to bring you to this house, that’s why! And now that stranger is going to take you to school, so…”

“I’m not leaving until you ask him!”

“Ruby, we really can’t do this now. Mrs. Santos just said Dallas is bringing the car around for you…”

“So you ask him for car to take me to school so you don’t have to drive, but you can’t ask him for something I really need?”

“You don’t really need—”

“Yes, I do! I
do
!”

“Ruby, please. You’re becoming obsessed about the prosthetic, and it’s not healthy for your brain.”

“I don’t care brain health. You ask him. He obviously rich!”

“Yeah,
obviously
. But that doesn’t mean he’s my personal piggybank, Ruby.”

“So you get car to drive me to school, and what I get? Nothing?”

He couldn’t see Ana from his vantage point on the other side of the kitchen’s corner wall, but he could easily imagine her annoyed expression as she answered, “It’s not like that, Ruby.”

“Then what it like, huh? Because you got rich boyfriend and I don’t get anything I want!”

“Ruby, it is NOT like that. We are not beggars, and we’re going to leave here soon. As soon as I figure a few things out—”

“Just ask him! I don’t care you like beggar. Ask him!”

“I can’t! And even if I did, he probably wouldn’t help—,” Ana broke off, obviously too frustrated to continue on. Then in a very weary voice she continued, “This guy is rich, but that doesn’t mean he’s nice.”

“Why not? He want you do things with him, right? Like girls Papa bring home sometimes?”

Silence. Dead silence.

Then the girl said, “Do it. I don’t care. I need this, Aunt Ana. I
need
this!”

“No, you do not
need
this,” Lilli answered with what sounded like gritted teeth.

“Yes I do, you stupid bitch!”

Smack
! The unmistakable sound of a hand hitting flesh cracked out across the kitchen. And No chose that moment to risk a peek around the corner.

Ana and the
hafu
girl he didn’t have the chance to meet with yesterday were sitting at the kitchen’s long red oak and granite table. No wouldn’t have needed someone to tell him they were related. Though the small girl’s skin was several shades lighter than Ana’s, and she had eyes that bespoke her Japanese heritage, they both wore identical expressions of shock and horror.

“You hit me!” the girl said, glaring at her aunt, as if she were some sort of criminal.

“I…I…” In the end, Ana lowered her head, as if she were truly ashamed of herself.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have hit you, but…I lost control of myself. I’m sorry….”

The girl’s eyes flashed triumphantly. As if she’d won this encounter, even though she’d been the one who’d gotten slapped. But before she could respond to Ana’s apology, Mrs. Santos poked her head around the corner on the other side of the kitchen. “Miss Ruby,” she called out, oblivious to the overwrought scene that had just taken place. “Your car is here.”

No moved back into the shadows, waiting a careful moment at the bottom of the sub-basement stairs—the set that led directly into the kitchen—until he heard the click of the front door behind the girl. That was when he rushed up the other set of stairs, which led directly to the front door’s entrance way. Offering a polite bow to a rather surprised Mrs. Santos, he opened the front door and dashed through.

Less than a minute later, he slid into the back seat of the Cadillac Escalade Montana-san had chosen as his company car, startling Ana’s niece with his unexpected arrival.

However, the girl had clearly received some basic training in Japanese manners.

Because as the car pulled away, she bowed as a girl her age should when an adult enters the same space.

But just a few moments after they drove through the property’s front gate, she asked in Japanese, “Are you my aunt’s boyfriend?”

“Are you her niece?” he replied, answering her impertinent question with one of his own.

“Yes, I guess so,” she answered with a grumble. As if being related to Ana was a real hardship. “She came to live with Papa and me after Mom died.”

“How kind of her.”

“Yes, I guess…” Then Ruby stared out the window, giving him the universal sign of children everywhere that they no longer wished to talk.

But unlike Ana, No wished to continue his conversation with the obstinate girl.

“What is it you wanted your aunt to ask me?” he inquired. “Is it the same thing you wished to meet with me about yesterday?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “You heard that?”

He tilted his head at a sardonic angle. “You did not do a very good job of keeping your voice down, Ruby-chan. Or cloak your name-calling.”

The girl’s cheeks heated red under her pale brown skin. “I know. I shouldn’t have called her that. I shouldn’t have yelled. My mother taught me to be respectful. But sometimes she makes me so angry, and I didn’t think she’d hit me. She has never hit me before. Even when I called her names.”

With a pang, No found himself wondering just how often they’d had this conversation. Lilli had sounded weary, like the argument was making her more and more tired by the second.

“But this morning was different,” he observed.

“Yes,” she answered with a miserable look. Then she said, “She keeps saying you are not her boyfriend, but why did you tell me to pack a suitcase and come to your house if this is true?”

“It is a very complicated story,” he answered. “One I do not wish to tell a child.”

“May I ask why you are here in this car with me?” Her eyes scanned his clothes.

“You do not look as if you are going to work.”

“I am not,” he answered. “But I overheard your conversation with your aunt and I wished to know what you were arguing about.”

The girl’s eyes cut away. “You should ask her.”

“I am asking you.”

“I do really not wish to embarrass her any further.”

So the child did have some sense of familial fidelity, even if it was hardly there at all.

“Admirable, but you called her a vile name in my presence. I think we can safely say you have already embarrassed her.”

Ruby’s cheeks reddened again. “I didn’t know you were there!” Then off of No’s censuring look, she said, “I didn’t mean to, I was just trying to…”

She stopped again, but No prodded, “Trying to what?”

“Get her to ask you to buy something for me.” She peeked across the seat at him. “A leg.”

She tapped on her prosthesis which, had she been wearing the typical Japanese school girl uniform as opposed to jeans, would have been completely visible.

“I was supposed to get fitted for a permanent leg yesterday. But I don’t want the leg the insurance company is trying to make me take. I want the blade one with special technology. You know, like the kind athletes use?”

“What are your aunt’s reasons for not granting your request?”

“The legs are really expensive,” Ruby admitted, her stubborn chin quivering. “She can’t afford one. But
you
can, right? That was all I was trying to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen to me! She kept saying she couldn’t ask you, when I know she could.”

No pondered the situation, then gave Ruby a thoughtful nod. “You are right, I can afford such a leg.”

“I knew you could!” Ruby crowed.

“But if your aunt had asked me to buy it for you, I would have said no.”

Ruby’s face fell. “But why?”

“Because you do not seem like a child deserving of such a leg. You have little respect for your aunt. And you demand much of her without even offering anything to her in return. Why would anyone, including me, want to buy you this leg?”

Ruby, who he suspected had been coddled by most of the adults in her life since her mother’s early death, looked nothing short of crestfallen.

“You don’t want to give me a better leg, even though you can afford it,” Ruby repeated, as if No were speaking to her in a foreign language she didn’t really understand.

“No, I don’t. Not without some form of payment.”

She frowned, “What kind of payment?”

He considered her for a while before saying, “Every morning I go downstairs at 5am to begin my workout. If you are serious about earning the leg you want, you will meet with me at 4:30, before I begin my training.”

Ruby frowned. “So you want me to work for you?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

The girl had much to learn. “Your first instruction is to come to my home gym at 4:30 tomorrow morning. You will receive more instructions upon arrival.”