RISK

by Deborah Bladon

"Do you want anything?" I stand when he takes a seat on the fabric couch that came with the place. "I only have water or juice. I can make coffee if you want."

  "No." He takes a deep breath. "Please sit, Ellie. Let me explain."

  I sit far from enough from him that I'm satisfied he can't reach out and touch me. I don't want that. I can't feel his skin against mine as I listen to this. "What's your daughter's name?"

  He looks surprised. He swallows before he answers. "May. Her name is May."

  "May," I repeat it quietly. "It's pretty."

  "She's pretty." His brows are drawn. "I'd tell you that she's the prettiest girl in the world, but I'm her dad, so my perception is skewed. Aside from that, she is the prettiest little girl I've ever seen."

  "What does she look like?"

  He moves. His legs spread as he reaches toward his front pocket but then he stops. "I could show you some of the pictures I have on my phone but I'd much rather you see for yourself in person. I'd like you to meet her."

  I'd like that too. I think. At some point, I would like it. Not now. Not yet.

  He looks at me pensively. "I don't tell the women I spend time with about May. I haven't until now. I'm protective of her. I need to be."

  "Aren't all fathers protective of their daughters?" I ask with a smile.

  "I suppose they are." He studies the room we're in. There's nothing notable about it but his gaze slides over every piece of furniture and the framed pictures of Adley's family.

  He's waiting. Waiting for me to say something. Anything.

  "I meant what I said in my office earlier, Ellie." He shifts in his seat, moving closer to where I am. "I'd like us to date exclusively. I realize I made the suggestion before you knew I was a single dad, but I still want us to spend time together."

  I nod, but what comes out of my mouth isn't fueled by my desire to date him. It's driven by my need to know more about his daughter, and her mother. The woman he made love to and created a life with. "What's your relationship with May's mom like? Is it civil? Do you see her often?"

  Closing his eyes, he bows his head, his hand scrubbing over the back of his neck. "I don't see her. I don't know her. I have no idea who May's mother is."

  Chapter 29

  Nolan

  She looks at me the way you'd expect a woman to look at a man who she believes is throwing bullshit in her direction.

  I brace for the question. It's the same question I've heard from my family, from Crew, and before his death, even my grandfather sat me down and looked me in the eye before he asked it.

  "You don't know who her mother is? How is that possible, Nolan?"

  When you fuck so many women that you can't remember names or faces it suddenly becomes possible.

  When you look into the face of a baby and see only yourself reflected back, it becomes possible.

  "May was left just inside the lobby doors of the building I took you to last night. She was an infant. There was a note with her addressed to me. It was handwritten but untraceable. There was nothing else left with her other than a blanket and the diaper she was wearing."

  Her eyes flick across my face at lightning speed. "Someone just left her all alone?"

  I nod. "The doorman found her once she started crying. He called me and I called the police."

  "The police?" There's no judgment in her tone. It's a simple question.

  "I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I needed to make sure she was all right, so I called 911."

  She moves slightly, closer to me, although her hands remain stiff in her lap. "What happened then?"

  It's a blur, but it's not. I was floating on something back then. It was fear and joy. Hope and disbelief. "I demanded a DNA test and that I be allowed to take her back home with me."

  "Were you able to?" she asks, running her hands over her knees. "Did they let you take her home?"

  "My lawyer fought hard, but yes." I sigh. "There were stipulations including my sister and her husband agreeing to become May's temporary guardians. They'd adopted a boy a few months before so the court saw that as a plus. The three of them needed to move in with me temporarily, but their presence guaranteed May could stay."

  "That's why you moved to another apartment," she breathes. "You needed the room."

  "I negotiated a rental agreement the day May was released from the hospital and the nursery was fully equipped within hours. I bought the place a week later."

  "She was in the hospital?"

  "A precaution," I explain. "There was no record of her birth. We had no idea if there were complications, but thankfully she was fine. A bit premature, but fine."

  "When did you know for certain that she was your daughter?" The first sign of a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

  "The first time I held her." I look directly into her eyes. "In that lobby, I picked that baby up and looked down at her and I knew. I knew she was mine."

  ***

  I asked for a glass of water to chase down the lump in my throat. It did little good. It was worth it, though. Ellie sat closer to me when she brought me the glass. So close that I can reach out to touch the bare skin of her legs. I haven't, but the temptation is there.

  "What happened today?" Her eyes catch mine. I see her genuine concern. It was there when I left my office in a mad rush earlier and it was still there when she opened her apartment door to let me in. "Is she all right?"

  Yes.

  No.

  She's perfect except for her shattered heart.

  "She'll be fine." I lean back into the couch. "May's dog died a few weeks ago. It was her first loss. She's having a difficult time adjusting."

  "Losing a pet can be very hard." Her lips turn down until she's frowning. Her brows pinch together. "I had a dog once. I remember how deeply I mourned that loss."

  Kip had a dog; a feisty little Yorkie mix. She'd give it some of the food I would bring her, making it sit at attention before she'd pull off her mitten and feed it from her hand.

  "What kind of dog was it?" I hone in on the opportunity to connect Ellie to Kip.

  "A sweet one." She segues effortlessly into her next question. "What kind of dog did May have?"

  "A beagle. Old and crotchety but she loved that fool with everything she has."

  "Was it your dog before May arrived?" Her eyes brighten.

  "What do you think?" I relax, resting my arm on the back of the couch.

  Her brows shoot up with the question. She cradles her chin in her hand, studying my face carefully. "I think not. You don't seem like the kind of man who would have a dog unless his little girl wanted one."

  "You're right," I say slowly as I lean closer to her. "She wanted to adopt a dog, so we went to the shelter and Barney gave her those old doggy eyes and she fell in love."

  "You'd give her the moon if she asked, wouldn't you?" Her mouth curves into a soft smile.

  "I'd hold her up and let her take it from the sky." I would. I can give my daughter everything she wants, but I can't give her one single detail about her mother.

  Chapter 30

  Ellie

  "I'm such an idiot," I mumble to myself while he talks on the phone. He doesn't race off to another room to make the call. He does it right in front of me. I like it. I like hearing him asking a woman named Tilde how May is. This is his life, and he's let me inside.

  He ends the call with a brief reminder to Tilde to call him if May wakes up. It's the third time he's told her that. "That was one of May's nannies. Now, explain the idiot comment, Ellie."

  I wish I could. It's not about one thing, but I'm not going to tell him that. I'll just go with the obvious because dammit I should have put the clues together and realized that he didn't live in that apartment he took me to last night. "When we were in the office of your fake apartment, I knew something was up."

  "That apartment isn't fake." He sits next to me again. He'd risen to his feet when he called Tilde, but he hadn't walked but a few inches from the couch. "It's real."

&nbs
p; "You know what I mean," I say flustered. "It's not where you live."

  "I own it. Many of the things I hold dear are still there."

  I know he's referring to those photographs of the sailboats in the hallway. I've thought about those since he told me he moved out of that apartment. If they meant anything to him, he would have taken them with him to his new place. For some reason, they're hanging in an apartment he's left virtually untouched for years.

  "The calendar was stuck at the month of May five years ago and the newspaper on your desk was open to a day from that month too. Is that when May was left in the lobby?"

  The month of May. The baby named May. Wait.

  "Did you name your daughter after a month?" I ask, without thinking the question through. Does it sound judgmental? I don't mean it that way. I've given some minimal thought to what I might name my kids when I have them. I'm leaning toward vintage names.

  "She's named after my mother," he answers evenly. "Her maiden name was May."

  I nod in understanding. "I should have realized you didn't live there when I was standing in the office. I knew something wasn't right. I wanted to ask you last night why you have the packaging from a smartphone that hasn't been sold in years on your desk."

  His eyes drop to where his phone is resting on his leg. "Before last night I hadn't been to that apartment in more than a year. I have someone go there to check on it every two weeks. They dust and wash windows and do whatever else needs to be done. I gave them very strict instructions not to touch anything in the office because there are still some personal items in there. That's why it looks like a shrine to a day five years ago."

  "The day May arrived?"

  "Yes." He stiffens slightly. "I didn't put much thought into the move. I had other things on my mind."

  An unexpected child and an entirely new life. I can't imagine being thrown into the role of parent and protector without a moment's notice.

  "Why do you keep it?" I lean closer to him. "If you don't live there anymore, why keep the place?"

  He shrugs as his hand slides from his leg to mine. "You could say that I'm keeping it for sentimental value."

  I nod with a smile. "That makes sense. You keep an entire apartment because it has sentimental value while the rest of us just keep our mementos in a shoebox under our beds."

  "Is that where I would find all of Ellie Madden's secrets?" His hand moves higher, edging the hem of my shorts. "Do you have a shoebox under your bed with all your keepsakes in it?"

  "I'm not telling," I tease as I rest my hand on his leg. "I don't like showing my hand. It's much more interesting if you learn all about me piece by tiny piece."

  "I'd like to learn more about what's beneath this tiny piece of material you apparently think passes for a pair of shorts?" His hand moves higher until his fingers inch beneath the leg of my shorts. They skim the tender flesh of my pussy.

  I feel the weight of arousal instantly just from the softest touch of his fingertips.

  "You're wet, Ellie." His voice dips, lower, throaty. Lust is there woven around the words.

  I move my hand higher until it's brushing against his erection through his jeans. "And you're hard. It seems that we're even again."

  "You have condoms."

  I can't tell if it's a question or a statement. "You have assumptions."

  "I have a raging need to fuck you." He pushes my hand around the outline of his cock. "Do you have condoms, Ellie?"

  I straighten my back and huff out my answer. "No. I haven't bought any since I've been back."

  "Good." He moves closer, his hand parting my folds under the tight material of my shorts. "You weren't planning to fuck either of those clowns."

  "What clowns are you talk…oh, oh my God," I stutter when his index finger circles my clit.

  "Spread your legs," he growls in my ear. "I'll get you off like this. I want to watch you come."

  "My roommate," I whimper. "She might come home."

  "It won't take long. You're close. I can feel it." His breath is hot on my neck, his lips kissing a trail to my ear. "Spread your legs, Ellie."

  I do it. I know I shouldn't. If Adley walked in I'd be horrified, but his touch and the words. All of it makes me want the release his fingers promise.

  He pulls his hand out and within the next breath it's down the front of my shorts. He runs his fingertip over my clit, rubbing, teasing, pressing. Every stroke of his finger, each movement is in perfect concert with my body's need.

  I close my eyes as I near the crest. My hand darting to cover my mouth, to muffle the sounds I know I'll make without thinking.

  "Look at me." His voice is controlled, an edge of roughness in his tone. "Let me see what my touch does to you."

  I come, quickly, violently, my legs moving off the couch, my ass curving as my body seeks more. He gives it when he yanks his hand free of my shorts, tosses me over his shoulder and takes me to my bed.

  Chapter 31

  Nolan

  I haven't eaten pussy for that long since, truthfully, never. When I go down on a woman, I have one goal in mind. I want her to orgasm as quickly as possible. I generally settle for just one and then my pleasure becomes my priority. I'm a selfish bastard. I know it.

  The lesson I learned when I first started on my personal sexual path was that you need to give the woman you're with what she wants first and then you can take. It's my prescription for success in the bedroom or any other room I fuck a woman in.

  Last night it was in Ellie's bedroom. She told me which room to enter and when I left over an hour later it was with her smell and taste all over my face and hands. I licked and sucked her beautiful pink cunt until she was quivering and told me it was too much and that she couldn't take anymore. Then I kissed her goodnight and me and my hard-as-nails dick walked home hungry for more of the taste and those fucking sounds she was making. It was a squeak and a moan and a chorus of words that make no sense, but I could have listened to that all night long. I wanted to slide inside of her, but I didn't. I couldn't.

  I had no qualms about fucking her without a condom. She's too aware of her surroundings not to be tested regularly. She had sex with the scummiest man whore in Las Vegas for months. She's been tested since. I'd bet everything I own on that. I'm clean too and I'm in no position to knock her up, so it's safe.

  Extra safe.

  It's a-vasectomy-a-week-after-May-arrived-kind-of-safe.

  I was clipped for good measure after I realized that those statistics on the side of a box of condoms are real. They do fail. My daughter is proof of that.

  I always played safe before May was born, always. I wouldn’t touch a woman unless my dick was wrapped and she was using birth control, but obviously one of those women, one with the same shade of blonde hair and brown eyes as May, lied to me.

  The onus was as much on me as her. I fucked whoever the hell she was with full knowledge that regardless of what we used to prevent a pregnancy, there was a slim chance of conception. I'm grateful for the latex failure now, but back when I became an instant dad when I was twenty-three-years-old, I was fucking panicked. I decided that I'm a one-kid-only kind of guy and went to see my doctor.

  A week later the problem was taken care of. I still use condoms, every single time, but I have the reassurance of knowing that I'm not going to wake up with another baby on my doorstep.

  I bit my tongue last night when I undressed Ellie and crawled on top of her while I was still fully clothed. I wanted to tell her that I trusted her and that she should trust me. I wanted to fuck her raw with nothing between us, but I want the trust that comes with time. I'm not going to pressure her into anything. I'm in no hurry.

  "You look like a cat that just ate a canary and enjoyed every last bite of it."

  My head snaps up to see Crew standing in the doorway of my office. I've been here alone since early this morning.

  I fell asleep once I got home from Ellie's, but then a soft touch on my shoulder woke me. It was May with tears in her e
yes and a hand-drawn picture of Barney in her hands. My daughter isn't an artist although it's her goal to be one. That's the plan this week, so I bought her a package of markers and a sketch pad. Her mission before this was to be a farmer. That's why we visited a petting zoo an hour upstate. I'm all for her chasing her dreams, all of them.

  My job as her dad is to make sure the route is safe while she does the exploring.

  "What time is it?" I scrub my hand over my face. I didn't shave. I showered just before five this morning when May finally went back to bed.

  "Time for me to break the bad news to you." He strolls into my office, stopping short of the chairs in front of my desk.

  "What bad news?" I glance down at the screen of my phone. No Mayday messages have come in. It's a code Crew came up with for the three nannies I employ after May took a tumble and split her lip when she was a toddler. If they type it in a text, it means it's an emergency. If I don't respond, they contact Eda and Crew simultaneously.

  It doesn't take the edge off the panic I feel whenever I see it or hear it, but it does convey the message that my daughter is in trouble in an inconspicuous way, regardless of who else is in the room.

  Very few people know I have a child and her existence isn't fuel for public consumption. I don't want her picture online or her image sold to the highest bidder. The vague promise that was in the note left with May when she was an infant has kept me wary of letting anyone near her.

  "You're fucked." He chuckles as he takes a seat in one of the chairs. "You're royally fucked, pal."

  "In what sense?" I lean back into my chair.

  He smirks. "In the sense that you have never, to my knowledge, told any woman about May. Yesterday I was here when you just put it all out there in front of Ellie."

  I did do that, without a second thought. "I wanted her to know. I want her to know May."

  "Since when did that become a good idea?"