Before I left her in Portland, I gave her a house key and wrote down the code to the security system for her, just in case I wasn’t home when she arrived for some reason. But I couldn’t wait for her to come home, so I took off early to be there.
When the front door opened around noon, I hopped up, feeling excited about our new beginning. “Hey!”
My face dropped, and I stopped right where I was as I saw it wasn’t Katana, but Shanna who’d come in. “Hey, yourself. What in the hell are you doing home so early on a workday?”
I hadn’t said one word about my news to anyone. And out of everyone in my life, I knew Shanna would be the one to think what I was doing was stupid.
Sitting back on the sofa, I said, “I’ve got something going on. And just what are you doing here? And why aren’t you at work?”
“It’s Friday. I always get off early on Friday’s. And I often come over here to lie out on your deck and chill from the weekly grind for a few hours.” She took the seat across from me. “You did give me your key, and you did tell me to come over anytime I wanted.”
I had done that. And now I kind of regretted doing so. How would Shanna take Katana, and vice versa?
Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my thighs and steepled my fingers, trying to think of how I should tell Shanna my news. There really was no right way to tell her about this, so I just went for it. “Okay, you need to know something. Things are about to change. And I mean a whole hell of a lot.”
I saw her eyes move across the room to the brand-new rocking chair I’d bought for us for when the baby was here. She jerked her chin at it. “Why the new rocker, Grandpa?”
She’d left me a perfect opening, and I went for it. “I’m going to be a father, Shanna.”
Her blue eyes came back to me, and her jaw hung open. “No!”
I nodded and sat back. “The woman I told you about, the one who’d been on my mind so much …”
“The mindless whore?” she gasped.
“Hey!” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Shanna, you’ve been my best friend for a very long time, but I’m not about to let you talk that way about the mother of my child. She’s not what you think she is. She’s actually a freelance book cover designer, and a sweet woman. She’d thought we’d be fine, but she’d forgotten to take her birth control pills before we met that night at the club.”
“Sure she did,” Shanna said as she narrowed her eyes right back at me. “This whore might not be mindless after all. She might be very devious. Going to a club like that, filled with rich men—she knew exactly what she was doing. You’re a fool, Nixon. Lucky for you, I can take care of this gold digging bitch.”
“You won’t be taking care of a thing, Shanna. Katana isn’t at all what you think she is. She’d had a hell of a rough week and forgot to take the pills. I believe her.” I got up and paced, trying to calm myself down. She’d gotten me pretty damn mad, which didn’t happen very often, especially with her.
“Nixon, you need to face the facts. She used you to get her broke ass pregnant so she’d have a meal ticket she could use the rest of her pitiful life.” Shanna got up too and walked toward me, grabbing me by the shoulders to stop my pacing. “You’ll need to get a DNA test done once the kid’s born. If it is yours, you should get custody of it and leave her ass out in the cold. I’ll help you raise the kid, and you know your parents would drop everything to come help you too. Don’t let this tramp screw you any further than she already has.”
As I stood there looking into the eyes of this woman who I’d always trusted, I didn’t know what to think. What if she was right?
I didn’t know Katana Reeves at all. I knew so little about her, and yet I’d already made a huge commitment to her. Shanna might be right about everything. But what could I do now?
“She’ll be here today. I asked her to come live with me,” I blurted out.
Shanna let me go and turned around, slapping her forehead. “Shit! Are you fucking serious right now? Why in the hell would you do something that damn drastic, Nixon?”
“I want to do what’s right. Look, you really don’t know her. She’s not what you think. If she were a gold digger, then she’d have let me do all I wanted to do for her. She wouldn’t let me spend a dime to get her out here. She offered to pay half the bills here, which I said no to, of course.”
Shanna spun around with a terrible frown on her face. “Nixon, please tell me you can see through all of that. Sure, why not take on the little expenses of moving all her things and whatever else she had to do? In the end, she’ll be rich—because you’re being a fool.”
I just couldn’t see Katana being that type of person. “She’d never even been to that club before. She’s a foster kid with no family she knows of. I couldn’t leave her to fend for herself while carrying my baby. She’s been sick with the pregnancy …”
“Is that what she told you?” Shanna asked as her hands went to her narrow hips. “Because people can lie, you know.”
“She’s lost weight—at least a good ten pounds, and in a very short amount of time. She’s not lying. I want to be a part of this whole thing. I want to share this with her. Understand or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m moving her in with me, and we’re going to raise this child together.”
“Are you saying you’re going to marry her?” she asked, then blew her blonde bangs out of her eyes.
“I didn’t say that. We’re not in love. We’ve only been together twice. It would be insane to ask her to marry me, right?” I asked, as it kind of had been on my mind, the idea to make things real between us. The last week had me thinking about her even more than I had been before she’d told me her news. I kept picturing her beautiful face, hearing her delicate voice, and I missed her even more than I had in the first place.
“This entire thing is insane, so yes,” she answered. “Asking her to marry you would be such a giant mistake.”
I sat down and put my head in my hands. Shanna’s reaction was the exact reason I hadn’t told a soul about what I was doing with Katana. Without other people’s input, I’d made every decision quite easily. But now I was second guessing everything I’d decided.
“I miss her, Shanna. You know I already missed her before.” I decided to do some confessing to my best friend. Maybe I’d been wrong to hide so much from her. Maybe that was why she’d taken this firm position, because she didn’t understand everything. “When we got back from Texas, I had already decided I was getting back on the jet and going to Portland to find her. But she called me before I even started heading her way. When we met at my hotel, we couldn’t keep our hands off one another and ended up in bed before she could even tell me a thing.”
She looked stunned. “You hid that from me? Why?”
“I knew you would’ve tried to stop me.” I looked at her and hoped she could see how I really felt about Katana. “I didn’t want to take Bianca to the bar that night because I had Katana on my mind. I’ve had her on my mind since I left her that first day. I have no idea if she’ll ever fall in love with me, but I can tell you this—I’m on the fast track to falling in love with her. But I won’t push her about that. I don’t want her to feel she has to love me for me to be in the baby’s life.”
“Well, fuck, dude.” She shook her head.
And her words just about summed it all up.
Chapter 16
Katana
As I drove up the hill toward the address Nix had given me, my GPS told me the next house was my destination. Someone was coming out the front door, a tall, lithe, pretty blonde—and she didn’t look too happy as she got into her car and sped off in the opposite direction.
Pulling into the driveway she’d just left, I found a bit of jealousy piercing my heart. Maybe she’s just the maid.
Shrugging off the bit of negative emotion, I readied myself to go into what would be my home for the next little while. I didn’t have high hopes of staying forever in Nixon’s home. While his intentions were good, I assumed that someti
me in the future he’d find a woman who was good for him—someone clearly in his league, a thing I wasn’t.
Getting out of the car, I grabbed my purse and the overnight bag I’d packed for my brief stay at a motel in Portland, which I’d gone to after making sure the movers got everything from my old place. They’d taken off right away, aiming to get my things to Nixon’s ahead of my arrival. Now I’d have to get inside and try to get things put away so my crap wouldn’t be looming in boxes, taking up space.
When I got to the door, I went to punch in the code to disarm the security system before I used the key to open the door, just as Nix had told me to. But I thought it might be best to ring the bell instead, just in case he was home, which I couldn’t tell from out here as his garage was closed.
When the door opened, I saw Nix’s handsome face. “Hey, why’d you ring the bell? I told you to come on in.” He wasted no time pulling me inside and hugging me. “I’ve missed you.”
His arms around me did what they always seemed to do—made me wet and aching for him. When he closed the door and pinned me to it, I got the feeling his body reacted much as mine did.
He looked at me with hungry eyes, and I ran my hands over his bearded face. “It’s grown even more. You look so dangerous.”
Leaning down, he kissed me softly. “Good, that’s exactly what I was going for. Did you miss me at all?”
Only every waking moment.
I didn’t want to go that far. It was never my intention to make him feel like I wanted more than he was willing to give me. “I might’ve.”
His hands moved down my arms as he pressed his bulge against me. “You have this crazy effect on me.”
I laughed but stopped short when I heard someone in the kitchen. “Someone’s here?”
“Yeah, the maid.” He kissed me again. “Damn, I guess I should introduce you to her.”
So the woman I saw wasn’t the maid … then who was she?
I kept my thoughts to myself. “Yes, you should introduce us. After that, I really need to get to work putting my things away.”
“No need, I had that all taken care of,” he said, moving to one side and draping his arm across my shoulders.
“You had everything unpacked and put away? Already?” I was shocked and amazed and thankful.
“Yeah, I had the movers do some, and my maid and her son did the rest. I hope you don’t mind.” He stopped and pointed at a rocking chair that sat near the glass doors, which led outside to a gorgeous wooden deck. “I bought that yesterday for us to rock our baby in. Do you like it?”
The wooden rocker had been whitewashed, making it look rustic. “It’s nice. I do like it. How thoughtful you are.”
He shrugged and moved on, pulling me with him. “I don’t know what’s getting into me.” When we stepped into the kitchen, my eyes landed on a middle-aged woman who was a little red in the face from cleaning the inside of a cabinet. “Mona Black, I’d like you to meet the lady of the house, Katana Reeves.”
Wiping her hands on her white apron, she made her way to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” I shook her hand and took in her friendly smile. “Mr. Slaughter has told me your good news. Congratulations.”
I looked at Nix and wondered why on earth he’d have this woman, who was clearly older than him, calling him such a formal name. Whatever his preference was, I wasn’t about to be called ma’am or Miss Reeves. “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you. And please call me Katana.”
“I’ll do that.” She went back to what she was doing before, still talking. “I’ve planned roasted chicken with asparagus and wild rice for dinner this evening. Will that be okay with you, Katana?”
I looked at Nix, who smiled at me then winked. “She works for you too, Katana.”
Not sure I liked that at all, I answered, “Anything you make will be fine with me. Just keep on doing what you’ve been doing for Nix. I don’t need any special treatment.”
“You don’t hesitate to let me know if you want anything special, Katana. That is what I’m paid to do, after all—look after you guys.” She got back to work as Nixon pulled me away from the kitchen.
“Let me show you around.” He pointed out the glass doors. “That’s the deck. There’s a set of stairs that lead down to the beach.” He had my hand in his and led me across the large living room. “On the other side of the kitchen is a formal dining room that I rarely use.” He pointed to a door under the stairs. “That’s a closet where things are stored. Next to this is the room we’ll leave as the guestroom.” Then up the stairs we went, and he pointed to the room at the end of the long hallway. “That’s my bedroom back there. The door on the left is the baby’s, and the one on the right is yours. You have access to a balcony through a set of French doors. You and I share that balcony; my room has another set of French doors that lead out to it as well.”
“This place is gorgeous, Nix. I can’t believe I get to call it home for a while,” I gushed. Then I thought about the maid we’d left back in the kitchen, and looked at him as I put my hand on his chest. “Since I’m here, I can help with the daily chores. I can wash our clothes and keep things clean up here in our rooms and bathrooms. If you won’t let me pay you anything, then I want to help out around the house.”
He chuckled. “No way. I’m paying the maid to do that work. You wouldn’t want to put Mona out of a paying job, now would you?” He pulled me along with him and opened the door to my new bedroom. “What do you think? We can change it up any way you want.”
“It’s perfect just the way that it is,” I said as I looked at the gorgeous furnishings. The bed, a small desk, and the bedside tables were all made of cherry wood. A very large flat screen television hung on the wall, making it easy to lie in bed and watch it—which I might do whenever I wasn’t gazing out the windows or doors at the perfect view of the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. “This is more than I ever expected.”
Nix’s hand went into his pocket and came back with what looked to be a credit card. “This is for you. I want you to buy whatever you want or need.”
I shook my head as I held up my hands in protest. “Nix, I can’t take that. I have my own money.”
He took my right hand and placed the card in my palm. “You will take this. I know you have your own money, but I want you to have access to more than just that. Just take it and don’t fight me on it. Please.”
I’d take it, but I wasn’t planning to ever use it.
I laid it and my bag and purse on the bed. “Thank you, Nix. Thank you for everything.”
He took both my hands in his and kissed them. “Thank you, Katana Reeves. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt more at home than I feel with you here. You and I will make a happy home for our child, I can tell that already.”
“What kid wouldn’t be happy here?” I asked as I glanced around the room again.
“I mean happy with us. You and me,” he clarified, then kissed me and pulled me in close. His hands moved over my back then down to my ass, pulling me to him.
I moaned and melted into him. This wasn’t what I’d expected, but I was happy he wanted me sexually. I wanted him that way too. But with the sex, we ran the risk that feelings might get in our way of making this work for our baby.
When he released my lips, I asked, “Nix, is what we’re doing really smart? I mean, I love having sex with you—you know I do. No one could fake that. But should we be doing this?”
His sigh was long, and his eyes drooped a bit. “You don’t want to anymore?”
I did want to. I wanted to very badly. But I didn’t know how smart it was to keep doing the things that other couples would do. I bit my lip then finally said, “I don’t want to force a relationship on you. Having sex will have some effects—on me at least. I can’t stop my feelings for you from developing if we continue as we have been.”
He let me go and turned away from me, rubbing his head. “I want you, Katana.” He turned back around. “Do you want me?”
&n
bsp; I nodded. “But I don’t think it’s smart.”
“Then sex is off the table?”
Is it?
Chapter 17
Nixon
Katana’s eyes stared a hole in the floor. She looked as if she was contemplating actually take sex off the table. So I had to step in. I took her chin in my hand and made her look at me. “Hey, I don’t want to stop anything from happening with us, either. If that’s what you’re thinking, just stop doing that. We have some pretty amazing chemistry. Why try to act like we don’t?”
The fear in her blue eyes became evident. “I’m just afraid …”
I kissed her plump red lips with one feather-soft kiss. “I can see that. Don’t be afraid of anything, Katana. Let’s just ride this wave, doing whatever we want. Let’s not let the fear of what might happen stand in our way of being happy with what we have right now.”
“Which is what exactly?” she asked before running her hands up my arms and resting them on my shoulders. “I mean what are we, Nix?”
“Two people who happen to be extremely attracted to each other, but are doing things backward. We’re having a baby while also getting to know one another and seeing what the future might hold for us.” I kissed her again, softly and sweetly.
When our lips parted, I loved the smile that moved over her face. “Okay. I think I can handle that.” Her long dark lashes fluttered as a blush covered her cheeks. “I’ve got one more thing to ask you.”
“Shoot,” I said, then kissed the tip of her adorable nose. “If we have a girl, I hope she has this precious little turned up nose, just like you do.”
She giggled, and the blush went a shade deeper. “You’re so sweet, Nix. Being pregnant with your child, I—I don’t have any intentions of being with other men.” She looked at me, and I saw concern in her eyes. “What about you?”
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