“Maya’s been really quiet since I picked her up from school. I’m thinking I need to make an appointment with Dr. Brenner as soon as possible.”
He frowned. “Good idea. I’ll come with you when you go.”
“Really?” she asked, startled.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I—I guess I don’t know what to think these days. About anything.”
“You and me both,” he said darkly.
There was no conscious thought. Just the overwhelming urge to make sure he was okay.
“What’s wrong?”
Mocking little smile. “What could be wrong?”
She channeled her mother’s reproachful glare until his eyes wavered and fell.
“It’s nothing. Forget it.”
“Oh.”
Her instinct was to back off and let the man have a private thought or two, if that was what he wanted. But she sensed his need, as if he wanted to tell her, but couldn’t quite give himself permission to do so. Taking what was, for her, a huge risk, she reached out and covered one of his hands with hers. He immediately flipped his hand over and held hers in a warm, tight grip.
“We’re working on being friends,” she reminded him. “After the week we’ve been through, I didn’t think there was anything we couldn’t handle together.”
His thumb ran over the back of her hand, then he looked to some distant point over her left shoulder. His lip curled.
“My loving father came to my club for the first time ever today,” he said. “I thought finally he’d decided to show a little interest in my life. Should’ve known better.”
The bitterness in his voice made her wince. Meanwhile, her guilty conscience squirmed.
She hadn’t gone to the club, either, which made her no better than Vincent. Worse, he’d given her a free membership and she’d planned to snub him. Nice, Angela. Some friend you’re shaping up to be. Now that she saw how important the issue was to him, she’d go immediately.
Like, tomorrow.
“Justus—” she began.
“No, he made a special trip just to tell me he thinks I’m useless and I’ll give Maya back after a few months when I get sick of her and she interferes with my screwing around.” He smiled that sardonic smile again. “Aren’t you glad you asked?”
Sudden anger blurred her vision. She’d thought her opinion of Vincent Robinson couldn’t get much lower, but she’d been wrong.
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, hating to see Justus’s self-confidence shaken like this. “And I’m glad you’re too smart to believe your father’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit, eh? I seem to recall you expressing a similar opinion.”
She didn’t have a good comeback for this inconvenient truth, so she decided to plow right over it. “Your father is poisonous to you. You know that. Don’t let him do this to you.”
Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut.
“When do you suppose I’ll stop hoping for his approval?”
“You don’t need his approval.”
“You’d think I’d know that by now.”
“You should know it! I mean, look at all you’ve accomplished with your life,” she continued. “You got your degree and became a trainer like you said you would. You built up your clientele. You opened your own gym. I mean, give yourself some credit! Look at all you’ve done.”
When his eyes flicked open again, his expression was turbulent. Intense.
And she didn’t know when to shut the hell up.
“And you’re a wonderful uncle. Maya would be lucky to—”
She broke off, realizing she was about to make an admission that could hurt her in court. And then her gut told her that Justus would never use her own words against her that way. So she finished her thought.
“Maya’s lucky to have an uncle like you.”
Rueful smile. “My father doesn’t think so.”
“Your father doesn’t see what I see,” she said flatly.
He stilled. “What do you see, Angela?”
They were now firmly in dangerous territory, and Angela knew it. Because at some point, her attraction to him, which should have been purely physical, had deepened. She saw his humor, sexiness, intelligence, and mischief, but of course she’d seen all that ten years ago.
Now she could also see his strength, determination, and heart. And those qualities were more thrilling than the surface qualities that’d initially attracted her.
She wanted to tell him she saw it all, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It would cost her way too much.
“I see a good man,” she said.
He watched her, a vague frown marring his forehead.
She held his surprised gaze, determined to show her faith in him.
Eternity passed. A thousand emotions skated across his face, and she couldn’t decipher any.
His eyes, she noticed anew, were really amazing. As clear and hypnotic as staring into a handful of uncut brown diamonds. No one else had eyes like this...
“I’m hungry.”
Startled, Angela turned to see Maya come down the hall with a now neatly dressed and coiffed Barbie. Reaching out to the girl, Angela felt the steady pressure of Justus’s unblinking gaze still on her face. He didn’t even greet Maya.
Angela knelt in front of Maya, profoundly grateful for the diversion and the opportunity to unfog her brain. She seriously needed to stop looking him directly in the face like that. If he discovered the unnatural power he had over her, he’d use it to train her to cluck like a chicken whenever he wanted, and she’d never know the difference.
“Come here, sweetie.” Angela surveyed her critically. “You look pretty good. Clean face. Neat hair. I think you’re ready for dinner. Did you say hi to Uncle Justus?”
Maya obediently walked over to Justus. Angela stood, tugged her jeans up over her hips, then turned to face them. Her face still felt hot, so she kept her eyes lowered.
Safer that way.
“You could...come with us,” he told Angela, absently patting Maya’s back. “Or did you have”—he swallowed—“other plans?”
“No.” Growing more agitated by the second, she sifted her fingers through her bangs and straightened a stack of books on the coffee table. “Well, I mean I don’t have any other plans, but I can’t. I need to do some work, and I wanted to start getting some of my stuff out of Maya’s room.”
Justus nodded curtly.
“Where’s your jacket?” he asked Maya, focusing on the child for the first time. “We need—”
The doorbell rang, startling them.
Sparing Justus a quizzical look—who’d stop by without calling at six-thirty on a Friday night?—Angela hurried to the door and checked the peephole.
It was Ronnie.
She opened the door but blocked his entrance and kept her hand on the knob in case she needed to slam the door in his face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “And why are you looking at me like that?”
Ronnie got his eyes back in his head with some difficulty. “My God, you look great,” he blurted.
“I—thank you,” she said, unsettled. She couldn’t remember the last time Ronnie had complimented her like that. “What’s up?”
After another sweeping once-over that lingered on her sliver of bare belly, Ronnie got to the point. “I...didn’t like the way we left things the other day. I didn’t call first because I figured you’d tell me not to come.”
“You were right.”
Just then, Justus materialized at her side, gave Ronnie a scathing look, and touched her elbow. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Angela said quickly, hoping to defuse the situation before Justus flew off the handle—something she knew instinctively would be bad. Very bad. He already looked as if he wanted to find her needle-nosed pliers and start yanking Ronnie’s teeth one by one. “Ronnie just wants to talk.”
This turned out to be wasted breath, because Justu
s wasn’t listening.
“She told you the other day she didn’t want to talk to you.” On the danger scale, his hard voice registered only slightly lower than the sound of a rifle being cocked. “Why aren’t you listening, son?”
Ronnie stiffened and then puffed up with outrage, managing to look like a yappy little terrier next to a panther. “I didn’t realize you were Angela’s spokesperson.”
Justus made an indistinct sound of irritation, jerked Angela behind him, and put his hand on the knob. “Get out,” he told Ronnie. “Don’t come back. Ever.”
Wait a minute.
“Excuse me,” Angela snapped. “This is my house. I do the expulsions around here.”
“Be my guest,” Justus said, gesturing toward Ronnie.
“Ronnie’s got one minute,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business, Justus.”
Justus kept his hand on the knob but pivoted to gape at her. “What?”
Angela raised a calming hand. “I’ve decided—”
“What the hell are you doing?” Justus barked. Still staring at Angela, he jerked his arm and the door slammed like a thunderclap in Ronnie’s startled face.
“Are you kidding me?” Angela cried. “Will you calm down?”
“Calm down? Are you going back to this jackass?” Justus jabbed his thumb at the closed door. “Is that what this is about?”
“Of course not. I’m going to hear what he has to say, then he’s going to leave.”
“Yeah, right,” Justus muttered.
“What’s gotten into you?” Angela demanded. “Why are you acting like a caveman again?”
“Aunt Ang-la?” A wide-eyed Maya crept around the corner. “Who’s there?”
Angela smoothed out her expression before she scared the poor girl to death. Turning to face her, she tried to smile. “No one, sweetie. Just a friend of mine.”
Turning back around, Angela shoved Justus, who guarded the door, legs braced, like a military policeman watching a high-value terrorist.
“Get out of the way!” she said.
Grumbling under his breath, a vein throbbing visibly in his temple, Justus stepped away from the door. “Let’s go, Maya. Grab your little coat.”
Angela opened the door. Ronnie leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, apparently prepared to wait indefinitely.
Justus brushed by Angela from behind, towing Maya along with him.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered before disappearing down the hall.
With a nervous swipe to her hair, Angela held the door open for Ronnie. “Come on in.”
Ronnie stepped inside and looked warily around, as if he expected Justus to magically spring out from behind the sofa and kick his ass after all. He sat and stared up at her, his expression accusatory.
“I thought you said there was nothing going on with him.”
Angela couldn’t believe she’d ever dated anyone who was this big a hypocrite. “First of all, my personal life is no longer any of your business,” she said. “And second, there’s nothing going on with me and Justus. You’re the only lying cheat around here.”
Ronnie’s eyes narrowed. “Then why is he so possessive?”
“He’s not possessive. He’s protective.”
“Yeah, right.”
Angela had had about enough. Maya would be back before she knew it and Angela still hadn’t eaten dinner, done any work, or started on Maya’s room yet.
“Why are you here, Ronnie?” She checked her watch. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before they come back. If you want me to pack up your toothbrush and your—”
“No.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I want you to know how sorry I am about Carolyn. And how sorry I am that you have to deal with our breakup and her death at the same time—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Angela said, her claws out now. “The good thing about my sister dying was that it put our little breakup right in perspective for me. I haven’t given you a second thought.”
Ronnie winced. “Don’t, Angela,” he said reproachfully. “We really had something—”
“Not much, apparently.”
“Angela—”
“Why couldn’t you have just told me you wanted out? At least then I would’ve had some good feelings left for you instead of this...”
“You hate me,” he said, slumping back against the cushions.
She hesitated. “No, I don’t.”
It was true, she realized. She was sad over a failed three-year relationship, of course, although that was much better than, say, marrying him and divorcing, as they surely would have.
But she wasn’t heartbroken. Life would go on and Ronnie’s loss wouldn’t kill her.
Funny. She hadn’t really broken stride over his loss. She wondered if she ever would.
“I have been wondering, though.” This was the question no woman ever wants to ask, but Angela didn’t want to spend any more time speculating. “What does she have that I don’t?”
Ronnie flushed and studied the floor. “I don’t think—”
“It’s the sex, isn’t it?”
Ronnie had the decency to keep quiet, but Angela knew.
Of course it was the sex, she thought bitterly, her cheeks burning with humiliation. He’d decided that three years of lukewarm sex was more than enough and had gone in search of—and easily found—greener pastures.
God. This was so much worse than she’d expected.
She’d feared that Ronnie would claim he’d taken one look at this new woman and fallen in love with her...that destiny brought them together and their love was too powerful to be denied. But the truth was so much more painful:
He didn’t love the other woman, but he damn sure preferred her bed to Angela’s.
She should’ve known.
“I, uh...” She cleared her throat and got up. “I have things to do.”
Ronnie also stood. “You’re a wonderful woman, Angela. I’m glad for all the time we spent together.”
Sure, she thought dully.
He admired her. Respected her. He just didn’t want her.
There was a lot of that going around, she decided, her thoughts reverting to Justus.
Justus watched Maya play with her dessert, which was the same unappetizing concoction of soft-serve vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, gummy worms, and M&M’s she always got when they came to her favorite buffet restaurant. They’d been here more times than he cared to count because Maya liked the freedom of being able to choose her own food. So he’d trail behind her in line, balancing their plates, while she barked out orders about what she wanted. Generally she wound up with some sort of Jell-O salad or other, fried shrimp and fish nuggets, pizza, and a cheeseburger—more food than she would normally eat in a month. When he registered the obligatory protest that she hadn’t chosen anything healthy, she grumbled and grudgingly let him put a small scoop of corn on the edge of her plate. Then, when she’d finished a few bites of everything, they’d return to the buffet for her little sundae.
Usually they had a delightful time.
Tonight had been a complete bust.
“Aren’t you going to finish your ice cream?” he asked.
Maya listlessly stirred the soupy mess in her bowl. “I’m full.”
“Are you getting sick?” Justus reached across the table and checked her forehead. She scowled. “You don’t feel warm.”
Maya fished a gummy worm out of the ice cream with her fingers and dangled it over her face, then lowered the dripping mess into her mouth.
“I’m done,” she announced.
Well, thank God for small favors. The entire lower half of her face was covered with ice cream and hot fudge, as were her hands.
“I’m going to have to take you out back and hose you off,” he muttered.
She giggled, the first sign of the old Maya he’d seen all night.
“How are you doing, little girl?” He dipped his napkin in his ice w
ater and tried to clean her up a little by wiping her fingers. “You haven’t said much tonight.”
She shrugged. “Good.”
“How was school today?”
“Good.”
“Did Emily hit anyone today, or was she being nice?”
“Nice.”
Justus went to work on her face. “Did you have cheese and crackers again for snack, or—”
“No. Sam brought cupcakes for his birthday.”
“Cupcakes. Nice.”
Justus hesitated. He wanted to ask whether she missed her parents, which would, of course, be a really stupid question. Angela was right, though—they needed to see the child psychologist as soon as possible.
He sighed. “You ready to go, little girl? You look tired.”
She screwed up her face. “I don’t like that man!”
“What man?” he asked blankly.
“At Aunt Ang-la’s house.”
Oh, that man. His stomach twisted back into its jealous knot.
Join the club, he wanted to tell her.
Instead he did the responsible parent thing. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“I don’t!”
“Have you, uh, seen him before?” he asked casually, ashamed to catch himself interrogating a preschooler about Angela’s personal life, but willing to get past it if the tactic produced useful information.
“No.”
“Does he ever call Aunt Angela?”
“No.”
Relieved, he got to his feet and slid his arms into his own jacket. Time to go back to Angela’s and find out what, exactly, had happened between her and Ron.
15
Angela smiled gamely as she opened the door when Justus brought Maya back from dinner, but Justus could see she was upset. And if he needed any further proof, he immediately smelled that stupid orange spray she used. She’d obviously worked herself up into a cleaning frenzy after Ron left, although Justus couldn’t imagine what in the apartment—where every conceivable surface was clean enough to double as an operating room, should an emergency arise—could possibly need to be cleaned.
The only good thing about the scene was that Ron—punk-ass bitch—was gone. Which spared Justus the trouble of controlling himself so he didn’t break the guy’s fingers one by one.
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 17
