by Jessie Cooke
“Can I see you?” Dave hiccupped. She could tell he’d started crying, and one sight she couldn’t stomach was Dave when he was crying.
“Not tonight, love,” she cooed. “I had a rough day, and I’m exhausted. Besides, I need to really think about how I’m gonna get us out of this mess.” She opted to tell him the latest development even though originally she had planned to leave him out of it. “Reece rang; he wants to see me tomorrow, and I’m sure it’s about the missing money. I need to be ready for him, contrite and beyond apologetic. That’ll take some rest and rehearsal.” She thought for a moment. “It may even be best if you make yourself scarce for a while. You know, leave town for a few days. Reece will want to find out who did this to him, and I don’t think it’d be wise for you to be seen around. He has his ways of finding out what he wants to know, and the man is relentless when he’s got something on his mind.”
She heard Dave sniff on the other end of the line. “Okay,” he conceded. “I understand. I just miss you. I want to hold you. Want you to hold me,” he blubbered.
Nicky felt her lip curl involuntarily. She tried to relax her face into a smile. “I miss you too, baby, but we’re so close. Why don’t you head south for a few days? You know I’ll keep you informed on all that is going on here. It’ll be safer this way, and when the dust has settled, you can come back to me. Hang on, and soon—we’ll be together. You, me, and our beautiful, perfect daughter. We’ll be a family soon.”
Reece had situated himself on the leather sofa underneath Bella’s picture. Even though Bella had wanted it removed for his meeting with Nicky, he insisted it stay.
“I want her to face everything,” was his rationale.
“So, you’re going to tell her everything?” Bella had asked.
“I’m going to tell her pieces. She can put them into the puzzle the way she wants to. She has stolen from me, Bella, and lied, leading me to believe Hayley Jo is my child. She has put me through more emotional hell and turmoil than any other woman, and all the while, she has taken from me. She needs to see that she didn’t take everything. She almost did—she almost cost me you, but you’re here . . . and I want her to know that.”
Reece’s housekeeper Isabel had been scrubbing the kitchen when Bella had left, and she answered the door when the doorbell rang, showing Nicky into the great room, and pausing to be dismissed.
Reece gestured to a chair facing the portrait. Nicky’s eyes were already saucers, and he was enjoying being able to see how uncomfortable she was in this moment.
“Thanks, Isa. I’ll see you on Thursday,” he said, and the housekeeper let herself out the front door.
Nicky’s mouth closed long enough for her to swallow, and then she found her voice. “Is that . . . Bella?” she asked.
Reece nodded. “It is. I thought she was the most beautiful creature when I first laid eyes on her—still do. Had the painting commissioned without her knowledge. She’s made her peace with it now. She has to; she’s going to live here.”
Nicky’s eyes shot over to him. “She’s moving in with you.” It wasn’t a question; it was almost as if she’d known all along that it would happen.
“That’s what people do when they’re in love,” Reece said.
“Guess that’s why we never did,” Nicky said, hanging her head.
“I’ve loved her for a while, Nicky. Even longer than you might think. But that’s a conversation for another day. Today, you’re going to answer me one question.”
Nicky took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as she squared her shoulders and looked Reece right in the eye.
“Why did you steal my money?” he asked.
The question reverberated in the room. It echoed against the surfaces and the glass. It shook her even though she had prepared herself for its impact, but she swallowed it and put on her face.
“There’s no reason for me to steal your money, Reece. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He picked up some papers resting on the sofa beside them and threw them at her. “You’re free to look them over, but I don’t think you really need to. They’re the statements from the account you accessed. Every day with every withdrawal. Days that happen to coincide with times you needed to stay at my place for one reason or another. Let’s see, what were the various reasons? First, your new apartment wasn’t ready. A truth, I’m certain, since I was the one procuring your new place. But then there was the bug guy who had fumigated the apartment, and you didn’t want Hayley around the fumes for a few days. Then, oh yeah, the painters—fumes again, of course. There was the time you showed up swearing she would only sleep at my place for some reason, begging me to let you spend the day there and get a few hours sleep. I should have seen how thin your excuses were becoming, but I didn’t.” He leaned forward a bit, trying to maintain his sense of presence while the white plaster cast rested on the table between them.
“So, I’ll ask you one more time—and only one more time before I tell my accountant to begin legal recourse: why did you steal my money?”
Suddenly, Nicky dropped her head into her hands and began crying loudly. Reece rested himself back against the sofa, sure the answer was coming, feeling no sympathy for the lying thief that sat in front of him. He’d fallen for her acts one too many times, and he was not going to fall for any more. She picked her head up from her hands, her mascara and eyeliner smudged from the tears.
“Okay. Okay, I did it,” she said. “And I’m sorry, and I don’t really know why. All I know is . . . having this baby has changed me, Reece,” she whispered dramatically. “I don’t know who I am anymore—I worry about everything: that she’ll contract some horrible disease that I can’t afford to treat; that someone will find out she’s the daughter of a multi-millionaire and kidnap her for ransom; that you’ll decide you don’t love me and don’t want to be a father anymore, and you’ll just leave us—and we’ll be destitute. I could feel you pulling away. You told me you didn’t love me, but I was afraid that could go for Hayley Jo, too. I was desperate. And so, I found some of your files and . . . well, you know the rest.”
“And you knew it wouldn’t work out eventually, didn’t you?” Reece asked.
“You’d told me you could never love me. Told me you were in love with someone else. I’m assuming it was Bella.”
“It had begun well before that conversation,” Reece pointed out. “You’re welcome to check the dates if you wish,” he said indicating the papers strewn at her feet. “You knew it wouldn’t work out because you knew I wasn’t the father. Isn’t that right, Nicky?”
Her crying was arrested at the question. She couldn’t move. The only thing she could feel was the rise and fall of her chest, so she knew she hadn’t had a heart attack at least.
“What?” she whispered.
“You knew I wasn’t Hayley’s father, and you were afraid that I would find out, so you started building yourself a little nest egg to provide for you two when I wouldn’t any more. Isn’t that right?”
“I—uh—I—but Hayley is your baby, Reece.”
He flung a manila envelope at her and it fluttered to the floor along with the bank statements.
“DNA doesn’t lie,” Reece said. “So when are you going to stop the lies, Nicky?” he asked.
This time the tears came quietly, softly traveling down her cheek and dripping from her chin. The water marked a darkening circle on her jeans.
“I thought she was yours at first,” Nicky confessed. “I couldn’t make the math work in my head, but I knew we had had sex at that office party and hadn’t used a condom. That’s the only way it would work out in my head. When she was born, I was fully expecting a head full of dark hair—like yours. Only, she didn’t have hardly any, except for this fuzzy, yellow down that grew lighter and airier. Dave saw pictures of her and immediately came, pressing me to get a paternity test. When the results came back that she was his, I –well—I freaked out. He couldn’t support us; he could barely support himself. And I di
dn’t know how to tell you the truth.”
“So you let me believe a lie and started to steal from me. That makes perfect sense,” Reece said sarcastically.
Nicky shook her head slowly. “I know. I know—it’s horrible, and I’m horrible, and—“ her voice trailed off. “I just didn’t know what else to do,” she said, her throat squeezing the sound from her heart.
“Well, I’m going to tell you what you’re gonna do now,” Reece said, lowering the casted foot and leaning himself as forward as he could. “First, you’re gonna pay back every cent you took from that account. If you need to know the exact number, I’ll make sure you get it. Secondly, you’re going to make damn sure that Bella is Hayley Jo’s godmother and that we get as much time with her as possible. I may have been duped into it, but I still love Hayley Jo, even though she’s not mine. I swore I’d never be the kind of man who abandoned his kids, and now that I’ve lived with her and fallen in love with her, I’ve connected with that little baby, and I still want what’s best for her in spite of who her parents are. Bella will be her godmother, so I’ll still have a connection to her, but you better make sure Bella agrees—even if that means owning up to some things you may not want to own up to.”
Nicky sat, wringing her hands, tears still streaming down her face. “I can do that,” she said.
“There is no ‘can’; only will,” Reece said gruffly. “There is no discussion. There is no alternative. You just better make this happen, Nicky.”
She nodded and wiped her face. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“Now, get out.”
73
Nicky leaned herself up against the door to Reece’s apartment to catch her breath. She had just shut it behind her, and though her theatrics hadn’t had exactly the desired effect she had been hoping for, she would still count it a win to be escaping unscathed. Before their meeting, she had felt certain he knew about the bank account withdrawals, but she had no idea he had figured out the truth about Hayley Jo.
“He’s not stupid,” she told herself, scolding herself for being naïve enough to think he’d simply fall in love with Hayley Jo enough not to ever wonder. Thankfully, he had at least fallen for her, and Nicky was touched that he still wanted to be a part of her life. Hayley Jo’s life; not hers.
Which was fine by her, she told herself as she wiped the tears away from her eyes and tossed her blond hair over her shoulder. Her hair had grown out, and quickly too—just the way Dave liked it.
Dave.
The thought of him made Nicky wonder where he was and if he was safe. She slid her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and scrolled through the “favorites” menu, tapped his name, and walked away from Reece’s apartment.
“We’re better off than we could be,” she said into the receiver when he answered. “But we’re a little worse off than we were.”
Reece hobbled over to the papers he had flung at Nicky. He gathered them and the blank manila envelope from the floor. He’d played his ace, feeling certain that Nicky would confess Hayley’s true paternity without Reece having to spend a dime in the process.
“God knows she’s cost me enough,” he said to himself. Nicky—not the baby.
He was expecting Bella home in a few hours. She’d gone for coffee with Christo and then was swinging by the office to check in and see how Rita found everything when she returned. He wondered if she would broach the subject of moving back to Dallas with her yet, and he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her moving in, being with him every day.
Who would have thought some crazy rendezvous with a painted waitress could have led him to the love of his life?
Yet there was a lot he still had to manage, and he was going to need Christo’s help with all of that. Without Christo’s insight, Reece didn’t think he’d be able to tell Bella the truth and keep her from leaving.
He dozed on the sofa, too lazy and spent from his encounter with Nicky to care about hobbling back to his bedroom. A lot sooner than he had expected, he heard Bella’s keys in the door.
“Hey, sleepy head,” she said as she entered the room to his blinking, wondering eyes. “Everything go okay?”
He nodded. “Confessed to everything.”
“Even who the father is?”
He nodded again. “I told her I still want to be present in Hayley’s life. I honestly do. I think with you as her godmother, it would give me an easy way. I can’t help it, Bella, but I’ve fallen for that little thing.”
Bella eased herself onto the sofa beside him and gently picked up his casted leg. She placed it on a pillow on the table in front of them. “You’re supposed to be keeping this elevated,” she said to Reece.
He lay his head over on her shoulder. “You take such good care of me,” he said as she ran her fingers through his black waves. “I know you’ll be a great godmother to Hayley Jo.”
“It’s not that part that I’m worried about,” Bella said. “I just don’t know if I can trust Nicky like I used to.”
Reece picked his head up and looked at her. “You don’t have to. Just remember her like she was. There’s still that person in there. She just got scared.”
“You’re a better person than I am,” Bella admitted.
Reece shook his head in disagreement. “I’m not,” he said.
“But you are. Look at this situation: a girl dupes you into believing the two of you have a child together, steals money from you while you are supporting the two of them, and then after learning the truth and getting the confession from her, you tell her you still want to be a part of her child’s life—a patron, a benefactor, in spite of all the lies and heartache. I don’t know anyone else who could do that. I know I couldn’t.” She turned his head back to look at her. “You’re a good, good man, Reece Hamilton.”
He could feel himself breaking out into a sweat. The door was open. He could tell her the truth—all of it, but then he felt the softness of her lips on his, and his mind quickly abandoned the need that had risen for another more carnal one that was rising. He probed his tongue into her mouth and moved it slowly against hers. He felt her lips smile against his as her fingers trailed along his neck. Her hand ran down his chest and then grabbed onto his thigh. His muscles tensed in response.
“I’m going to need to get you out of these pants,” she whispered.
“No time to waste,” he said back to her. “Just get them out of the way for now.” And so she did, her eyes smiling at what she saw when she got the material gone.
Her gaze steady, Bella reached under her skirt and came back with a pair of ivory lace boy-cut panties. She twirled them on her finger before letting them fly across the room, giggling at the sight on Reece’s face. Slowly, she pulled her sweater over her head revealing an ivory camisole over her bra. Reece was already envisioning her breasts, her nipples erect with her desire, and he wanted them in his hands more than anything.
He reached for her and pulled her towards him, lifting the camisole to kiss her stomach; then, pushing his way up to the underwire of her bra.
Balancing herself carefully, Bella straddled Reece, the material of her skirt pooling around his hardness.
“How about you get this contraption off?” he grinned, and she reached around to unhook the bra from the back, her back arching slightly into his face, just where he wanted her.
She slid the bra off her shoulders with less ceremony than she had removed the panties, but that was fine with Reece. He was never one to stand on ceremony anyway. Bella arched her back again and allowed her breasts to graze his lips. Patient with his wanting, Reece smiled, licking out his tongue to barely taste her.
Teasing him, she drew back, then arched her back again and repeated the motion. This time, Reece caught her breast in his hand gently and brought his lips to her nipple, sucking her deep into his mouth.
Her breath caught, and she reached for him, circling him with her small hands, ticking the length of him, sending shocks of electricity through every part of his body.
“The other one,” she said as she continued her stroking, and Reece moved his hand and mouth to her other breast. She could feel all of him—all of his maleness, his protection, his love, his goodness—illuminating from him, and she wanted to show him just how much she loved him for it.
Bella angled herself up onto her knees. Reece planted kisses on her chest and belly the entire time she worked. She repositioned herself and fanned her skirt around them, making a sort of tent for their love. She felt for him, and slowly, very slowly, took him into her, settling herself onto him, entrenching his maleness into her warm femaleness. She felt the heat within her, spreading from her core up to her heart, and she lowered her mouth onto his as she began the gentle rocking.
Reece’s lips were hot, and he moved his hands to grip her bottom as she began her slow rhythm. Her mouth got hungrier, and Reece could feel that her body temperature had risen. She curled her fingers into his hair and tugged with want.
Damn this cast, he thought for a second, wishing that he could throw her down and bed her like he really wanted to do.
He dug his fingers into her buttocks, and that seemed to fire her up even more, her rocking becoming more feverish with her breathing. His eyes opened, able to catch sight of her breasts bouncing just below his chin, and the sight of that and the bird’s eye view he imagined was all it took. He put his weight on his good leg and did what he could to give himself more access, to get deeper, and then he felt her body shudder against him, her head leaned back, her hair tickling his knees.
Then he joined her on her wave, the pulses of energy passing between their bodies. Small beads of sweat glistening on Bella’s skin.
“I really could get used to this,” Reece said, catching his breath.
Bella grinned. “I’m still hoping for a speedy recovery. This is more of a workout than I’d like sometimes.” She was already standing, but she wasn’t hurrying to dress herself. She searched for her panties until Reece pointed to them across the room.
