by Addison Fox
“Nova. You have to know I wouldn’t do anything to put you or the baby in danger.”
“You say that now. You believe it. Just like last night, you believed that you wanted to help me. Only today, your mind suddenly told you otherwise.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not the same. I know it’s not the same. You have to believe me.”
She wanted to. She wanted so badly to believe him. Just like she wanted to believe Marlowe and the idea that she could have a family here in Mustang Valley. Just like she wanted to believe Ace Colton would welcome her with open arms when they finally met.
Only, the Coltons weren’t her family.
And Ace might be a stone cold attempted murderer.
She wanted to believe that Nikolas could make things right.
But how did you make things right against the threat you never even saw coming?
That was really at the heart of it all.
It was those things you never saw coming that did the most damage. Her mother’s illness. The truth about her father. Ferdy’s betrayal.
She’d gotten quite good over the past year at dealing with the things that she hadn’t seen coming. Maybe it was time to trust herself and make the leap.
“Nikolas. I do believe you.”
“Then tell me. Tell me what has you so scared.”
Just like the day before, when she’d sat outside Nikolas’s office on the sidewalk bench, the baby kicked. Hard enough to make a point and timed well enough to push her into gear.
She’d leap.
And if it was the wrong choice, then she’d figure it out and run once more. She’d gotten pretty damn good at it, after all. She could take care of herself and the baby.
“For the past five months I’ve been running from the father of my baby. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. As far as I know, he doesn’t know where I’ve gone. It has to stay that way, on both counts.”
“Why are you running?”
“Because the man I trusted, the man I created a new life with, he’s not a good guy. In fact, I think he may be a very bad man.”
Chapter 10
Nikolas had dreamed up more than a few scenarios in his head about Nova’s situation. Between his job and his generally curious nature, he’d done quite a bit of thinking on who this Ferdy guy might be that Nova had mentioned at dinner.
Never, in any of his imaginings, had he suspected the guy was a criminal. And a big one, by the sounds of it.
But as Nova spoke, telling him of her relationship with this Ferdy, the way they’d met and fallen for each other, Nikolas evaluated each piece. The way the man’s behavior had changed after that great first date to becoming verbally abusive. The subtle and not-so-subtle signs she could recall now, after the fact. And then the big reveal, the day she’d gone to tell him she was pregnant and he’d been upset and angry about a drug shipment he was trying to shepherd into the Port of New York.
“Have you told anyone else about this? About your suspicions?”
“No. No one. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because Ferdy can’t know about the baby. He may not care about the baby specifically, but there’s no way he’d want me and his kid out there on our own, out from under his thumb. Especially now that I ran. He’ll figure out that I know about him.”
“You can go to the police.”
“No!” Nova’s hand gripped his forearm across the cupholders between their seats. “No. That’s exactly what I didn’t want to have happen. He’s hidden his deeds this long. Hell, I didn’t even know about them. I can’t go to the police. What if he has some cops in his pocket and that’s how he’s getting away with things?”
“Okay, okay. No police.”
Nikolas knew she was afraid, and he knew he needed to manage this carefully. But that depth of fear was something even he hadn’t anticipated. She’d obviously had a lot of alone time these past five months. To fear that going to the cops would make things worse didn’t speak well of her ex—and he already thought pretty poorly of Ferdy.
“You promise?” Her eyes were still wild, the hurried tones of her voice a match to the terror he could see in their depths.
“Yes. I promise.”
“I thought—” She broke off, a look of misery paring deep lines into her forehead. Even as youthful as she was, Nikolas could see the way the emotional pain mapped itself on her. The hunch of her shoulders, the stiffness in her back as if she might be ready to break. “I thought if I came here and changed my name and became a Colton, I could make it all go away. It seems silly now to think that. But they’re a powerful family and I guess... I guess I thought I could hide inside of all that.”
“You’re not entirely wrong. But you’ve been determined to go off the grid, and in order to change your name and start a new life, you’re going to have to go back on it.”
“I know. I’ve known that, regardless of meeting the Coltons. I’m going to have my baby in a hospital. I won’t risk him or her to any other environment.” She blew out a breath, the few wisps of hair around her cheeks blowing in that soft breeze. “I have money. That’s the weird part. I have money that my mother left me, and I also have some that I’ve saved from my own job. I’m not destitute. But—”
“But to touch any of it would mean an electronic record.”
“Yes, it does.”
Grit. Determination. Uncommon strength.
Nova had all of those things and so much more. Once again, Nikolas thought of his own behavior earlier when they were at Marlowe’s. “I am truly sorry. About before. You didn’t deserve my judgment.”
“I think we can put that behind us.”
“Can we?”
“Yes, we can. I can.”
“If you can be so open-minded as to put that behind you, can I ask you to be open-minded about something else?”
She shifted again in her seat, seemingly to find a more comfortable position, and Nikolas realized how unfair it was to keep a seven-months-pregnant woman stuck in the front seat of a car any longer than necessary.
“But before I ask you anything, can we please go to your office and finish this conversation there?”
The worry lines that had so recently tugged at her mouth had vanished as her lips quirked upward. “Do you think we can maybe order some lunch while we’re at it?”
“I’ll give you a better option. Let’s go get lunch first.”
He wasn’t sure how she did it, but just as he’d observed yesterday, Nova had an amazing ability to move seamlessly between things that were very difficult and things that were surprisingly easy. It was enticing, he acknowledged to himself.
And wildly attractive.
Most women of his acquaintance were all too happy to hold a grudge, or even in best-case scenarios, simply pout. She did neither of those things. And he got the feeling that when she said she wanted to put the unpleasantness of the afternoon behind them, she meant it.
He got out of the car and came around to the passenger side to help her out. He reached for her hand, clasping his fingers around her much smaller one, as a zing of electricity shot up his arm and on into his chest.
Yep, there was no doubt about it. For all his protective feelings and all of his ready desire to help her, Nikolas also couldn’t deny the fact that he saw her as a woman.
And as he helped her out of the car, he remembered something else.
She was alone and vulnerable. Which meant he was just going to have to keep those feelings to himself.
* * *
Nova fought the urge to rub her palm as they walked back toward Nikolas’s office. She found him attractive and had from the very first moment. But something had shifted between them in the car.
Something that had nothing to do with her case or her problems and everything to do with being a woman.
A
s she imagined herself leaning forward, pressing her lips to the lush fullness of his, her fingers flexed over that hard, beard-shadowed jaw, Nova slammed smack into reality.
Was she that desperate for any sense of connection after her experience with Ferdy?
Even as she thought it, Nova recognized just how unfair she was being to herself. Yes, she had made a horrible decision when it came to Ferdinand Adler but it didn’t mean she’d lost her ability to make good decisions.
What about the last five months? She’d done okay and she’d be damned if she was going to let herself forget that.
But Nikolas...
Would it be so bad to imagine something developing between the two of them? Oh, sure, now wasn’t the ideal time. And what man really wanted to take on a woman and another man’s baby? Not one she’d ever met, no matter how sweet and caring.
But maybe, somewhere down the road. After she was settled and had gotten into the rhythm of motherhood.
Maybe...
“You want that burger we talked about yesterday?”
She might be fighting an attraction to Nikolas, but she had no such compunction about beef. “Um, yeah.”
“Then let’s go. We’ll grab some lunch and we can talk about what we’re going to do.”
What we’re going to do.
Nova had already been hurt once and it would do her good to keep her heart in check and not allow those words to sing in her mind, propping her up and making her feel as if someway, somehow things would work out.
She was still jobless, homeless and, based on the news that morning, Colton-less. No matter how well-intentioned Marlowe was, nothing could change the fact that Nova wasn’t a blood relation to these people she’d come so far to find.
But neither was she alone. And it was helpful to remember that, too.
An hour later, Nova had to admit what a good plan lunch was. Still full from her double cheeseburger and feeling slightly self-righteous that she’d ordered salad instead of French fries, she laid her napkin on the table. “You haven’t said much, but I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
“I’m thinking about a few things.”
“Such as?”
“It started out that I was thinking about what an ass I was earlier, but then I realized that jackass move might pay a dividend or two.”
Intrigued, Nova leaned forward. “Tell me more.”
“I told you that I was looking for Ace.”
“A fact you’ve been honest with me about from the beginning.”
“Right. But what I realize now is that Selina hasn’t been. She didn’t give me all the facts.”
Curious about this woman who sounded so opposite from Payne’s first wife, Tessa, Nova gave Nikolas the space to continue processing, saying nothing.
“Selina never mentioned that email Marlowe told us about.”
“Does it matter? It’s obviously the catalyst that made them all realize that Ace isn’t Payne’s son.”
“But who sent it? And why now, after all this time?”
“Maybe somebody who came into the information?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s somebody who’s been waiting and is finally ready to make a move.”
Nova was happy to be a sounding board for his ideas, but none of it answered the bigger question to her mind. “If somebody wanted to say that Ace wasn’t really a Colton, then they have to know who really is.”
“Who really is what?”
“The switched baby.”
Nova saw the moment the light went off. “Of course. That’s it. I’ve been sitting here thinking it was Selina trying to make a play for the senior office. But maybe it’s the heir, wanting to come back and take his rightful place.”
“You thought Selina might be guilty somewhere in this?”
“I had to consider it just now. You saw Marlowe’s reaction when I told her Selina wanted me to look into the situation. But the heir makes way more sense.”
The double cheeseburger she’d gleefully eaten sat like lead in her stomach. “Wait. Wait one second. You took this case. You took it on.”
“So?”
“So how do you suddenly decide the person asking you to do the work might be guilty?”
Nova felt like her thoughts had become a tennis match. Innocence or guilt. Comparisons of every situation to Ferdy, then quick reassurance that things were nothing like her time with her ex. Even a simple conversation had seemingly gone sideways.
“Look, Nova. It’s an unfortunate reality of my work but just because somebody hires a PI doesn’t mean they’re innocent.”
She tried to look at it from his perspective but had to admit it seemed like a rather callous way to make a living. Did everyone have an angle?
And was that why it had been so easy for him to assume she did, too?
Questions without answers. Or maybe put in a better way, answers she didn’t necessarily want.
“If I turn it another way, I can also understand exactly why Selina hired me. Putting aside her family connections, the woman has a huge job at Colton Oil. She’s responsible for all public relations for the company. That’s a massive responsibility to sit on one person’s shoulders. And it’s not like the oil industry hasn’t had its fair share of bad press.”
“I guess.”
“Guess all you’d like, and I’m cool with whatever opinion you have either way, but she has a right to protect her professional interests.”
Maybe that was what was really bothering her.
She’d driven over two thousand miles, zigzagging across the country, with some sort of black-or-white outcome in her head. She’d find her father, and he would either want her in his life or he wouldn’t.
There hadn’t been any gray in that equation.
No question marks.
No scales to weigh one side versus another.
How odd, then, to realize that Nikolas Slater lived with those scales every single day.
* * *
Nikolas drove toward his condo and, for the second day in a row, Nova followed behind him in her car. He was still surprised she was willing to even talk to him, let alone come with him to his home after the time they’d spent at Marlowe’s and his subsequent behavior. Only she claimed to be over it, forgiving his behavior even as she’d made it quite clear how his lack of trust had made her feel.
Then they’d gone to lunch and he’d felt they’d settled on more even ground. Only to have another round of conversation at lunch forcing him to reconsider that, too.
He hadn’t missed her discomfort as they discussed his suspicions about Selina. And it didn’t take an investigator’s license to know that she wasn’t fully on board with his methods.
Why did that bother him so much?
He had tried to shrug it off, claiming that he was more than comfortable with her opinions, but if he were honest with himself, it did chafe a bit to see that disappointment in her eyes.
Especially when it settled so squarely on him.
He had never felt the need to apologize for his job, and he had no interest in starting now. But did she have a point? Even if he put the idea of conflict of interest aside, there was something suspicious about Selina Barnes Colton. The woman was a barracuda, and while she appeared to fancy herself some sort of wheeler and dealer, she wasn’t exactly hard to read on the surface.
It had been clear from their initial meeting that she wouldn’t be sad at all to see Ace go to jail for the attempt on Payne’s life.
Did she feel that way, regardless if Ace was innocent?
Nikolas drove through the gate to his underground parking garage and saw Nova pass through the gate, as well. He’d given her a key fob that morning so that she could come and go as she needed to.
So here they were. Facing a second night in his condo with nearly everything changed between t
hem since they’d left that morning.
Nova met him at the garage elevator and had already pressed the up button while she waited for him to join her. “What was that other thing that Marlowe said earlier?”
“One other thing?”
“That there was more information. I wasn’t ready to hear it at the time, my only focus on leaving, but I remember. She said there was more to tell us.”
Now that Nova mentioned it, their conversation with Marlowe resurfaced in his mind. “It sounded like it was more news about Ace.”
“I got the same feeling. Like they’ve learned a few things since getting that email.”
“We can call her. Go back over there.”
“I’m one step ahead of you.” Nova waved a small phone in his face. It was the most basic of the basic, and it had no bells and whistles, but the small device looked like it could make phone calls.
“Where did you get the phone?”
“It’s a burner I bought somewhere in Iowa. I was starting to feel really pregnant and I realized I probably needed to have something. You know, in case of an emergency.”
They stepped into the elevator, and once again Nikolas was struck by her ingenuity and the amazing bravery that she had shown over those long, long months.
Without thinking through the impulse, or barely even registering he had one, Nikolas leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.
What had started as impulse quickly flared as her hand came up to rest on his shoulder. Heat and need—the sort that might stay banked for a surprisingly long time—suddenly sprang to life with all the ferocity of a blaze.
And Nikolas was more than willing to be consumed.
The elevator rose steadily to his floor but Nikolas was unaware of their movement. He was unaware of anything except for Nova.
He’d been so careful with this up to now. It wasn’t right to have feelings for a client. Even less right to act on them. And she was...vulnerable, in a way he’d never understand.
