by Bethany-Kris
A part of him wondered if they came because they wanted a peek at the inside of his life that he kept most private, but he also knew that was just his paranoia making itself known and nothing more. All of these people—at one point or another—had been inside his home for a visit. But not all of them at the same time.
And he did want them here.
Hell, he suggested this dinner to Siena as a way for them to announce the pregnancy to everyone at the same time so that no one felt left out or had to learn late. So, instead of focusing on the negative thoughts poking at the back of his mind—those bastards never truly left; he simply learned to handle it in healthier ways—he put his attention back on the table and the people sitting around it with conversation flowing while they devoured his wife’s food.
That alone made John smile.
He knew how hard Siena worked for this.
Speaking of which …
Beside him, Siena’s hand found his thigh under the table. She squeezed and tipped her head in his direction, shooting him a look from the side. He knew what she was doing—testing the waters, checking on him to see how he was doing with all of this. Crowds were never his favorite thing, and it had a way of spiking his anxiety like nothing else ever did. For her, though, he grinned and gave a wink. Just like that, his wife’s smile bloomed a little wider and she nodded.
“Love you,” he murmured low.
Leaning in close, she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips, replying, “More than you will ever know, John.”
Nah.
He knew.
Better than anyone.
Pulling away from their kiss, Siena asked, “Should we tell them now?”
Apparently, that question wasn’t quiet enough for no one to hear because just two seats down beside his wife, Andino tipped his chin up and demanded, “Tell us what?”
Fucking Andi.
John smirked his cousin’s way. “Mind your business.”
“Tell us!”
Now, everyone at the table looked their way. Another time or day and that might really mess with John’s head. Like crowds, he also didn’t like the attention of many to be on him. But with these people—his parents, cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles and more—he just smiled back for the moment.
They could deal with the rest later.
Surely.
“Siena?” John asked.
Beside him, she laughed. “You say it.”
“Say what?” his father asked.
He did want to tell them. He also wanted to kiss his wife again. So, he did both at the same time. Grabbing Siena’s jaw, he pulled her in for one more kiss and then turned to the rest of the table to say, “We’re going to have a baby.”
The cheers from the rest of the people at the table would linger in John’s ears long after his family had gone for the evening.
John was three hours into a deep clean of their house—not that it needed it between the three-day-a-week maid that came in, Siena cleaning, and him—when all at once, he dropped everything in his hand and stared down the dark hallway of the downstairs. The dinner party was long over, the kitchen and dining room had been cleaned … his house was quiet, and his wife had been sleeping since eleven.
Without him.
Because John couldn’t sleep.
At all.
His mind raced from one thing to another, and it seemed like all at once, John’s brain made a list of every single thing they would need to do or have done before the baby arrived. It didn’t matter that his wife was still early in her pregnancy or that they had a while to go yet before the baby would come because eventually their child would be there.
And they were not ready.
Nothing was.
It took him far too long to realize that what he was doing might not be … good. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his wife because she needed her rest. Usually, he would call his father and talk shit out with Lucian, but it was far too late—or early, depending on how one looked at it—to do that, either.
John sat on the couch and reached for the phone he’d discarded on the coffee table earlier. Looking at the black screen, he went through the list of who else he could call. Leonard was almost always his first option because the man would pick up a call from John no matter the time or day. Except … despite Leonard being at the dinner and looking well, the man was still undergoing treatments and needed his rest even more than anyone else did.
So, he ended up calling someone else.
Cree.
“John,” the man said, rather cheerfully, when he picked up three rings later. “Isn’t it three in the morning there?”
“Quarter after three,” John replied, “but who’s watching the clock?”
“You, apparently.”
Fair point.
“Don’t you sleep?” John asked.
“Don’t you?”
“Not when I feel like this.”
Cree hummed under his breath. “Are you up? Your cycle, I mean.”
“Feels like it. I’m not usually this aware.”
And after he went up, John always had to come down.
For now, though … “I’m going to be a dad.”
“Well, then.”
“Yeah.”
“Babies are terrifying,” Cree muttered.
“I’m not really scared of that.”
“Then, what are you scared of?”
Everything else.
Every single thing else.
TWELVE
“Listen, I told you last week that I was going to need those profit reports for last quarter, and now here I am, ready to do these spreadsheets and guess what I don’t have? And actually, I told you the week before last to start prepping them for me, right?”
The man on the other end of the line grunted under his breath, already getting his nasty retort for Siena ready. She never understood why people went into a career they knew they wouldn’t like—such as accounting. See, she loved numbers. Her day wasn’t complete if she hadn’t turned on a computer and played with calculations. Not everyone was like her, however, and they didn’t find fulfillment in the same thing she did.
The guy on the phone was one of those.
He was also her go-between for the company she used to manage John’s overall investment profile for his legal side of business. Everything that had to be cleaned, cooked, or otherwise were numbers only she got to touch. At least then, when she sent the numbers off, she didn’t have to worry about anything being wrong.
Not when she didn’t make mistakes.
Not those kinds, anyway.
Maybe Siena was a bit short with her temper lately, too. Normally, she could handle more bullshit from other people than she was capable of lately. She blamed that on the pregnancy, the fact she wasn’t getting enough sleep, oh and because her morning sickness had yet to wane. That shit was all a lie, too, because it wasn’t only in the morning.
It was all the time.
Whenever.
“I will have it—”
“You’ll have it ready by this evening,” Siena said, sighing while she rubbed at the tension headache starting to form in her temples. Or was that a stress headache? It was probably all the fucking same because it sure felt like it lately. “In my email—that’s where it better be when I check later. All right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
God.
Now she was a ma’am.
Perfect.
“Thank you,” she muttered before hanging up the phone.
It wasn’t like she had anything else to say now. As long as those damn reports were in her inbox before she left the office for the day, then she wouldn’t have anything more to say, either. Although, now that she didn’t have those reports, she also didn’t have anything to do. Which wasn’t a bad thing because it meant she could take the rest of the afternoon off, but it also meant that tomorrow, she would have double the work to finish.
Just wonderful.
“Knock, knock.” The man who pok
ed his head in Siena’s office doorway smiled kindly. “You busy?”
“Michel, what brings you to this part of the city?”
Johnathan’s cousin stepped into the doorway and shoved his hands in his slacks pockets. “I was in the neighborhood—actually, I was wondering if you had talked to John at all today?”
That was … unusual.
“Yeah, this morning,” Siena replied. “Before he headed out for the day.”
“But not since?”
“I mean …”
Siena didn’t quite know what to say to that because it wasn’t strange for John to be wherever he was doing whatever he did for most of the day without checking in with her. It was part of his routine, and sometimes he called or he didn’t. Other days, he might show up to have lunch with her at the restaurant where she did the majority of her work.
Like today.
He was supposed to come today for lunch.
For the first time in God knew how many hours, Siena checked the clock on the corner of her computer screen. That’s how she realized John was an hour late for their lunch date.
“Something wrong?” Michel asked.
Siena passed him a look, careful in her words when she replied, “I don’t know, is something wrong?”
“It’s not like John to go MIA, that’s all.”
Or was it?
John did, in fact, go off everyone’s radar when he wasn’t in the best place. He often opted to turn his phone off and simply do what he needed or wanted to do without much thought or care for those who might be concerned about him.
Siena didn’t point it out, however. She also hadn’t noticed anything different about John lately. Usually, she tried to keep a handle on his schedule and routines because that was typically the first place to go downhill when something was off.
“He had an appointment after lunch,” she told Michel. “And he turns his phone off then. That might be why you can’t get a hold of him.”
“We were supposed to meet up a couple hours ago. And Pink said he didn’t show up to their meeting yesterday. I was going to call Andino—”
“Or you could just let John come to you,” Siena suggested. “We’re busy, you know?”
“Right, but—”
“I’ll let John know you were around, Michel.”
It was all she could offer. Now, she had to worry about her husband. Everything else came second.
After Michel left the office, Siena reached for the phone on her desk. First, she called John’s cell phone, but he didn’t answer. She didn’t bother to leave a message because for the most part, he didn’t check those anyway. The second call she made was to Leonard—the person John had an appointment with after what should have been their lunch date.
The therapist also didn’t answer the phone.
Well, then …
Siena never went to the worst-case scenario first. It wasn’t her style, and she’d learned to trust John. She was concerned, yes, but she would also give her husband the benefit of the doubt. She had to. That’s how their entire marriage worked.
THIRTEEN
John was surprised to find Andino’s house quiet when he arrived later in the day. Even though he was supposed to meet up with his cousin at a restaurant in the city like they usually would, business simply caught up to him and plans had to change. He hadn’t thought Andino would mind all that much if only because the man could appreciate and understand how business sometimes piled up and took over everything. So was their way.
He expected to hear the kids running around and find Haven in the kitchen as she would normally be, but for the most part, the house was empty.
Except upstairs.
There, he found his cousin. With his other cousin. And Pink.
John stayed far enough back from the office doorway to hear the conversation happening inside. Well, mostly it was just Andino questioning Michel and Pink while the other two man stayed mute. Which wasn’t at all what John expected to find when he came here. He couldn’t say he particularly liked it, either.
That wasn’t good for his nerves.
Or his fast temper.
“So, you’re telling me he hasn’t been in touch but neither of you have anything to tell me about that? He’s not seemed a little off lately, or …?”
John’s gaze narrowed.
Was Andino asking about him?
“I know you two can fucking talk,” Andino snapped.
John decided, before his cousin could act like an even bigger asshole than he already was, to speak up and find out exactly what was happening. Although just by the looks and sound of it all, he already knew. “What the fuck is going on here?”
All at once, three pairs of eyes in the office turned on John standing in the doorway. He didn’t pay the two men sitting in the high-back, leather chairs much mind. Instead, he leveled all of his attention on the one behind the desk.
Andino, that was.
“John,” Andino started.
Nope.
He wasn’t doing that.
Not the tone, the attitude, or the arched eyebrow Andino turned on his cousin. All of it felt like the man intended to chastise John, and he wasn’t doing that shit with people anymore. He was a grown fucking man—closing in on his mid-thirties—not a child that needed constantly watched. That’s kind of what it felt like Andino had just been doing before John spoke up.
“I asked a question,” John said.
Andino sucked air through his teeth, replying, “How about, where the fuck have you been all day, huh?”
“Busy.”
“Doing what?”
“You demand updates about my whereabouts and business now?” John asked. “Let me remind you, Andi, that you’re not my fucking boss. I don’t have to answer to you or keep you updated about anything. When I choose to do that, it’s because I want to, or we’re doing something in business together that requires you to know. Otherwise, it’s none of your goddamn business, and I think it would do you well to remember that.”
Andino’s jaw tightened at that statement; his narrowed gaze swung toward the men on the other side of the desk. “So, we’re going to pretend like you don’t have these two running like crazy for you? So much so, in fact, that I have to go through them just to get to you?”
Well …
That had John smirking.
Just a bit.
“Don’t all bosses work that way?” he asked.
“Sure,” Andino said, “but not us. Hell, I even had to call people working for you to come to me to get any kind of information on you.”
Oh, was that how Andino wanted to play this?
Fine.
“I had business on one side of the city and ended up on an entirely different side today,” John said, “because apparently, the only person who gets to be taken seriously in this fucking city is you. Right? Because if even you can’t fuck off and let me work without watching over my shoulder constantly, how in the hell is anyone else going to do it?”
The silence coated the room heavily.
John didn’t mind a bit.
“Anything else you want to know?” he asked his cousin.
Andino stared hard at John. “Maybe I’m just worried about you.”
“Maybe you can ask me instead of whatever the hell you were doing here today.”
In the chair closest to the window, Michel cleared his throat. “Sorry, man. He already had Pink here when I showed up after getting a call, too. I let it slip that you missed your lunch date with Siena and all.”
“Maybe I mentioned I hadn’t talked to you in a couple days,” Pink added.
Andino sighed.
John simply nodded at the other two. “No worries.”
They were honest.
That’s all he wanted.
As for Andino …
“Give me a call when you figure out what the fuck we’re doing here,” John told his cousin. “Otherwise, keep my name out of your mouth entirely. You hear me?”
“Jo
hn, I was just—”
“It’s my business. All of it. Any of it. That’s for me to handle.”
He was a bit flaky lately. Not entirely off his game, but only because he was way on it instead which meant he still missed shit because he focused too much on one thing or another instead of everything as a whole. He stayed awake more than he slept. Remained high more than low. Not that it mattered because it was still for him to handle, and not anyone else. Which he was dealing with. But he also didn’t feel like he had to explain any of that to anyone.
Including Andino.
Better his cousin be aware now.
Right?
“And if we’re going to keep working together,” John said to Pink and Michel—because he wanted all of this to be crystal fucking clear from here on out—as he pointed a finger at them both, “then let that be a lesson to the both of you. My business is mine. I don’t care if you haven’t spoken to me in weeks. You don’t take it anywhere but to me. Got it?”
Pink, to his benefit, nodded. “Yeah, man.”
Michel, on the other hand, gave John a look. “I’m not a made man, John. I don’t answer to anybody but myself.”
“And this isn’t a game. You don’t get to play when you want to and quit when you don’t. You’re either in with this, Michel, or you’re out.” He shrugged, adding, “Figure it out. Both of you. Then, we’ll all know where we stand in this business, yeah?”
FOURTEEN
Siena glanced up from the glass of water she had cupped between her palms. She’d been holding it for so long that now her fingertips were numb from the coldness. Even the condensation dribbling down the side of the glass had left wet spots on her gray sweatpants, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care when she had other things on her mind. Hell, she needed to drink more water according to her doctor.
Yet, she couldn’t bring it to her lips.
Well, at least she filled a glass to carry around with her heavy thoughts. That was one step in the right direction. Maybe once she got rid of the concerns weighing her down, then she could get back to focusing on what counted.
Like her pregnancy.