by Jessie Evans
“Get out of my house,” Nash said in a voice so low it rumbled through the kitchen, seeming to vibrate the paintings on the wall.
He closed the door behind him gently, barely resisting the urge to slam it with the full force of one powerful arm. If he started slamming doors, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he’d be slamming a fist into Bob March’s face.
Chapter Fifteen
“Get. Out.” Nash repeated. “Now.”
“Nash, wait,” Aria said, eyes going wide as she positioned herself between him and Bob. “Daddy didn’t mean that.”
“I sure as hell did mean it. Once a pervert, always a pervert,” Bob said, striding around his daughter.
Aria grabbed his arm and hung on tight, her expression growing progressively more frantic as Felicity began to cry in earnest in the other room.
“I’m going to go get the baby,” Nash said, speaking directly to Aria, as if Bob wasn’t in the room. “When I get back, I need him out of the house. For both of our sakes.”
Aria nodded a little too frantically. Nash hated seeing her so anxious, but he couldn’t comfort her now. All he could do was remove himself from the situation before he popped Bob March in his mean little mouth.
Nash hurried down the hall toward Felicity’s room, ignoring Bob’s shouted order not to touch his granddaughter, and opened the door just as the baby’s tears were hitting the crescendo point. As soon as Felicity saw him, she sucked in a breath and reached out her arms, the relief on her face making Nash feel like a hero rescuing someone from a burning building as he crossed the room to scoop her into his arms.
“It’s okay,” Nash cooed, rocking back and forth as Felicity wrapped her pudgy arms around his neck and buried her face in his sweat-stained running shirt, obviously not minding the stink. “Being left in your bed for five minutes is the worst thing ever, huh, Skeeter?”
Felicity snuffled in what sounded like agreement, her sobs already beginning to subside as Nash rocked her back and forth, rubbing her back in slow circles.
“I’m sorry,” Nash said, grateful to hear the front door close and Bob and Aria’s voices move outside. “Mama and I were distracted by a big old mean guy, but he should be gone soon, and then we can go get your milk.”
“Mi?” Felicity pulled her head from his chest, but kept her little hands fisted in his shirt, as if to make sure he couldn’t get away. “Mi?” she repeated again.
“Milk,” Nash said with a grin, realizing Felicity had added a new word to her repertoire.
“Mi,” she repeated again with a grin.
Nash laughed. “That’s right. You’re the smartest girl I know, do you know that?” Nash asked, giving the baby an affectionate squeeze and a kiss on her pudgy cheek.
Felicity moved her hands to his cheeks and leaned in, giving him her slobbery, open-mouthed version of a kiss right on his chin, and breaking his heart a little in the process.
He would never hurt this little girl. He would never hurt any child, and the fact that Bob March had dared to infer that he would… That he was the kind of man…
He couldn’t even think it. It was too repulsive and depraved and terrible a thought to let it swim around in his head even for a second.
He took a deep breath, forcing his rage away and giving Felicity another smile as he carried her to the changing table to get her a fresh diaper.
“All right, let’s go get that milk,” he said, scooping her back up in his arms when he was finished. “I bet we’re safe now.”
He started down the hall, and had nearly reached the living room when a car started outside. A second later, Aria slammed back in the front door, making no effort to be gentle with her door closing.
“That man is impossible,” she said through gritted teeth, forcing a tight smile when she saw Felicity. “Good morning, sugar, did you sleep well?”
Felicity held up one hand and let forth a stream of chatter that sounded so much like conversation Nash would have believed she was talking a real language he simply wasn’t familiar with if he didn’t know better. But he didn’t have to know the language to understand that the baby was telling Aria all about being left in her bed to cry and how terrible it was.
“Is that right?” Aria asked with a laugh.
Nash couldn’t help joining in. Their eyes met over Felicity’s head, and a silent apology passed between them. But Nash knew he had more to apologize for than getting militant with her father.
“Well, let’s see if milk can’t make it better,” Aria said, starting toward the kitchen, but stopping when Felicity shouted—
“Mi! Mi!”
Aria turned, eyebrows raised. “New word?”
“New word,” Nash confirmed. “I told Skeeter she’s the smartest baby ever.”
“Well, she obviously gets it from me.” Aria sighed, and rolled her eyes. “You won’t believe what my ex has been up to. I mean, I knew he was stupid, but—”
“I was listening,” Nash said as he followed Aria into the kitchen, needing to confess as soon as possible.
“What do you mean?” she asked, opening the refrigerator door and reaching for the milk.
“I was coming back from my run and saw you pull your dad into the house and…” Nash shrugged, shifting his gaze to Felicity, who was busy patting his cheek, still babbling away. “I wondered what was up, so I snuck around to the back window and sort of…listened in.”
“You were spying on me?” Aria asked.
Nash looked back to see her hands braced on the kitchen counter, the bottle and milk in front of her forgotten.
“I was,” Nash said, knowing better than to make excuses. “I’m not proud of it, but… I did it. And I’m sorry. I swear to you I’ll never do something like that again. You deserve my trust.”
Aria frowned and bit her lip for moment before slowly returning to her task. “Okay,” she said, as she poured milk into the bottle and popped it into the microwave. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
“You deserve that, too,” Nash said. “I wish you’d told me about you and Liam never being married. I wouldn’t have thought any less of you or Skeeter, I hope you know that.”
Aria shook the bottle and handed it to Skeeter, who was clearly past ready to have her milk. She popped the bottle in her mouth, leaned back in Nash’s arms, and went to work, leaving Aria and Nash to their grown up talk.
“I know that,” Aria said softly. “I honestly didn’t even think about it, Nash. I’d gotten so used to lying about it, and I guess deep down I knew you wouldn’t care, and…I don’t know. It just didn’t seem like something I needed to bring up.”
Nash nodded then took a deeper breath, bracing himself for what had to come next. “I love you, Aria.”
Aria’s brows furrowed as she crossed her arms protectively at her chest. “But?”
“But I’m done with your father,” Nash said. “I don’t want to be in the same room with the man ever again. And I can’t say I’m thrilled by the thought of Skeeter growing up with a grandpa who thinks people are trash if they don’t have a perfect pedigree or ‘breed’ a little too frequently for his tastes.”
Aria sighed and brought her fingers to rub at her neck. “But he’s not really like that, Nash. I swear he’s not. He says all that stuff, but he doesn’t really mean it. He’d give the shirt off his back to a stranger if they needed it. He’s a good man.”
“He accused me of being a child molester, Aria.” Saying the words out loud was enough to make Nash want to smash a fist through something all over again. “Do you have any idea how deeply that offends me?”
“But he didn’t really mean it,” Aria repeated, brows pinched together.
“Yes, he did,” Nash said. “The man hates me, and after this morning, I can say the feeling is mutual. I’m done with him. If you want to have your sisters or your mother over to our house, that’s fine. Any time. But your father isn’t welcome, and I won’t be joining you and Felicity for any more BBQs at Bob’s house.”
Aria’s frown grew deeper. “Please, Nash. Let’s just…let’s just get through the rest of this mess with Liam and make sure Felicity is safe, and then we can try to sort this out with my dad.”
“There’s nothing to sort out.”
“Nash, please,” Aria begged, a note of desperation entering her voice. “I don’t want to spend our entire lives avoiding my father. He’s my father. Surely, if you love me, and Daddy loves me, we can find a way to be civil and get by in a normal, dysfunctional sort of way.”
“What if my mother had accused you of being a child molester?” Nash asked, digging his heels in. He tried not to be stubborn about stupid things anymore, but this wasn’t stupid. Bob had gone too far to make this better with a handshake and an apology. “How would you feel about making nice with her after something like that?”
“Well, your mother didn’t call me a child molester last night, but she did basically accuse me of being a gold digger and said her son deserved better than a user like me,” Aria said, anger creeping into her tone. “And I still plan on going back to her house any time you want me there. I’m not going to let one nasty woman ruin—”
“My mother really said that?” Nash asked, shocked. Mom hadn’t been warm last night, but she hadn’t seemed aggressive toward Aria, either. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand her?”
“Those were her exact words, Nash,” Aria said in a voice that dared him to challenge her. “That I was using you to help pay for things for my baby until something or someone better came along. And that you deserved better than me.”
Nash shook his head, but not because he didn’t believe Aria. He couldn’t believe his mother had had the nerve to go behind his back and meddle in his life like that. He was thirty-one years old, for God’s sakes.
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that?” Nash asked. “Why did you lie and say you overhead some woman talking at a wedding instead of telling me that my mother—”
“I was trying to keep the peace,” Aria said. “I know how much you love your mom, and I didn’t want it to come down to some kind of ‘her or me’ situation. I guess…I guess I was worried I wouldn’t be the one you’d choose.”
She crossed her arms again, making her breasts swell above the lacy edge of her sleeveless red pajama top.
She certainly didn’t look like a child now. To Nash she never had. That first day at camp, in that crazy dress, with her hair hanging wild to her waist and those eyes that promised all the best kinds of trouble, she’d been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. But Bob March was never going to understand that Nash hadn’t seen Aria the same way her father had, or realize that, for all his size, Nash had only been a kid back then, too.
And Nash could speak with his mom and make it clear she wasn’t allowed to talk to Aria that way, but if Mom had taken that much of a disliking to his wife, Nash knew it would take time—and lots of it—for her to warm up to Aria. If she ever did. Nash had inherited his tendency to hold a grudge from Joy’s side of the family, no doubt about it.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Aria asked after a moment.
“I don’t know what to say,” Nash said, glancing down at Felicity, heart twisting at the thought of losing her or her mama. They’d already become such a part of him. The best part.
“But you believe me?” Aria asked, voice breaking.
“Of course I believe you, baby,” Nash hurried to say, not wanting to be responsible for more tears this morning.
Aria’s shoulders slumped with relief and her breath rushed out as she nodded, making it clear how worried she’d been that he would turn on her. Nash crossed the kitchen in a heartbeat and pulled Aria against his chest with his free arm. In his other arm, Skeeter cooed around her bottle, seeming to approve of the family hug.
The sound was another knife slipped between Nash’s ribs.
“I’m on your side,” Nash said, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Aria’s wild morning hair, chest tight. “Mom had no right to talk to you that way, and I’ll make it clear she’s not allowed to do anything like that again if she wants me to keep coming around, but…”
“But what?” Aria asked in a soft voice, tensing slightly in his arms, almost as if she could sense where his thoughts were headed.
Nash waited until she looked up, and met her worried eyes with a concerned expression of his own. “I don’t know how to change this. Any of it. Your dad is always going to hate me, and it sounds like my mom isn’t too keen on you, either.” He sighed, hating what he had to say next, but knowing there was no avoiding it. “If we stay together, we’re going to have to deal with the reality that we may never have the same kind of easy family dynamic we used to have ever again.”
Aria blinked up at him, her breath coming faster, but she didn’t say a word.
“I know how much you depend on your family,” Nash continued. “How much you love them and how much fun you have together. I wouldn’t want to feel like I was driving a wedge between you and the people who mean the most to you. Marriage should add to the number of people you can count on, not subtract from them.”
“But I love you,” Aria said. “More than anything, except Felicity. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but…” She trailed off, biting her lip as her eyes began to fill. “But if you don’t feel the same way…”
“Of course I feel the same way,” Nash said, his voice harsh with emotion as his arm tightened around Aria’s waist. “You’re all I can think about. If I could spend every moment of every day with you and Skeeter, I would. I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been the past two weeks. Never. Not even when I was a kid. But we need to decide—”
“What’s to decide?” Aria asked, bringing a hand to his cheek, rubbing her thumb across the stubble he had yet to shave away. “Love like this doesn’t come along every day. We’d be stupid to let my dad or your mom or anyone else take this away from us. Or Felicity. She loves you as much as I do, and I can’t imagine a better stepfather exists on the planet.”
Felicity gurgled something unintelligible, but positive sounding around her bottle, almost as if she understood what they were talking about. Nash smiled, but the grin didn’t last long.
“I don’t want to lose you, either of you,” he said, “But I think we both need some time to think.”
“About what?” Aria asked, slipping out of his arms although he tried to hold on to her. “What part of ‘stupid to let them take this away from us’ needs further analysis?” Her eyes flashed, and for a minute all Nash could think about was how sexy she was when she was angry, and how much he wished he could spend the day naked with Aria in their bed, showing her just how much he needed her.
But that was part of the problem. It was getting harder and harder to think straight around Aria March. The harder he fell, the more it seemed like nothing outside of their relationship really mattered. But he’d been raised to be a family man. Loyalty to family, and sacrifices made by the few for the good of the many, were practically scripture to him. He had given up so much as a kid to help out with his brothers and sisters, and he wouldn’t go back and do things differently, even if he could.
He treasured the close, loving bonds he had with almost all of his siblings. His family was a source of chaos and upheaval, but it was also sacred, such a big part of his heart he didn’t know how much he’d have left if they were cut away. He loved them, all of them, and he couldn’t imagine never being a part of a Geary gathering again. Never seeing Felicity run and play with her cousins, never seeing his mom hold her new grandson or granddaughter for the first time.
But she wouldn’t. If Mom refused to accept Aria, then Nash wouldn’t be bringing their future babies over to see Grandma Geary. He didn’t work that way. He wasn’t going to let his family treat his wife like an undesirable.
Aria’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Nash? Did you hear me?”
“I did, I…” He shook his head, but it didn’t do much to clear his mind. “It’s a big dec
ision, Aria. I just think we should take some time apart to think about how this situation could affect our future. And Felicity’s future, and there might be other kids, who will be just as innocent and deserving of a big, loving family. It’s not just you and me.”
“I know,” Aria said, reaching out to take Felicity’s empty bottle as the baby twisted in Nash’s arms, ready to get down for her morning crawl to the toy basket in the living room.
Nash put Felicity down, feeling more vulnerable for some reason without her snuggled against his chest. He crossed his arms and glanced over at Aria, who was leaning against the counter with the bottle drooping from one hand, looking so defeated it was all Nash could do to keep from going to her.
But he stood his ground. They both needed time to think, and delaying would only make things more painful.
“I’ll go pack a suitcase,” Nash said. “I can stay with Raleigh while we both do some thinking.”
“No, we’ll go back to my parents’ house,” Aria said, setting the bottle on the counter with a soft thunk. “It’s safe for us to stay with them now.”
“Are you sure? Do you really think your ex is going to drop his suit?”
Aria nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes, keeping her gaze locked on the kitchen tile. “My dad hired a private investigator to follow Liam. The guy got pictures of Liam and his new wife and a few other people naked in the hot tub behind our old house. Apparently there was some partner-swapping, and cocaine passed around. The guy got pictures of all of it, as well as some dirt on Liam’s wife. She was arrested for running a brothel in the U.K. three years ago.”
“Wow.” Nash took a deep breath. “That’s some heavy stuff.”
Aria nodded. “Yeah. I think even Liam will realize it’s enough to make sure he never gets custody of any kind. Dad’s taking the pictures and other stuff over to Betty’s office in a few hours. Hopefully we’ll have an answer from Liam’s lawyer by the end of today.”