by Naima Simone
“Greer Addison.”
Greer’s head jerked up. A nurse stood in an open doorway, a tablet in hand, waiting expectantly. She nodded and rose from the chair. An emotion passed over her face. There and gone so fast, if he’d blinked he would’ve missed it. But he hadn’t. Loneliness. Bleak loneliness. He’d glanced around the room, noted the other women with their partners. Noticed she had no one.
But him.
He stood beside her.
Shock widened her eyes, parted her lips. Yeah, join the club.
Recovering quickly, she strode across the room, and he followed. Once inside the examination room, he plopped into the chair next to the table, crossed his arms, and waited in stony silence.
She didn’t utter a word. Just remained perched on the exam table, quiet, her ankles crossed, her fingers intertwined. Good. At this point, he didn’t know what would come out of his mouth. Fuck. He didn’t want to be here.
But his ass stayed glued in the seat.
The door opened, and the doctor entered. Raphael crossed his arms, tried to distance himself from the questions, the whole situation. And he halfway succeeded until Greer reclined, and the doctor smeared gel over Greer’s still-flat belly and pressed the fetal Doppler to her skin. The staticky pulse of the baby’s heartbeat reverberated in the exam room. Fast and steady. It filled the air like a bass chord.
Oh, shit.
Of their own volition, his fingers found Greer’s. Wrapped around hers. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the sound, but somehow, it was. Awe too big for his chest to contain swelled inside him. The rapid thump pumped adrenaline through his veins, sped up his own thudding heart.
My son. Or my daughter. His eyes connected with Greer’s. The same wonder choking him out was reflected in her wide gaze. A small smile curved her pretty lips, and he couldn’t help but return it. The baby, whether girl or boy, would have that smile. God, it was such a thing of beauty that he would be immediately wrapped around the kid’s finger…
Damn it. What he’d been afraid of from the moment Greer had announced her pregnancy was happening.
He was hoping…wishing…
The knuckles of the fist in his lap blanched as the truth slapped him in the face.
He, Raphael Marcel of the badass Liberty Security Services…he who hacked systems for a living and pleasure without fear of reprisal…he who had buried a body in his friend’s backyard and kept the secret for twenty years without a hint of remorse…yes, that he…
Was afraid.
Fucking terrified of believing this baby was his. Of trusting the mother. Of falling for both the mother and child. Of the soul-shredding pain when they walked out of his life, leaving him devastated and hollow. Again.
Coward that he was, he couldn’t face the possibility, couldn’t bear the agony. He’d barely made it through the first time. This time—with Greer—would rip something out of him that could never be returned or mended.
The smile slowly dropped from his mouth as the gravity of the heartbreak awaiting him kicked him in the nuts.
The light in Greer’s eyes dimmed, her lips straightening until they no longer curved in delight. Part of him wanted to pop off a smart remark, recover the wonder and happiness that had lit her face. But anger and fear froze his windpipe.
He’d learned one very important lesson seven years ago.
If you didn’t hope, you couldn’t be devastated.
Chapter Fifteen
“Wait for me, Greer. I’ll be back to pick you up in a couple of hours. If I’m going to be late, I’ll call. But whatever you do, don’t leave. We clear?”
Greer opened the passenger door of his SUV. “Crystal,” she drawled, stepping out and shutting it with a decisive bang.
He winced but didn’t call her back to apologize for instructing her as if she was six instead of twenty-six. In spite of her genteel appearance and quiet manner, the woman had a stubborn streak that made a mule look like a marshmallow. He waited, his truck parked illegally and idling at the curb while she entered the popular eatery on Charles Street. Unease swirled in his gut, but short of sticking to her side like a conjoined twin, he couldn’t forbid her from having an innocent lunch with her brother and Noah. He frowned. Fucking Noah. Grafting himself to her hip suddenly didn’t seem like such an awful idea. Not if it meant keeping her best friend from putting his paws on her. A mean grin slid across his mouth. He’d definitely like to put his paws on Noah.
Irrational?
Hell, yeah.
Especially since he had no claim to Greer. But damn if that didn’t keep him from imagining his fist in the other guy’s throat. Shit. He scrubbed a hand down his face as she disappeared through the frosted door. With another grumbled curse, he pulled off.
And wondered when he had turned into such a pussy.
He swallowed a growl. He didn’t do this, this…comforter shit. That role in their group belonged to Chay. Gabe was the brooding avenger, Mal the protector. And him? Well, he was the scary motherfucker. He didn’t inspire warm tingly feelings unless his cock was involved.
Yet—damn it!—he found himself wanting, needing to, park, stalk after her, and hold her until the joy that had filled her expression in the doctor’s office returned.
But hell, if he surrendered to that longing, he might as well tie the sling around his balls himself. Because the boys would definitely need some extra TLC once she…left. She didn’t come to you for you, dimwit. She came to you for protection and help. Keep that front and center, and we can avoid the castration falling for her “Little Girl Lost” routine will bring. He’d been here before. Been a sucker for the sweet rich girl—the sweet, pregnant rich girl.
His inner Rafe could never be accused of sensitivity, but the caustic reminder was true. Focus. He had to remain focused. Catch the crazy-ass stalker with a thing for dolls and bombs and send Greer on her way.
And maybe then he could stop comparing every damn female who crossed his path to the pampered debutante.
Yeah. Not likely.
What was it about her, though? She was pretty—okay, freaking gorgeous. But he’d dated gorgeous women before. Had fucked more. He punted aside the slick grime that suspiciously resembled shame as it tried to creep over his conscious. So what if he’d had sex and plenty of it? He’d enjoyed himself, and the women damn sure had. And none of them had turned up pregnant trying to pin paternity on him.
Shit. He wanted to hate her; he wanted to resent the hell out of her for dragging him back to a place when his heart had been pried out of his chest with a rusty crowbar. He wanted to yell at her to get out and not come back.
But most of all…he wanted the baby to be his.
Wanted to watch her swell with his son or daughter. Wanted to gaze down into the face of a child with a perfect mixture of his and Greer’s features. Wanted to be loved.
And he loathed himself for it. Detested himself for panting after her. Greer, who was so similar to Yolanda it was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both wealthy. Both upper-crust society. Both beautiful. Both pregnant. Both claiming he’d done the deed. Both ready, he fucking knew with every fiber of his being, to walk away from him after they made him love them and the babies.
And damned if he wasn’t ready to fall for it again.
Apparently he’d flunked Have Your Nuts Handed to You By a Beautiful Liar 101 and was enrolling for the second time.
Only where Yolanda had been cold and calculating, Greer was soft, vulnerable…
He grunted, cutting off the dangerous path that line of thought was headed down as he drove into the parking lot behind a South Boston shipping and receiving company. He pulled up in one of the farthest spaces from the building, parked next to a black Infiniti SUV, then shut off the engine. Chay stepped out of the vehicle, and they met at the rear of Rafe’s truck.
“Everything go okay at the doctor’s appointment?” Chay asked as they clasped hands and exchanged pounds on the back in the requisite man hug. As his friend released him
, his sharp hazel gaze studied Rafe’s face. Lying or ducking his head to avoid that perceptive stare would be a waste of time, so he shrugged, slipped his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
“Greer’s healthy. The doc prescribed something for the morning sickness.” He paused, swallowed past his suddenly constricted throat. “Heard the baby’s heartbeat.”
“Hmm,” Chay rumbled, nodding slowly. “You all right?”
Rafe rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck. “No,” he admitted. “Not really. I—” He exhaled a hard breath. “I’m scared as shit.”
Again, Chay nodded, not requiring further explanation of why and of what. He, Gabe, and Mal had been there when Raphael had found out the depths of Yolanda’s betrayal. They’d remained camped out in his living room like silent, strong sentinels. The loss had been as if someone had died—and in a sense it had been a death. In every way but the burial, he’d lost a child. And they had grieved with him.
“Understandable. Have you told Greer about Yolanda and what happened?”
Rafe stared at Chay as if he’d sprouted a second head that resembled Tom Jones and started singing show tunes. Aka, horrified. “Hell, no. And have her think I’m a serial impregnator? Or hurt her feelings by putting her in the same category as that lying bitch?”
“So haven’t you already mentally placed her right next to Yolanda?”
“No.” Rafe’s objection was adamant and immediate. A core of honor and strength existed in Greer that his former girlfriend hadn’t possessed. When Greer had been faced with being labeled a murder suspect, abandoned by her parents, terrorized by an unknown stalker, and pregnant, she’d hunkered down, refused to hide, and mapped out a course for her future. In the same situation, Yolanda would’ve folded. No, they weren’t cut from the same bolt of cloth; Greer was a tough, durable suede. Yolanda was flimsy, sheer silk. No substance. “They’re not the same.”
“I call bullshit.”
Rafe narrowed his gaze on Chay, who met his glare with a calm lift of his shoulder.
“You’re not protecting her feelings. You’re protecting your own. You don’t want her to think you’re gullible. Most of all, you don’t want to start believing the baby is yours, because unlike ‘that lying bitch’”—he quoted Rafe’s words with a twist of his lips—“you won’t be able to walk away from Greer as easily.”
“Now that’s bullshit,” Rafe drawled, though his heart thudded in his chest like iron striking an anvil.
“Is it?” Chay arched an eyebrow. “Remind me ’cause I’m a little fuzzy on the details. When was the last time you brought a woman to your house, much less moved her in?” Never.
The asshole.
Chay smirked at Rafe’s stubborn silence. “Exactly. Look,” he said quietly. “I don’t know Greer well. But the woman who didn’t crack when a bomb showed up on your front step as a gift is strong and made of sterner stuff than that piece of fluff you believed yourself in love with. Greer isn’t Yolanda,” he murmured. “And it isn’t fair that you hold her hostage to someone else’s sins.”
Hell. That was the problem with having friends who knew your ins and outs. It was impossible to tell them to mind their own business, impossible to lie to them. And when they performed surgery on your heart with a logic-sharp scalpel, you couldn’t get up off the gurney and tell ’em to fuck off. Well, yeah, you could. But your insides were still there, exposed and impossible to hide from.
Before he could reply with—what, he had no clue—a grim smile curved Chay’s mouth.
“There’s our boy now.”
Rafe turned, and his own nasty grin formed.
Justin Durrin—twenty, blond hair, brown eyes, six feet tall, 160 pounds, resident of Roxbury, and an organ donor—loped across the loading bay area and entered the parking lot. The identification of the male who’d dropped off the white box had been the purpose behind Chay’s late-night call the evening before. While Rafe had been kissing and touching Greer in her bed, Chay had been at the office, waiting for the drivers’ license tracking program to complete its search.
Why his friend had been working so late was another story.
Justin reminded Rafe of a rat—nervous, twitching, his head moving from side to side as he scurried across the lot, as if constantly scanning for a threat.
Smart guy.
“Twenty dollars says he’s going to score a hit,” Chay murmured.
Rafe snorted. “What do I look like? Look at his hands.” The long, skeletal digits tightened and loosened, tightened and loosened. “He ain’t jonesin’ for a Whopper, that’s for sure.” Justin neared a large white van—the same van that had been on the security video. A cold, slow-spreading rage slid through Rafe’s veins. “Let’s get him.”
On silent feet, they stole across two rows, coming up behind the van just as the engine coughed to life. Rafe approached the driver’s side door while Chay rounded the rear of the vehicle to cover the passenger side. Rafe tapped the grimy window.
Justin’s head whipped to the side, and his startled squeal penetrated the glass.
“Justin Durrin.” Rafe smiled, but from the fearful widening of the kid’s eyes, the gesture must’ve come across more mean than amicable. “We need to talk to you.”
Justin’s muffled “we” came moments before his head jerked to the side, and he stiffened. Probably catching sight of Chay on the other side of the van. Ah, backup was a beautiful thing.
Rafe dropped all pretense of nice ’n’ friendly and glared at the punk. “Get out,” he snapped. Justin’s eyes jumped from Rafe to the steering wheel as if contemplating taking off. Rafe tapped on the window again, gaining Justin’s attention. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t try it.”
For several moments, the kid remained in the truck, probably weighing his options. Run. Please. Gives me an excuse to beat the snot out of you when we catch you.
Maybe Justin detected the gleeful hope in Rafe’s renewed smile, because he shut off the engine. After a couple of fumbling attempts, he opened the car door and spilled out of the van.
In seconds, Chay stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Rafe, blocking in Justin: a wall of muscle and mean in front of him and the vehicle behind him.
“Uh, what can I do for you guys?” Justin stuttered, scratching his chin with a dirty fingernail.
“We just want information, Justin,” Chay assured him in a moderate tone.
“Information?” he squeaked
“Yeah, information.” Rafe edged closer, invading the kid’s personal space and buying himself a noseful of eau de funk. “Yesterday you delivered a package to a house in Chestnut Hill. You remember that?”
Justin gulped, started to jerk his greasy blond head side-to-side. But Rafe had caught the guilt flash in the dull brown eyes. “Oh, yeah, Justin,” he drawled. “You remember.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied, shrinking away until his back hit the side panel of the van with a muted thump.
“See, Justin, we can do this the hard way or the easy way…”
“Wow, really, Chay?” Rafe tsked in mock disappointment. “That is so cliché. I expected better out of you.”
Chay shrugged. “It seemed appropriate.”
“And see, I was going to suggest we just beat the shit out of him until the pain in his kidneys forces the truth out of him.”
“Well, damn.” Chay winced. “That has no class. But whatever. I’m game.”
Stark terror stamped Justin’s features. His mouth hung open, and all the color had leached from his already pasty face. His eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head.
“I don’t know nothing, man!” he wailed.
“You’re lying,” Rafe growled, dropping the teasing and allowing the rage boiling near the I’m-About-to-Go-Postal point to show. “I have your skinny ass on tape dropping off that white box beneath my mailbox. Tell me, Justin,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. “What kind of POS gets off on building bombs and terrorizing an innocent woman? You get of
f on that, kid? Every time you leave a letter or fucked-up doll you go beat your meat in this dirty-ass van? Huh, Justin?”
Rafe kept repeating the younger man’s name, since every time he said it, the kid’s fear seemed to jack higher and higher. Good. He needed to be good and scared. An image of Greer’s stricken face flickered across his mental eye. A low, threatening rumble vibrated in his chest. This fiendin’ junkie had been threatening her for months either for shits ’n’ giggles or because he had a screw rattling around his stringy head. No matter his reason, Rafe itched to pound on the little creep. To make him hurt for every hurt he’d inflicted. The kid better thank God, Buddha, or fucking Big Bird that Chay was here. Because if not… His fists tightened at his sides. Yeah, he’d better be grateful.
“I’d spill in the next two seconds, or I’m walking away,” Chay warned Justin.
“All right! All right! I dropped off a box in Chestnut Hill,” he confessed on a shrill note, his palms flying up in the traditional “hold up” gesture. “But I don’t know jack shit about a bomb. Or letters. He gave me half a gram of smack to deliver a package. That’s it. I swear!”
Chay crossed his arms. “That smells like some more crap you’re unloading. I don’t know many dealers who’d trust a junkie to keep his word. You in the habit of playing delivery boy, Justin?”
Justin whimpered. “I needed to score, man. Bad. He gave me half before I left, and the other half when I came back. He could’ve asked me to deliver a fucking body, and I wouldn’t’ve asked any questions.”
“Who’s this ‘he?’” Rafe snapped.
“Huge dude. Big-ass tiger tattoo on his neck. Name’s Adam Morgan. They call him Tag. That’s all I know.”