Van: Vested Interest #5

by Melanie Moreland

  “Nice work. Your crew does nice work.”

  “Yep. It meets my standards or they’re gone.” Nolan eyed Liv. “My standards are high. In every aspect of my life. I only accept the best.”

  She didn’t react. She turned and walked away. I wanted to laugh and tell him she was the best and he was a narcissistic asshole, but I refrained.

  We walked toward the fence. The sound of my name being called made my stomach drop when I saw who was shouting it.

  Elly and Mouse were by the fence, waving frantically.

  Beside me, Liv gasped quietly. I stepped forward, hoping to cut them off, but Mouse broke free, rushing toward me. I met her halfway, scooping her up and carrying her back toward Elly, hoping neither Nolan nor Elly noticed the other person and I could get them out of there.

  But Mouse only laughed and stretched out her arms. “Mommy! Come with me and Mr. Van! Grammie is gonna make us all supper!”

  Nolan stiffened and turned to Liv. She moved past him, hurrying toward us. Elly’s expression was shocked, and she froze, staring at Nolan. At the fence, I stood Mouse beside her.

  “Why did you take me away, Mr. Van?”

  I swallowed down the truth. “You can’t be in here without a hard hat, Mouse.”

  Liv arrived, her face pale.

  “Mom.”

  Panicked, Elly looked at her, then Nolan, who was heading our way. “We wanted to surprise you. Take both of you to dinner. I wanted to see these buildings you’ve been talking about.” She blinked. “I didn’t know…”

  “It’s okay, Elly,” I urged. “We’ll explain. Why don’t you take Mouse, and we’ll meet you?”

  Elly’s gaze swung to mine, and she must have seen my panic. She reached for Mouse’s hand. “Good idea.”

  But it was too late. Nolan arrived, his voice cold. “Hello, Eleanor.”

  Mouse, the ever-friendly, sweet little girl she was, looked up, already smiling and ready to meet a new friend.

  “Hi!”

  He glanced down, his face contorting. I knew what he saw. A miniature version of her mother, the only difference the eyes she inherited from her father—him—gazing upward.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m Sammy. But Mr. Van calls me Mouse.” With those words, she wrapped an arm around my leg. “He made me the best bookcase in the whole world, and we have tea parties together!”

  Nolan looked at me, then Liv, realization dawning.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Sammy, hush. Go with Grammie.” Liv said, her voice shaking.

  Nolan bent one leg, kneeling close to Sammy. “No, it’s fine, Olivia. Tell me, Mouse, what else does Mr. Van do for you?”

  I knew in that instant we were fucked.

  Van

  Elly’s teacup hit the saucer with a clatter. Liv reached over, patting her hand. “Mom, please calm down.”

  “I didn’t know.” Elly stared at Liv. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Liv sighed, running a weary hand over her face.

  “I planned on telling you tonight, Mom. I didn’t want to upset you while you were visiting Aunt Jane.” Liv’s shoulders dropped. “Bad decision, I guess.”

  Elly sighed, resting her head on her hand. “What have I done?”

  I leaned forward. “Stop this—both of you. As far as we know, nothing is going to happen. He saw Sammy. Talked to her for a few minutes and walked away. That’s it. It’s not as if he didn’t know about her.”

  Even as I spoke the words, I knew I was lying.

  Liv shook her head. “He’s going to cause trouble. Now that he’s seen her, he’s going to do something. Even if it’s verbal. It’s the way he works.”

  I glanced down the hall to make sure Mouse was still in her room. All three of us had done our best to act normally. I had ordered pizza, knowing Elly wouldn’t feel like cooking, and the treat would distract Mouse from the lack of conversation. She was happily playing in her room, waiting for dinner to arrive.

  “He signed his parental rights away,” I insisted. “He can’t do anything aside from asking some questions which you don’t have to answer. He has no claim on her.”

  “I know he has no interest in being a father, but he can make my life miserable for the next while.” She met my eyes. “Yours too. He saw how Sammy was with you, Van. He knows we’re more than coworkers.”

  I covered her hand with mine. “I know. I don’t care, though.”

  She looked over my shoulder. “He’s going to start with his remarks. He doesn’t want us, but he doesn’t want me to be happy either. He’ll belittle me every chance he gets, the same as when we were together. Remarks about my clothes, hair, weight. He’ll question every decision. He’ll question your decisions. Say things about when we were a couple. Tell you all the things he found wrong with me.” She snorted. “Tell you how I didn’t meet his high standards.”

  I tilted my head at her words with a frown. “He can go fuck himself.” I looked at Elly with a shrug. “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem. I agree,” she said.

  I hunched closer. “Liv, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what he says or thinks. His thoughts mean nothing to me at all. I hate the fact that what he says might hurt you. But if you think they’ll sway me in any fashion, you’re wrong.”

  She nodded, not meeting my eyes. I looked at Elly and she stood.

  “I’m going to check on Sammy.”

  “Hey,” I called softly when Elly left the room.

  Liv looked up, and I tugged on her hand, bringing her onto my lap. “Nothing,” I repeated, “Nothing he says matters.”

  “He’s awful,” she whispered. “I don’t want him near Sammy.”

  “I don’t want him near either of you.”

  “Not much choice right now.”

  “We can ask Bentley to pull you from the project.”

  “Then he still wins. I love this project, and I want to see it through. If I let him chase me away, he still wins.”

  “Then you aren’t alone with him. We won’t give him the chance to say or do anything.”

  She pushed off my knee and paced, rubbing her temples.

  “In theory, that’s great. But it won’t work, Van. There are times I will be alone with him. In fact, I have to be. You can’t shadow me all day and be effective in your role. And I can’t let him know how much he affects me.” She pushed off me and paced the kitchen. “He has never been physical. There are only words. I’m not the same young, insecure girl I was six years ago. I can ignore him now because he means nothing. I’ll deal with it, and you have to let me.” She leaned against the counter. “And you have to deal with it too. We both have to see this through. It’s six weeks until his part of this project is done, right?”

  I hated she was right about this, but I knew she was. If I shadowed her, it gave that asshole more ammunition. We both had to ignore it.

  “Yes.”

  “Then for six weeks, we handle it. We don’t react. We don’t engage unless it is work-related.” She lifted one shoulder. “He’s the typical bully on the playground. The one who knows your knee is sore, so that’s where he’ll hit you. He’ll look for the weak spot, and he’ll keep pushing at it until he gets a reaction. Don’t give it to him.”

  I nodded grimly. Not punching him in the face was going to be an exercise in restraint for me.

  She approached me, standing between my legs and laying her hand on my chest. “His opinion or thoughts mean nothing anymore, Van,” she repeated. “You do. Your positive words and support mean everything. He can’t change that.”

  I lifted her hand and kissed the palm. “I’m here, Liv. There is nowhere else I want to be and no one else I want to be with. You amaze me, and I adore you.”

  “I’ve never been adored before.”

  “It’s only the tip of the iceberg of how I really feel,” I confessed. I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I didn’t want it to be because of this shit situation. I wanted to tell her when the time was right and we could
explore it. When we were both ready.

  Her eyes glowed. “I adore you right back,” she whispered. “I’m right there with you.”

  I held her face and kissed her. “Good.”

  The buzzer sounded, and I stood to go get the pizza. “Six weeks. We can do this.”

  She sighed. “Six weeks.”

  It took him three days to get under my skin. He was, as Liv described him, insidious. His remarks were snide and nasty, yet never said directly to Liv or me, instead muttered observations or offhand sentences. I tried to hold back, but at times, I couldn’t. He hated my responses, but he’d hate my fist in his face even worse.

  “Jeez—does she own anything feminine?” he muttered eyeing Liv as she crossed the pavement, her steel-toed boots hitting the ground in easy strides.

  “She doesn’t need it. She’s sexy enough wearing my shirt.” I smirked.

  Nolan stomped away.

  “Olivia is late again.” He glanced at John. “It happens a lot. I wouldn’t allow it.”

  Jordan saved me from responding.

  “Liv is with another client. When she is done with them, she’ll arrive and give you the same undivided attention she gives them. It’s one of the things BAM admires most about her. If we don’t have an issue with it, neither should you. Let’s carry on.”

  Nolan scowled and shut up. Then I noticed his remarks began to change in their direction.

  “Who is looking after your daughter while you’re working late—again?” he asked one night at a meeting.

  “My mother has her,” Liv replied shortly.

  “Hmmm,” he muttered. “That must be difficult for her. Never having a set schedule. Kids need that.”

  Liv’s eyes narrowed. “Since when did you become an expert on what kids need?”

  He lifted one shoulder and dropped it.

  Until the next time.

  Jordan, Liv, and I were talking about another project we had on the go, discussing time frames and laughing about the fact that Bentley never stopped.

  Nolan leaned against my doorframe.

  “Do you have to work so much because of your student loans, Olivia? Did you ever pay those off, or are you still ignoring them?”

  She turned, her eyes flashing. “I never ignored them, Nolan.” She sneered his name. “I had only finished school when we met, then I had other priorities. Unlike some people, I don’t turn my back on my responsibilities.” She paused. “And I don’t believe it’s any of your concern.”

  “That depends.”

  “On?” she demanded.

  Again, he lifted his shoulder and shrugged. Liv turned back and look at Jordan.

  “Sorry. Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?”

  I curled my hands around the arms of my chair in order not to punch Nolan. It took everything in me to stay quiet and ignore the way he baited her.

  Then there was the day Elly fell ill with another headache. Liv was in an important meeting with a supplier, and the woman at the day care wasn’t available to stay late, so I offered to go and get Sammy.

  “But you have a meeting at five. They’re bringing the wood samples for you to compare. I can reschedule.”

  I sighed. “No. You need to be at your meeting. Nolan is usually gone by four. I’ll go get her, and she’ll be fine. She can be my assistant for an hour—she’ll get a kick out of walking through the building with me and measuring things. I’ll buy her a hard hat of her own—she’ll love it. My meeting will only take an hour—maybe less.”

  “What if he sees her?”

  “So he sees her. He knows about us, Liv. We said we weren’t going to let him dictate our actions, and we won’t. I don’t care if he sees me with her. I won’t let him near her.”

  We went back and forth until she grudgingly agreed.

  Nolan stayed later than usual and saw me lifting Sammy from the back seat of my truck. I avoided the trailer, slid the hardhat on her head, lifted her onto my back for a “piggy ride,” and hurried to the building I was getting ready to start on. His crew had moved onto the next one, so it was empty and safe for Mouse to be in with me.

  As we waited for the samples to arrive, I kept her busy. She held the tape measure for me as I worked. Told me how pretty the room would look in pink. Asked a million and one questions about the building, what I did, and told me how she was gonna draw and build stuff when she got big too.

  I ruffled her hair.

  “I bet you will, Mouse. You’ll be great.”

  “I’m hungry, Mr. Van.”

  I pulled a KitKat from my pocket. I had a sandwich for her in my trailer, but I didn’t want to take her there. This would suffice until I was done. I was certain Nolan would be gone by that time.

  I was wrong.

  He appeared in the doorway, staring at us. Mouse looked up and grinned, her innocent belief that everyone Mommy knew was a friend once again shining through.

  “Hi!”

  “Hi. What have you got there?”

  “Mr. Van gave me a KitKat for a snack. It’s a secret,” she giggled, holding a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell Mommy.”

  “Anything else he does you aren’t supposed to tell Mommy?” he asked, his words so insulting, I was on my feet and heading his way before I could think. I pushed him into the hall and pulled the door closed behind me, ready to punch him.

  It was only his self-satisfied expression that uncurled my fist.

  I glowered at him, my voice cold and low so Mouse couldn’t hear me.

  “Shut your fucking mouth.”

  “Are you going to make me?” he sneered.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Not my fault you took what I said the wrong way.”

  “I took it the exact way you meant it. You’re a fucking bastard.”

  He crossed his arms. “Is that a fact?”

  I stepped forward menacingly. “You say shit like that again, Nolan, I swear, I will take you out.”

  He smirked. “I was wondering, Van. Why the hell would you be so interested in another man’s daughter?”

  “She is Liv’s daughter.” I stressed her name. “No one else’s.”

  One eyebrow rose.

  “Immaculate conception? Is that what Olivia told you?”

  “Sperm doesn’t make you a father.”

  “Neither does fucking the mother after the fact.”

  “Shut. Your. Face,” I growled, my hands once again curling into fists.

  He stepped closer, his voice taunting. “Go ahead. I think you’d like to take a swing at me. God knows I want to wipe that holier-than-thou look off your face.”

  I leaned into him, our faces inches apart. Hatred poured from my words as I snarled at him. “Then let’s go outside. I’ll let you take the first swing. But trust me, it’ll be the only one you get.”

  We were locked in a staring contest when Simon came up the steps and cleared his throat, breaking our standoff.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  I stepped back, common sense dissipating my anger.

  “No. I was making sure Nolan here understood something.”

  “And I was saying out loud what I think,” he replied.

  “Think whatever the fuck you want to. Keep it to yourself. Stay the hell away from me, Liv, and Sammy,” I uttered in a low voice.

  He stormed past me, purposely pushing his shoulder against mine. I refused to let him see the twinge of pain it caused me.

  I turned and watched him walk away.

  I had a feeling the ugly situation was about to get worse.

  Liv

  I steeled myself as I entered the trailer. I hated meeting with Nolan, and I especially hated these last-minute meetings he requested, but it was part of my job. I admit it was easier when Van or Jordan were there, but he still found ways to get his cutting remarks in and I hated the smug look he got when the guys would appear. He knew why, and it gave him more pleasure to insult me in front of them. I did my best
to ignore him, and I tried not to let it upset me. That seemed to anger Nolan further and his words became even sharper, desperately trying to find a weak spot on me he could hit. I, in turn, refused to let him find it.

  Nolan was at his desk, and as usual, everything was in order. Papers piled neatly, folders stacked, pens gathered together in a cup holder, and the surface of the desk clean. His hard hat and boots were lined up precisely by the wall. A cup of coffee sat to his right, a paper coaster protecting the desk. I tried not to roll my eyes at his useless touch—it was so Nolan.

  He always insisted on order both at home and in the office. My “messiness” had been a source of irritation for him many times. He hated my “scribbles,” as he called them, on the table. The way my hands were often dotted with markers, or the fact that I stuck pencils in my hair. How he kept his desk so dust-free and tidy in a construction site was beyond me, but I pitied anyone who messed up his area. I glanced toward the other office Van used. It, too, was piled with papers, but they weren’t in order. Blueprints were pinned haphazardly to the wall in order of importance. Pencils lay in various spots, and half-filled cups sat in others. A spare hard hat sat on the edge of the desk. The two variances said so much about the two men. One real and involved, living and breathing his work—the other nice to look at, without much happening otherwise.

  I pulled back the visitor chair in front of Nolan’s desk as far as I could without being obvious and sat down, pulling out my tablet for notes. I drew in a long breath to calm myself and met his frosty gaze.

  “Nolan.”

  He inclined his head. “Olivia.”

  “You wanted to meet? Something about questions you had?”

  He pursed his lips. “More about some thoughts I’ve been having.”

  “All right,” I said, getting my stylus ready. “What kind of thoughts?”

  He lifted his coffee cup to his lips and took a sip, carefully setting it back down on the desk. “It’s more a personal thing.”

  Every nerve in my body tensed. The blank smile on my face froze.

  “Personal?” I repeated.