by Abby Niles
And she had to admit that she was envious of it, wished that she could’ve been that lucky.
***
Jaxon adjusted his hand around Noah’s as he followed Madison and her daughter into the pizza parlor. He’d assumed Faith was going to want one of those ready-now or chain restaurant pizzas. He’d been wrong. He’d been surprised when he’d followed Madison’s Oldsmobile into Mario’s parking lot.
He knew this place well. At least once a month, he stopped in for a slice. The restaurant was owned by a family from Italy and, holy shit, they made fantastic pizza—and expensive. At least, from a pizza standpoint.
If Madison couldn’t afford to get the kids ice cream, then this place was definitely outside her budget. Hell, he was a little antsy about the hit this was going to take to the forty-four dollars he had left.
Damn if he hadn’t pissed Madison off by offering her the money for the ice cream too. He’d seen it in her eyes as soon as she’d glanced down at the money. That willful pride. She hadn’t reacted quite so negatively about the pizza. He could only assume it had to be because she was trying to remind him of his budget at the time.
And twice he guessed he’d reminded her that he really didn’t have a budget.
He hadn’t meant any offense in the gesture, but as she stared down at that ten dollar bill he’d realized something monumental about Madison Walker. The woman was full of pride and she didn’t like charity. And he respected that. If he were in her shoes, he’d be the same way.
As they reached the counter, Madison looked down at her kids. “We’re taking it to-go, got it?” Then she pinned him with her gaze, as if daring him to contradict her.
No way. He’d learned his lesson.
He held up his hands. “If that’s what momma wants, that’s what momma gets.”
Amusement twisted her lips. He was glad to see it. Things between him and Madison had been kind of roller coasterish today. He’d made some mistakes. Asking about her ex had been one. The dancing was another.
That one he really needed to let go. Every time he thought about it he saw her grinding her ass on that man’s lap again, and this ugly, dark jealous monster started to claw forward. Why, he didn’t know. He didn’t have any claim on her. Yes, he was attracted to her. Had been from the moment she’d walked into his office for an interview, but, for fuck’s sakes, jealousy was taking it to a whole new level he wasn’t comfortable with.
“Jaxon,” she said, thankfully saving him from his thoughts. “What kind of pizza do you eat?”
She propped her elbow on the counter, funneled her fingers through her hair and studied the menu then started gnawing on the corner of her thumbnail on her other hand. He found the entire thing fascinating and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“It’s pizza. I’ll eat anything.”
She sent him a ‘you’re not helping look’, then went back to the menu and chewing her thumb. It was ordering a pizza, but she made it out like it was some kind of huge undertaking.
She’d glance up for a minute, stare ahead at nothing, her head would bob from left to right for a second like she was thinking, then she’d go back to looking at the menu and gnawing on her thumb. What was she doing? Just pick a pizza and order it.
Then it hit him.
She was calculating. It wasn’t even her money. He was paying, and she was trying to figure out the best deal. It was also why she wanted to get it to-go. No tip, no drinks. Just the pizza. She was doing everything she could to save him money.
The oddest thing happened. His chest tightened with gratitude.
“Faith,” she said. “Pepperoni and mushroom?”
“I don’t like mushroom.”
Madison let out a breath and rubbed her forehead. “You can pick it off.”
Faith’s nose scrunched up. “I don’t want it on my pizza!” the girl said louder this time. “I want my own pizza.”
“Excuse me?” Her mother turned toward her, surprise evident on her face. “Well, that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“We’re getting one large.”
The little girl crossed her arms tight over her chest just like her brother had earlier. Did all kids do that? “I don’t want pizza.”
Madison made a whatever noise that clearly said that she didn’t give two shits if they got pizza or not. “No? You got it. Let’s go home.”
That’s when it happened. The little girl let out the biggest wail he’d ever heard. Jaxon could only stare. He didn’t spend any time around kids. None. Nada. He was a bachelor to the extreme. This was the craziest shit he’d ever seen.
She grabbed Faith and hoisted her up on her hip as if she weighed nothing and looked up at him. All Jaxon saw staring back at him in those blue-gray depths was utter exhaustion.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “She’s tired. We’re going to take a pass on the pizza, but thank you so much for the offer.”
Without another word, she took her son’s hand and tugged him along behind her. He could hear Faith’s muted howls even with them outside the restaurant.
A range of emotions hit him all at once. Embarrassment from being a public spectacle. Shock at the sudden turn of events. And sadness and awe.
For Madison.
In the few short hours he’d hung out with her today, he’d got a huge taste of what her everyday life was like. She always worried. Counted every penny. She was always on. Never got a break. She always had to be strong. Never had anyone to lean on.
And that seemed so fucking unfair for one person to have to handle. Was there anything he could do to lighten her load?
***
Trying to stave off the headache that was threatening, Madison rubbed her temple with two fingers as she closed the kids’ bedroom door and stepped back into the living room. Faith had pitched a fit the entire way home. Which was out of character for her daughter. Not that she was a perfect angel, but resorting back to two-year-old theatrics was something new. Even Noah had piped in with a, “Sissy, chill out,” after about ten minutes of it.
She’d given Jaxon the excuse that Faith was tired. That was a toddler’s excuse. It was barely six in the afternoon. Yeah, Faith got cranky and whiny but that usually happened around seven or eight at night. Something else was going on entirely.
Dropping down onto the couch, she propped her feet onto the scarred wood coffee table and scrubbed her face with her palms. She had both kids chilling out in their room, watching a DVD. She needed a moment of peace before she started dinner, because she was nigh close to having a meltdown of her own. A person could only take so much and she was at her threshold for the week.
Hot prickles stabbed at the back of her eyes.
She squeezed them shut. She needed a break. When was the last time she’d gone on a vacation? Hell, gone to a movie? Out to dinner? Dressed up in something other than exotic dancer clothes?
Too fucking long.
“Sissy stop!”
“Give it to me, Noah!”
Staring at the popcorn ceiling, she took a shaky breath as a tear slid from the corner of one eye into her hairline. She wiped the streak away. Get it together, girl.
She pushed to her feet and walked back into the bedroom to see her two children wrestling over a pillow. Really?
“You two want to go to bed?” she asked, and even to her own ears she heard the defeat in her voice. Not really the front she needed to play in front of the kids, but she didn’t have any more fight in her today.
“No!” they said in unison.
“Then stop. Please.”
They dropped the pillow.
She closed the door, then dragged her ass into the kitchen. As the day had progressed, she had started to look forward to the pizza. Had started to look forward to not cooking for a change. She scowled at the stove. Oh well. At least her so-called famous chicken casserole was one of the quick ones.
As she pulled out a casserole dish, a knock sounded on her door. Frowning, she stared at it not s
ure if she’d actually heard it or not. Racheal was out of town. Another knock followed. She hurried over and peeked through the peep hole.
Jaxon. What was he doing here? After experiencing Faith’s hysterics, she expected him to give her and the kids a wide berth until he got to go back to his place. Not many confirmed bachelors wanted to deal with screaming children and she really couldn’t blame him.
“Hey,” she said as she opened the door. Her gaze instantly dropped to the Mario’s pizza box in his hand and DVD case lying on top of it.
“I said I’d pay for dinner, and I don’t go back on my word.”
Yes, he’d said he’d do that. But she’d let him off the hook. Her child had thrown a fit.
And he’d bought the pizza anyway.
Tears blurred her vision. A hiccupped sob sputtered out of her mouth. Horrified, she slapped her fingers to her lips then she spun around, leaving the front door wide open.
She raced through the living room, into the bathroom and slammed the door as the tears started to flow. She yanked a towel off a rack and stuffed it against her mouth then turned the faucet on high. She wailed like Faith had earlier today into the material. Days of stress, worry, and fear ripped out of her. Normally, she saved these moments for the shower. Damn Jaxon for his sweet gesture. He’d caught her in a weak moment. And she couldn’t have stopped this from happening even if she’d tried.
A light tap sounded on the door. “Madison?”
Her gaze flew to the door. She lowered the towel, swiped at her face with the back of her hand, then turned off the faucet. Swallowing, she took a second before saying, “Be right out,” feeling very thankful that her voice sounded normal and hadn’t quivered with all the emotions she’d just released.
Feeling slightly lighter than she had a few minutes before, she lowered the lid to the toilet and sat down, letting the towel hang between her knees. It’d been awhile since she’d had a good cry, but she hated it’d happened in front of Jaxon Sutherland.
What would he think? Hell, what did he think about what he’d seen all day?
She never cared about what people thought about her. But for some reason Jaxon’s opinion of her stung.
Rising to her feet, she looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink and grimaced at the redness of her eyes. There was no way he wouldn’t be able to tell she’d been crying. She grabbed a wash rag out of the cabinet and wet it with cold water. After washing her face, she reapplied some make-up, trying to cover the splotchiness caused by her emotional moment.
She stood back. Better than before, but not perfect.
It’d have to do.
She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the large area that served as a kitchen, dining room and living room and froze. Jaxon had the kids sitting at the table, plates and drinks in front of them, and was serving them pizza.
For a moment, her eyes burned again as her heart stuttered. She placed a hand over her left breast. She’d been a mother for almost seven years, and a man had never helped take care of her children. It had always been on her.
Jaxon hadn’t been asked. He’d just done it.
Seeing him standing over them, smiling and laughing as he slipped a slice of pizza on Noah’s plate, was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. The fact that it was Jaxon Sutherland, a man that she believed incapable of such a domestic quality, was stunning and a bit humbling.
Maybe they both had something to learn from each other.
He glanced up and their eyes met. In that instant, simmering heat hummed through her, priming her. Low, pulsing, unmistakable. She swallowed.
“Hey,” he simply said. There was a deep huskiness to his voice that made her believe that he hadn’t been unaffected by that moment either.
She was the one who broke eye contact first, reminding herself that this was her boss. She stepped toward the table. “Dinner smells wonderful. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m famished.”
“What does famished mean?” Faith asked.
“It means,” Jaxon said as he pulled out a chair for her at the end of the table, his eyes still on her. “Very, very hungry.”
“Oh. Then I’m famished too.” She took a big bite of her pizza. Madison noticed the pile of mushrooms on the child’s plate. So Jaxon had ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. She’d give him points for that.
Madison reached for a plate, but stopped when Jaxon shook his head. He made her plate for her, then placed it in front of her. “What would you like to drink?”
Not used to being waited on, she blinked at him. “Uh. There’s tea in the fridge, but I can—” She started pushing back her chair.
“You stay there.”
He hurried into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She stared at him. This felt weird. Other than going to a sit down restaurant with a waiter, which wasn’t very often, she was always the last to sit down. Heck, most of the time, she ate standing up because the moment she sat down, she had to get right back up and get something else. She never got waited on. She felt like she should be doing something.
A few seconds later, he placed the iced tea in front of her.
“Thank you.”
He made his plate and then took the seat across the table. The four of them. Eating dinner. Like a family. So weird.
Not that it seemed to bother Jaxon if the relaxed way he was chowing down on his pizza was any indication. If anything, he seemed completely at ease with the fact that he was sitting at a table with a woman he’d all but called a prostitute less than forty-eight hours ago and the two kids he had no idea she had.
Maybe he was.
At this point, she needed to accept that Jaxon Sutherland wasn’t as one dimensional as she’d thought he was.
As dinner progressed, they chatted about this and that, laughing. Jaxon mentioned he rented the new PIXAR movie to watch after they finished eating, which the kids went ape-shit over. Madison couldn’t get over the man sitting in front of her and how different he was from the man she worked for.
As everyone finished their last piece of pizza, Madison folded her arms on the table and leaned forward, signaling it was time for the ritual she’d started with Faith as soon as her daughter had been old enough to comprehend the question. “Faith, what was your favorite part of the day?”
A thoughtful expression came over her little girl’s face before she said, “My favorite part was when we got ice cream.”
“Hmm. I’m sure it was.” Chuckling, Madison turned her attention to her son. “What about you, Noah?”
He tapped a finger on his chin. “I liked holding Jaxon’s hand.”
His innocent and bluntly honest answer twisted her insides. Emotions clogged her throat and she ducked her head in fear that her feeling could be easily read. Noah was jonsing for a man’s influence so badly, and it broke her heart.
“What about you, Madison?” Jaxon asked. “What was your favorite part?”
She kept her gaze downcast. Not able to meet his eyes. She couldn’t voice her favorite part. It was too personal. Too intimate. Gave away too much of her deep desires like Noah’s had. And it included Jaxon too.
Though it could’ve been any man standing there feeding her kids and it still would’ve been her favorite part—or she was telling herself that at least.
“My favorite part was when you showed up with dinner so I didn’t have to make it.”
The admission still included him, but at least it was safer than the truth.
He smiled at that. A real smile. Like it made him happy that he’d been included in their favorite parts of their day. “Well, my favorite part is this moment.”
That caused her head to snap up and meet his eyes, and she was greeted with an intense heat that caused her heart to pick up speed. “T-this moment,” she said. “Why?”
“I can’t remember the last time I stayed in and ate dinner.” He glanced at both the kids and smiled. And again it became very difficult for her to breathe. “And with such great company. Now who
’s ready to watch a movie?”
Both kids jumped up, yelling, and raced into the living room. Jaxon stood and started reaching for the plates. She waved him away. “I’ve got this.”
When he started to protest, she interrupted, “You got dinner. I clean up. Go. Get the movie on before the kids riot. They’ll show you where everything is.”
What she really needed was a few minutes away from him and his potency. She was damn close to jumping straight across this table and attacking his ass—kids in the room be damned.
“Okay,” he said, chuckling.
As he walked past, he trailed his fingers across her forearm. Goosebumps immediately rose on her skin as her lungs momentarily forgot to functions. Jesus. The man was winding her tight. She wasn’t sure if it was because it had been so long since she’d been with a man or if it was because of everything he had done or if she really was that attracted to Jaxon Sutherland.
And she was suddenly terrified to find out which it was.
CHAPTER SIX
Jaxon paced the small apartment, listening for any movement out in the hall. There was a definite stalker vibe to his actions that he wasn’t exactly comfortable with, but the only way he could “bump” into Madison would be to conveniently leave the apartment the same time she did.
Of course, he could knock on her door, but what the hell would he say when she opened it? He’d never felt so far outside his element in his life. So he’d come up with this asinine plan to stage a run in.
Why?
Because he’d tossed and turned all night thinking about the woman and she’d driven him mad all morning. He had to see her—and the kids.
That had not been the outcome he’d expected from his good deed yesterday.
When he’d made the decision to get the pizza and rent a movie, it had been with nothing but good intentions but also with realistic expectations. He was a bachelor, knew nothing about kids or parenting. He wasn’t even sure if he liked kids or wanted any of his own. So, even though he was trying to do the right thing, a part of him believed, by the end of the night he’d be ready to get the hell out of there and go home.