If he weren’t careful, he’d look up and realize he’d fallen in love with that woman.
Or maybe he’d look up and realize he’d always been in love with that woman.
“She’s a hell of a woman,” Vincent continued, his expression softening at some distant memory. “She reminds me of your mother.”
The ache in Justus’s chest worsened until he could barely breathe, much less speak.
“If I could get my hands on a woman like that again,” Vincent said pointedly, “I wouldn’t let her go.”
“Oh, I have no intentions of letting her go,” Justus said.
17
Three weeks later
Angela, dressed in a tailored black wool dress, hurried around the corner and down the hall to Maya’s room, pausing only to slip her remaining pump on her foot and glance at her watch: seven fifteen. They’d never make it if they didn’t leave soon. She had a pretrial conference in federal court for the Golden Valley case at eight, and she had to drop Maya at preschool before that. They’d eaten breakfast already, so they’d be out the door in no time—
Oh, dear God, no.
Angela stumbled to a halt outside Maya’s door, aghast.
So many things were wrong with this picture she hardly knew where to look.
Maya sat on the floor playing with her Barbies, dressed not in the lovely pink velour warmup suit Angela had laid out for her, but in her red-and-green plaid Christmas sweater and pink-striped jeans.
She looked like a clown in training.
Her socks were not on. Her shoes were not on. Her toys were not picked up.
She’d done none of the things Angela asked her to do fifteen minutes ago.
The one thing Maya had decided to do was to undo her waist-length hair, which Angela had painstakingly braided last night. The wavy mass hung wild and free like a lion’s mane gone haywire.
Oh, but it got worse.
The worst of it was that Maya, maybe bored with styling only her dolls’ hair, had decided to do her own—starting with a haircut. A telltale clump of gleaming black hair lay on the flower rug, as if someone had divested a panther of its tail. The corresponding bare patch on Maya’s head was, naturally, right above her right eyebrow.
Where the whole world could—and would—see it.
The instrument of this destruction, Angela’s orange-handled office scissors, lay off to one side. Huge globs of pink conditioning cream dotted Maya’s hair, which explained the cloying scent of coconuts saturating the room. If Angela started washing Maya’s hair this very second, she was sure it would take a week to get the stuff completely out.
Angela cried out in horror. “What did you do?”
Maya smiled proudly. “I cut my hair. Like you did.”
Angela stifled a curse. What had possessed her to leave the bathroom door open the other day when she’d trimmed her bangs? She hurried in and tried to scoop some of the product out of Maya’s hair without getting it on her wool dress.
“Maya,” she muttered, “why’d you have to pick today to do your own hair?”
Maya scrunched up her face and resumed brushing the stupid doll’s hair.
“Now is not the time for that,” Angela snapped, snatching the Barbie away and tossing it in the bin. “I asked you to put on the outfit I chose for you and put your toys away, didn’t I?”
“I’m playing with that!” Maya cried.
“Playtime is over. I want you to march over to the bed, right now, and put on the outfit I picked out for you so I can do your hair.”
“I want to wear this!”
“I don’t have time for this!” Angela checked her watch again and saw they’d already lost five minutes. She reached for Maya’s shirt and tried to jerk it off over her head. “Take this off!”
Maya locked her arms by her sides. “Nooo,” she wailed. “Nooo-ooo!”
Angela kept trying and wondered what the hell she should do now. Things had never gotten this bad during any of their other power struggles.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.
Angela paused. Hang on. Was that the front door?
Great. Now, on top of everything else, the neighbors were pissed off.
All but choking on her impatience, she turned Maya loose and hurried to the door, where she saw an attractive twenty-something blonde on the other side of the peephole.
Angela snatched the door open before the woman could pound on the door again. “Can I help you?” she snapped, uncomfortably aware of the screeching racket Maya continued to make down the hall and how it must sound to this stranger. With her luck, the woman would whip out her phone and call 241-KIDS on her.
The woman frowned. “Angela Dennis?”
“Yes...” Angela said suspiciously. “And you are...?”
The woman’s lips thinned. “Olivia Warren. I’m here for the home study.”
Angela blinked and tried to process this unwelcome nugget of information.
This...this...this child, who seemed barely out of diapers herself, was here to inspect Angela’s home to see if she was fit to raise Maya? Right now?
“Ms. Warren.” Angela raised her voice in the vain hopes of drowning out Maya, who had lapsed into loud, though fake, sobs. “Obviously I’m very anxious to meet with you, but this really isn’t a very good—”
Ms. Warren shouldered her way inside, leaving Angela no choice but to shut the door and follow her.
“You see,” Angela babbled, “I’ve got court soon and I—”
Ms. Warren did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, surveying the apartment like a U.N. weapons inspector in Baghdad. Seeing the place through this stranger’s eyes made Angela’s heart sink even further.
Maya’s little toys—Barbies and accessories, Lego, miscellaneous picture books, coloring books and markers—lay strewn about Angela’s once pristine apartment as if someone had detonated a toy store. A huge stack of old newspapers and law journals Angela hadn’t had time to read lay over in one corner. Dirty breakfast dishes sat on the counter, plainly visible.
A snarky little voice reminded Angela how she’d told Justus that Carolyn never knew how to keep a house clean.
Oh, the bitter irony.
Ms. Warren raised her eyebrows. “You knew we’d make an unannounced visit...?”
“Yes, but I—”
“Just ignore me,” Ms. Warren said. “Where’s Maya?”
All Angela could do was pray for the best as she trudged down the hall to Maya’s bedroom with Ms. Warren trailing behind.
Maya’s wailing had stopped, which might or might not be an ominous sign.
If Angela was lucky, Maya had calmed down and resumed playing with her dolls. If not, the sky was pretty much the limit in terms of mischief. In the last couple of weeks, Maya had sketched her masterpiece in green Magic Marker on her freshly painted bedroom wall, forcing Angela to repaint the entire room. Maya had also, on separate occasions, made a potion consisting entirely of Angela’s expensive face creams, perfumes, and lotions, and pulled all of her neatly folded clothes out of the dresser, then shoved them under the bed so Angela wouldn’t see what she’d done.
Holding her breath, Angela peeked in the room and saw, to her profound relief, Maya sitting on the floor pulling on—oh, for crying out loud!—orange socks.
“Maya,” she called sweetly, “this is Ms. Warren. She’s come to talk to us and see your room.”
Ms. Warren went in, stooped down to Maya’s level, and held out her hand. “Hello, Maya,” she said, smiling with obvious delight. Maya smiled shyly back and shook the woman’s hand. “What a colorful outfit you’re wearing! Who picked it out?”
Maya’s chest puffed out like a marching penguin’s. “I did!”
“And who cut your hair?”
Maya’s smile wavered. She shot a cautious glance at Angela. “I did.”
“I see,” Ms. Warren said gravely.
Although the woman hadn’t opened her briefcase or taken any notes thus far, Angela imagined her making mental sl
ashes through the portions of Angela’s file that dealt with her supervisory capabilities.
“Don’t mind me,” Ms. Warren said when she scooped Maya’s books off the rocking chair, put them on the unmade bed, and sat down. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
Angela managed a sickly smile. She found the basket with Maya’s hair accessories, pulled out the heavy plastic comb with three-inch tines—the only comb she’d found capable of piercing Maya’s mane—and motioned to Maya.
“Come on, sweetie. We need to go. We’re going to be late.”
Maya obligingly knelt in front of Angela, who sat on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath, and raised the comb in the general direction of Maya’s head.
But before comb and hair connected, Maya jerked away and shrieked like a pig being slaughtered with a dull ax. “Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting me!”
She continued screeching while Angela died a thousand embarrassed deaths and Ms. Warren, meanwhile, pulled out her tablet and began to take notes.
Angela would arrive any second for her first training session.
Justus double-checked his third-floor gym to make sure everything was ready.
The exercise mat lay unfolded across the hardwood floor. Weight bench and free weights? Check. He’d pulled out the BOSU, Swiss balls, and jump rope, just in case. Water bottles? Check. Towels? Check. Everything was perf—
Hard footsteps sounded outside the room. Angela banged in like a pissed-off tornado, slammed the door shut again, and dropped her gym bag to the floor with a thump. Then she tightened her ponytail, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the room like a drill sergeant who was about to make his recruits do a shitload of pushups.
“Hi,” she said sourly when she saw him.
He watched her warily, giving her a quick once-over. Yoga pants and a T-shirt topped by a zipped hoodie, bad attitude, and open hostility.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Let’s get started. I have to pick Maya up soon.”
Like he was buying that bullshit.
“Something’s obviously wrong, Angela.”
Her jaw tightened as she squatted to retie her shoe. “Yeah, well, I told you last night I don’t really have time to be trained today.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve already canceled on me three times.” Staring down at the top of her head, he infused his voice with a challenge, probably because the ongoing gamesmanship between them was making him surly. If he had to pretend he didn’t want her for one more day, he’d probably start punching walls and throwing chairs across rooms. “I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me for some reason.”
Her head whipped up and she stared at him with a flashing anger that made him wonder if she wouldn’t spring out of her crouch to tackle him to the floor.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” he asked.
She straightened but took great care not to look at him. “Let’s get started.”
“Fine. You can leave your jacket right here,” he said, pointing to a folding chair.
She balked and clutched the edges of her jacket together as if he’d told her to prepare for the strip search. “Why?”
“I don’t want you to get too hot,” he said silkily.
At that, she did look at him, and they stared each other down in a moment of mutual animosity. He had no idea why she was so pissed, but he was furious with her for tying his guts up in all these emotional knots. He wasn’t an actor. Why did he have to pretend with her?
He wanted her, goddammit. She wanted him. No, he didn’t have all the answers about how something between them could work, but why did she have to make things so complicated?
“I’ll let you know if I get too hot,” she said.
“I look forward to it.”
More glaring until she snapped her fingers. “Let’s go.”
Irritated, he spun away and reached for the Swiss ball. “You warmed up on the treadmill, right? Good. I thought we’d work on some core strength first. We’ll do some lateral rolls.”
Sitting on the big ball, he simultaneously leaned back and slid forward, so the ball was between his shoulder blades. “See?” Tightening his abs and butt, he held his arms straight out to the sides, palms up, and rolled slowly across the ball, so the ball moved from one wrist to the other. “The main thing is to keep your abs and butt tight. Form is important. And you don’t want to go too fast. It’s harder than it looks.”
He’d been staring up at the fluorescent lights, but now he turned to look at her. To his enormous satisfaction, her fixed gaze was leveled at his flexed bare thighs and calves.
His breath caught.
As he watched, her gaze traveled up over his body, lingering briefly on his face-up crotch in black shorts, then slid over his bare arms, which were still out to the sides.
A vivid red flush crept up her neck and across her face.
Justus wanted her and hated her a little bit more in that second.
And she had the nerve to claim she wasn’t too hot?
Bullshit.
If she got any hotter, she’d spontaneously combust, probably taking him out with her.
“Angela?”
She jumped and got her eyes back in her head. “I can do that. No problem.”
“Great.” Standing and trying to ignore the new fullness in his groin, he rolled the ball to her.
She sat cautiously and assumed the starting position.
“Good,” he said.
She held her arms out, palms down.
“Palms up.” He leaned down and grabbed her wrists to flip them over. For one thrilling moment they were face to face, her wide eyes riveted on him, but she immediately jerked back, only to slide off the ball and hit her ass with a thump. The ball rolled away.
She leapt up and tugged the bottom of her jacket down. “I’m okay.”
“I told you it was harder than it looks,” he said, unable to keep the glee from his voice.
Shooting him a death glare, she marched off, got the ball, and marched back. “I can do it,” she insisted. “Just give me a minute. I’ve never used one of these things before.”
She started again, this time keeping her palms up.
“Good,” he said. “Now slowly roll to the right. You’ve got to ease up on the ball a little so it’ll roll. That’s where the ab strength comes in.”
Screwing up her face, she eased to her right, but immediately began to slip.
Without thinking, he bent and caught her hips to stabilize her.
She jerked away again, eyes flashing.
“Don’t touch me,” she barked. “I don’t know how you expect me to do it when you keep touching me.”
Something inside him snapped.
“Don’t touch you? Are you kidding me? I just kept you from falling on your ass!”
“You’re always”—she waved a hand as if she couldn’t quite put his heinous misdeeds to words—“touching me. Knock it off!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he roared.
“I told you I don’t want to be here today! I’m too busy.”
“Yeah? Anything else?”
She hesitated before taking a deep breath. “They did my home study this morning. At seven fifteen, when I was already late for court and had just discovered that Maya hacked off a big hunk of her hair, some woman showed up and demanded to meet Maya and see my apartment, which, for the first time in my life, was a disaster.”
His heart sank. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” She swiped her nose with the back of her hand. “So I was late for court on the biggest case of my career, and when I got back to the office, my boss reminded me if I intend to make partner in January, I better get my shit together.”
“Angela,” he began, reaching for her without thinking.
“Don’t,” she cried, backing away. “Don’t...touch...me!”
He cursed and turned his back on her, but that only seemed to set her off.
“And don�
�t pretend you care if I’m upset!” she yelled. “Don’t pretend this isn’t exactly what you’ve been praying for! Now Maya will be yours, free and clear! You’ll have everything you want!”
Frustration got the best of him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned down to stare directly into her shocked face.
“I can assure you,” he said, his raspy voice sounding dangerous, even to his own ears, “that I don’t have everything I want.”
She jerked away or he let her go. He wasn’t sure which.
Then she collapsed in the folding chair.
“I’m so tired,” she said, burying her head in her hands. “I don’t recognize anything about my life anymore.”
Just like that his anger disappeared, freeing him to empathize with her.
To lose a little bit more of his heart to her.
“Angela.”
Squatting between her legs, he pulled her into his arms. To his astonishment, she forgot her anger, came eagerly, and locked her arms around his neck. He crooned and soaked her in, threading his fingers through her thick hair, feeling her breath against his neck and reveling in the strong warmth of her back and shoulders.
“The only thing you need to recognize,” he said, “is that you and Maya and I are a family now. And I will always be here for you—it doesn’t matter who gets Maya and it doesn’t matter whether you make partner or not. You can always count on me. Don’t you know how I—”
He stopped, too choked up to continue.
“I—I’m sorry.” Her voice was throaty when she pulled back. Her bright eyes dipped to his mouth before flicking back up to his eyes. “I didn’t mean to take my awful day out on you.”
“It’s okay.”
She nodded and dropped her hands from his neck. Knowing he was teetering on the brink of a catastrophic loss of control, he quickly stood and turned away before she noticed his growing arousal. He snatched his oversized fleece pullover off the table and quickly slid it on.
“I guess we’re done for today?”
“Yeah. If you don’t mind.”
He shrugged.
She turned away on the pretext of picking up her bag. “What are we doing about Christmas? We need to do the shopping for Maya. And your father called to say he’s having dinner at his house.”
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 21