by Addison Fox
As Nova snuggled deeper into Nikolas’s jacket, she recognized one more thing. That look confirmed something else. Marlowe Colton really would be an awesome aunt.
And an even more awesome person to have in her corner.
* * *
Nikolas took the jacket Nova handed back to him and set it on the couch as they stood to walk in to dinner. He’d wanted to know more of Ainsley and Santiago’s story about the planted gun, but one of the cooks had announced that dinner was ready, putting a temporary end to the conversation.
Once again, his mind played through the details Ainsley and Santiago had shared. A planted gun? That suggested an additional layer of malice and trouble he never would’ve expected out of this situation. And while it was a simple leap to say that Ace was a prime suspect because of the ballistics match, the man wasn’t dumb. And the anonymous tip from this Destiny Jones didn’t sit well with Nikolas, either.
He’d done a lot of digging into Ace Colton’s life and he couldn’t figure out who besides his siblings was close to him. He wasn’t married and hadn’t been in a serious relationship for some time. Even if he was squiring dates around town, was he really bringing them back home and showing off a gun used to shoot his father?
It just didn’t play for him. Not when you thought through the actual logistics of how someone would come to know of a gun hidden in the man’s home.
Which led him straight back to the idea that Ace was framed, the gun planted for easy discovery.
Did Selina know about it and elected not to tell him? She certainly hadn’t mentioned a gun—planted or otherwise—when she had come to speak to him about Ace. And his police contacts were playing it close to the vest. They’d confirmed a gun was discovered in Ace Colton’s home, but no one had even whispered the idea that it might have been planted.
He had been wary about this case from the beginning, and as each point was added on a running checklist of “guilty” or “not guilty” for Ace Colton, Nikolas had to admit to himself that he was growing increasingly uncomfortable.
Especially if it put Nova in the crosshairs.
What would a killer, hiding in the wings, do if he or she suddenly knew that Ace had a child? And not just a child, but a child who was about to deliver Ace’s first grandchild.
That would be some awfully powerful motivation to pull Ace out of hiding.
Bowie saw him lingering at the doorway and came over to talk. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah, sure, I guess.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“What do you make of this whole planted gun thing?”
Bowie appeared to understand his underlying question without being asked and motioned Nikolas to a small butler’s pantry to talk. “I haven’t liked it from the start. Ace and I have never been particularly close, especially being rivals from different companies. But I’ve always respected the man, and I’ve always felt he respected me in return.”
Nikolas understood that. Bowie’s role as the head of Robertson Renewable Energy had always put him at odds with the Colton family. Even the fact that he and Marlowe had gotten together had added to the gossip gristmill around town.
Bowie continued on. “But it’s never sat well with me. The idea that the guy shot his father. Even if you take out the email about Ace’s birth and the whole paternity test, it’s a stretch. You spend your whole life thinking of this man as your father and suddenly in a matter of days you pick up a gun and shoot him? I just can’t see it. Especially because he is such a decent guy. Tough in business, but fair.”
Nikolas had felt the same and had said as much to Selina in their initial meeting. Regardless of the confusion and shock Ace Colton might’ve been operating under, it was a huge leap to assume that he would pick up a gun and shoot Payne.
“And the plot thickens if somebody’s trying to frame him.”
“Bingo. That’s what Marlowe and Ainsley have been so determined to figure out. Who would have a motive for framing their brother? If they find that, then they figure out who had the motive to shoot Payne.”
Although he hesitated to ask, Nikolas knew the question would only continue to nag at him. “Do you think it could be Selina?”
“Much as the woman gives me the creeps and makes me question Payne’s judgment to keep her around, I don’t think it’s her, either. She certainly benefits if Ace is out of the picture. She probably thinks that she can better direct whoever might be selected CEO in his place. But it’s an awfully big leap to go from calculating bitch to cold-blooded murderess. I don’t think she has it in her.”
Nikolas wasn’t quite so sure about that, but he respected Bowie’s opinion and would add it to his weighing of the situation.
She might be capable, but that didn’t mean she was capable of murdering her ex-husband. Besides, there was something in Selina Barnes Colton that had Nikolas thinking if the woman did decide to shoot Payne, she’d see the deed through rather than leave before knowing if the man was well and truly dead.
She didn’t strike him as a woman who left loose ends.
“What are you two doing out here?” Marlowe found them in the pantry and gestured them back toward the dining room. “Everything’s on the table.”
Nikolas followed Bowie and Marlowe into the room, his mind reverting to where he’d started. A hidden killer couldn’t know about Nova’s connection to the family. She’d already run from danger in New York.
What had she possibly run in to by coming to Mustang Valley?
* * *
Nova clutched her stomach at the laughter that infused the conversation at the table. For all their talk of being a couple of old, boring lawyers, Santiago and Ainsley had kept them all in stitches throughout the meal. Although they claimed to have only met recently, there was a sweet kinship between them that spoke of both bone-deep attraction as well as soul-deep friendship and affection.
It was heady to observe something so private, yet so obviously right.
And she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever find that herself.
The baby kicked and Nova rubbed a discreet hand over the little foot jabbing against her ribs. No matter how sad she felt from time to time about the end of her misguided relationship with Ferdy, she would never regret her child.
Never.
Just as she and Nikolas had discussed, her life was about to change in so many new and amazing ways. Her child was a blessing and she needed to focus on that and not worry about where her next relationship would come from. Or if she was going to have another relationship at all. She wanted to be a good mother and create a good life for her child. That was what mattered.
All that mattered.
Especially with Nikolas warning her off their kissing and everything.
A fact she’d done her damned level best to forget about for the past two hours. Even if she was failing miserably at that by thinking of their kiss oh, about every other minute. Neither did it get any easier each time she looked at him, his strong jaw and juicy lips a constant reminder of just how good he was at kissing.
And how long it had been since she’d actually been kissed.
Shifting her attention back to Ainsley and Santiago and off Nikolas’s lips, Nova was eager to hear more from the cute couple. “How did the two of you meet?”
“Santiago was Ace’s lawyer. Is his lawyer,” Ainsley added. “Since I’m the in-house counsel for Colton Oil, Ace called both of us about the planted gun.”
“And we ran with it from there,” Santiago said.
“And by run with it,” Marlowe added, “they mean they pretended to be a married couple up at the Marriage Institute. It’s connected to the AAG.”
At the mention of that horrible place Nova’s gaze sharpened. “You went there? To the AAG?”
“That’s the last update in the convoluted story of our family,” Marlowe said. “We have l
ittle doubt Micheline was the one to switch the babies.”
That strange sense of foreboding that Nova hadn’t been able to shake yesterday when she met the woman from the AAG rose back up in her chest, a sort of clawing panic she couldn’t define. Was it really possible that was where her father had actually come from? Worse, was it possible that the AAG “lifestyle” and those people were a part of her heritage? Part of who she was?
Was that why she had reacted so badly?
Yes, that young woman had given her the creeps. But Nova’s reaction had been wholly disproportionate to the actual conversation. Even as she had known that, she had just felt so odd, staring up at that billboard and then speaking to the woman who acted as if she was in a cult.
“What did you find out?”
“Santiago and I posed as a couple going up there for counseling. Our intention was to see what we could find out.”
“Why do you think Micheline is connected to Ace?” Nikolas asked.
“The police have traced it back. She used to go by the name Luella Smith. Up until forty years ago,” Ainsley added. “She was a nurse in the hospital the night Ace was born. A nurse who was also pregnant at the same time and disappeared days after both Ace and her own baby were born.”
The shock at the news that her father was possibly related to the AAG founder was hard enough. But if she had been pregnant, too, what was the possible motive for making a switch? “But why would she do that? If she had her own baby, why would she give it away for another?”
Although it would be hard to process the story under any circumstance, being pregnant added a dimension that made it even harder to fathom the shocking news. “I mean, what you’re talking about is crazy. This woman had a baby of her own and then switched them? Why?”
As a recent mother, Marlowe obviously understood her distress and came around the table to sit beside her. “Nothing about it makes any sense. But we can only assume Luella or Micheline or whatever we want to call her had some sick, twisted reason to switch her baby with a Colton.”
“It really doesn’t end, does it?” Nova asked the question in a daze, the calloused cruelty of the idea cutting through her like a sharp knife. Was it really possible? If Ace was her biological father and Micheline was his biological mother, then that made that woman her grandmother. A woman who’d switched her own child at birth.
The realizations speared her, one after the other, one wound worse than the next.
What was she really a part of? And what sort of awful DNA was her child inheriting? A criminal father and a psycho grandmother.
“Nova?” Marlowe asked, her voice gentle. “Are you all right?”
Was she all right? “I can’t believe it. Any of it. The layers of betrayal. The ripple effects of such a long-ago act.”
Just as he had before dinner, when he had shared his sport coat, Nikolas reached for her again. “If you’d like to leave, I can take you home.”
“What home? I came to Mustang Valley thinking I would find one, but all I’m finding is lies.”
Nova fought at the tears that welled up and dashed them away. She would not cry. Not in the face of so much kindness. So much caring that these people had shown her.
But she also questioned how she could stay.
“I know this is hard to process. We’ve had some time and we’re still struggling with it,” Ainsley said from across the table, the concern written on her face as clear as the compassion that practically rolled off Marlowe in waves. “But you do have a home here. With us.”
“I appreciate that more than I can say. Truly I do. But none of you know what I’m running from.”
“Why don’t you tell us then? We’ll listen. We’re here for you.”
Nova let Ainsley’s words wash over her before turning to Nikolas. She didn’t need to say a word because he already knew the question. In the quiet nod of his head, she understood what she needed to do.
She would never be free of her life in New York—would never find a way to set her child free of it, either—if she didn’t trust these people.
Shifting her gaze from Nikolas, Nova looked around the table. At Marlowe beside her and her fiancé, Bowie, where he sat in solidarity across the table. Then on to Santiago and the kind understanding in his green eyes. And then on to Ainsley, the eager welcome she’d greeted her with at the door still there, only now it was layered with compassion and understanding.
How could she stand up to so much understanding and acceptance?
And suddenly, Nova realized it was pointless to try.
With a final nod back to Nikolas, she took a deep breath.
“I guess it’s time to tell you all, then. I have a story of my own.”
Chapter 13
In the end, it had been surprisingly easy to tell them all about Ferdy. About her run from New York and her zigzagging trip across the United States. Even about the fear that he’d find her somehow and come after her.
What hadn’t been easy, Nova realized, was to say goodbye.
She and her “aunts” had hugged in the large foyer of the Triple R, each promising to spend more time together. They’d also invited her to come stay at the ranch in the meanwhile, but she’d opted to take a rain check on that. She couldn’t take advantage of Nikolas’s kindness forever, but she didn’t feel it was right to just accept without talking to him.
Besides, leaving meant she wouldn’t see him as much, and despite the talking-to about the kiss, she wasn’t ready to give up on him.
Which was probably her most misguided decision of the evening but hey, a girl could dream.
“You’re quiet.” Nikolas made the turn into town, off the road that had taken them out to the Triple R.
“Just thinking.” Nova murmured the words.
“Tonight was a lot to take in.”
“It was. I thought the news earlier at Marlowe’s, that Ace wasn’t really a Colton, was the hard part to digest. Guess I was wrong.”
Nikolas hit the button for the gate to his underground parking lot. “I guess we were all wrong. Seems there’s a lot more going on under the surface than anyone really understood.”
He pulled around to his parking spot and cut the engine. She nearly had her door open when he laid a hand on her forearm, stilling her. “Are you really doing okay with this?”
“I have to be.”
“Nova. That’s not an answer.”
“What other answer can I have? It doesn’t really matter what I thought on the drive out here from New York. It doesn’t matter what idyllic image I had in my mind about finding my birth father. All of this is real. His blood connection to a crazy psycho. The fact that he’s not a Colton. I either accept it or I run away with my tail between my legs. And in case you haven’t guessed, I’m not particularly fond of doing the latter.”
He smiled at that, his expression the response she had hoped for in her attempts to lighten the mood. “You really are amazing.”
Without questioning herself, Nova leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was part need, part experiment, and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. For all his attempts to try and warn her off earlier, she wasn’t oblivious to the sparks that flared between them.
It was time to test them out. And oh boy, were they worth a spin.
The same fever that had gripped them earlier that day in the elevator took hold again, only this time, they had the space to leisurely explore each other. There was no rising elevator, and no elevator doors waiting to ding open and effectively end their kiss.
There was just the two of them, ensconced in the quiet of his car.
Her gamble paid off. Nikolas was as into the moment as she was, and it was a matter of heartbeats until his hand came up to rest at the base of her neck, his fingers drifting tantalizingly over her nape. The lips that she had fantasized about during dinner were strong and firm
, pressed against hers and reminding her of needs she had believed long dormant.
He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips and she opened for him, gasping at the firm pressure. Feelings pulsed through her, beating in time with her heart, caught in the rhythm that they made with each other. Her breasts, already heavy from her pregnancy, added the additional weight of desire as her nipples pressed against the cups of her bra.
Goodness, did this man know what he did to her?
How he made her feel?
The baby chose that moment to kick hard enough to bring a gasp to Nova’s lips.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Although she didn’t exactly want to dismiss her child, it felt like a bit of a mood killer to tell the man you were kissing that your little alien had decided to get in on the fun.
The desire in his eyes was rapidly fading, replaced with concern. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course.”
Her little traitor kicked again and it was enough to have her drawing a breath, sucking air in between her teeth.
“Nova, come on. What’s going on?”
She finally gave in, the awkward position they were both in and the way they had to lean toward each other over the center console forcing the issue. “It’s the angle I’m sitting in. I’m twisted just enough that the baby has easy access to my ribs.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It wasn’t a problem until the cute little alien woke up.”
“Calisthenics time?”
“Apparently.”
The baby kicked again and she finally gave in, twisting so that she faced forward. At the same time she shifted the little one just enough so that the kicks met something other than bone.
“Can I?” She looked to her left and saw the eagerness that painted his face. “Can I feel?”
“Sure.” She took his hand and placed it against her stomach, the baby actively performing for its audience.
“That is amazing.”