His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Page 24

  “Iie,” Ruby screeched again. “Everything your fault! If you there, Papa never start with drugs again. He never do it. And I still have my leg. You ruin everything, you stupid bitch!”

  Oh God. It wasn’t just the shattering of their lovely peace that brought tears to Lilli’s eyes. But her niece’s words, so reminiscent of her mother’s.

  But this time, Lilli didn’t shrink away or just sit there and take it like she had before all those years with her mother.

  This time Lilli drew herself up and answered both her niece and her dead mother. “I don’t. I don’t ruin everything. I’m doing my best, Ruby. I’ve always done my best. And if my best isn’t good enough for you, then that’s on you to figure out. I don’t care what you’ve been through. I’m not your punching bag. So don’t talk to me like that, do you understand?”

  “Or what?” Ruby sneered. “You slap me again?”

  “No, I’m not going to slap you,” Lilli answered. “But until you learn how to talk to me civilly I am taking away every privilege you have. And guess what, you entitled little bitch, you won’t get anything else from me until you learn how to ask nicely for what you want, instead of demanding it. Meanwhile I will continue to hope to God you grow up and finally realize we’re family, Ruby. The only family either of us has left. Because Mr. Nakamura isn’t worth this. No man, who’d just up and leave is worth it. That’s what I’m going to do instead of slapping the hell out of you like my mom would have done.

  “From now on I’m going to choose who to spend my time with. And right now I’m choosing a kid who’s going to get a cancerous tumor removed today, but has somehow figured out how not to blame me whenever he’s angry about the hand life has dealt them. So before I go get ready for work, let me suggest something to you, Ruby. Get over yourself!”

  Eyes blazing with long tamped down anger, she pointed at Ruby, not caring that it was one of the rudest things you could do to someone of Japanese descent. “And little girl, don’t you come at me again until you have.”

  With that, Lilli walked out of the room. For once leaving her niece behind, rather than the other way around.

  Yeah, her empathy switch was turned all the way off now. Empathy and understanding would only get you so far with some people, she decided as she took her shower and dried of. No had definitely taught her that. And Ruby was about to learn the hard way, just how unsympathetic her aunt could get….

  Which was why Lilli was so surprised to find her niece sitting on top of her bed when she stepped back into her bedroom.

  Lilli paused, bracing herself for what Ruby would say next.

  But then her niece sniffed and whispered, “He promise to teach me, and he come from samurai. I thought he was different from Papa. I thought he keep promises. Nobody but you keep promises...”

  And that was when Ruby began to cry inconsolably.

  And just like that, the empathy switch Lilli’d managed to turn off for almost an entire hour flipped right back on.

  God, why was life so hard sometimes? she wondered as she sat down on the bed and pulled her sobbing niece into her arms. Why did some people get life handed to them on a platter, while others just keep losing people and body parts until it felt like they had nothing left to give?

  But then Ruby shocked the shit out of her by suddenly surging sideways and wrapping her thin arms around Lilli’s neck. Actually hugging her back as she said, “It’s okay, Aunt Ana. We’ll be okay without him.”

  “Yeah,” Lilli agreed after she got over her initial shock of receiving a hug from her niece. “We totally will be.”

  “Because we’re family,” Ruby finished, her voice cracking. “And you know what? I’m not like them. I’m not. I’m going to keep promises I make, even if he doesn’t. That’s what I’m going to do from now on. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Lilli agreed, although she wasn’t one-hundred percent clear what she was saying okay to.

  In any case, they ended up riding into Seattle together, holding hands in the back seat of Dallas’s Escalade as they stared out their separate windows.

  But just as they pulled off the 520, Dallas asked, “So what’s the deal here, Rubes, you got appointments at the hospital today?”

  “No, I just hanging out. I do my extra English homework while Aunt Ana help really sick kid.”

  “Yeah, as fun as that sounds, you want to have dinner with me and Uta instead?” he asked. “We’re going to be talking a whole lot of English together since I don’t know no German. And showing how good I am with kids will probably be a good look for me.”

  The only thing more surprising than Dallas’s offer was Ruby’s hesitation to accept it. “I promise Aunt Ana I go with her,” she answered.

  “It’s totally fine if you don’t,” Lilli assured her. “I totally release you from your promise. Plus, it sounds like Dallas really needs your help. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but his English isn’t so great either.”

  “Hey!” Dallas said as Ruby snickered. “Why people always got stuff to say about my Jersey accent?”

  Lilli was still laughing by the time she entered the hospital. By herself, but for the first time since returning to the States, she had real hope with regards to her and Ruby’s future relationship. Which weirdly was thanks, in part, to the man who’d dropped out of their life without a word of warning.

  “Hey!” she greeted Anitra happily when she saw her new friend, standing outside the nurse’s station, already going over the tumor kid’s chart.

  Anitra wasn’t a surgeon, but like Lilli she seemed to value “being there” for her patients, even if she wasn’t technically the one who’d be doing the cutting today.

  “How’s he doing?” Lilli asked, coming to stand beside her. “Are we going to have to talk to his parents again?”

  Yesterday she and the doctor had to sit the patient’s parents down to explain that though their fear was understandable, hugging their son and telling him how very much they loved him every other minute was only going to freak him out right before his major surgery.

  “Good…and the parents have definitely calmed down,” Anitra answered. “But what are you doing here?”

  Lilli slid her a quizzical look. “I told you yesterday I’d be taking a half-shift today so I could be here for Khalil, remember?”

  “Yeah, you did,” Anitra answered, setting down the chart. “But then Harriet Fields announced this morning you’d resigned your position.”

  “Wait, what?!?!” Lilli started to ask, only to get interrupted when her watch went off.

  It was a message from Mrs. Santos: Sorry about earlier, but wanted you to know I finished moving Mr. Nakamura’s things into your room.

  Chapter Forty-One

  What. The. Hell.

  Just a few hours ago, Lilli would have been relieved if No came through the door way earlier than expected. Ecstatic even.

  But today, as soon as he walked in she yelled, “You had Mrs. Santos move your stuff into my room? And you actually quit my job behind my back!? What the hell, No?”

  He paused inside the door, looking toward the kitchen, where yes, Mrs. Santo’s was making dinner for them before she left for the day.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake…

  “We need to talk about this,” she insisted over his pathological need for privacy.

  “In my office,” he answered. Not giving in, so much as giving her terms.

  Fine. She led the way and didn’t exactly drop dead of shock when he firmly closed the door behind them before indicating that she should sit.

  But hell if she was going to follow even one more order from him.

  “How could you do this, No? Tell Mrs. Santos to move your stuff into my room. Quit my job without even telling me?!?! I love my job. I’d never want to quit it.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Norio answered coolly. “That is why I took the decision out of your hands.”

  “It wasn’t your decision to make!” Lilli shouted.

  “Actually, it was,
” he answered, just as quiet as she was loud. “Our agreement states I will protect this baby to the best of my ability. You working eight to ten hour shifts at a hospital where anyone can get to you does not constitute protecting this baby. And as for my moving into your room. It is the one closest to the nursery. Which brings us to this matter…”

  He pulled off his sleek black messenger bag and took out his tablet

  . “My lawyers have made an addendum to our original agreement. You will need to sign this, so that we may share custody of the baby.”

  She squinted at the tablet but made no move to take it from him. “So like what…? You want to be in this baby’s life now? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  He looked at her for a very long time, before carefully answering, “Hai, I no longer wish to end our arrangement, so I have decided to forgive you for what passed in Japan. I have also decided to raise this child with you. To make an American family with you and Ruby here in Seattle. At least until the end of the school year when we will be able to move to Portland without upsetting Ruby’s schooling.”

  Lilli shook her head at him, trying to comprehend what was happening here. “You’ve decided to forgive me, and now you want us be together again?” she repeated, her voice incredulous. “Like when I was your escort?”

  The hawk stilled, then answered, “Chigau, not like in Japan when you were only pretending. I would like us to be together in a different way now. The way Ruby spoke of this morning.”

  She blinked. Then blinked some more, before finally saying, “Wait, do you mean you want us to be boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  He answered with a sharp hawk nod. “I prefer the relationship we’ve shared while we were making this baby to the fake one we had in Japan. I’ve decided we should continue on like this.”

  Lilli, who’d had the same wish just this morning when they were taking the test could only stare at him now. “No!”

  He looked at her, confused.

  “I mean no-no. Like negative no. No way am I going to sign your stupid addendum or let you move into my room with me, so that we can continue on like we were before. That’s what I’m telling you. No, I’m not on board with that!”

  He stopped. Processed, then said, “So you do not like my terms. Name yours, and we will come to an agreement.”

  “No…” she started. His nickname this time, but uttered with the same kind of weariness as a repeated refusal.

  “Sit down, No, please,” she asked him quietly. “We need to talk.”

  Seeming more confused by her sudden quiet tone than acquiescent, he did so. Taking a seat on the same couch, where he kissed and then sexed her out of any questions she had about not continuing to have sex.

  But this time when she sat down beside him, she knew there would be no kissing her out of her next confession. “I have issues, No. Deep psychological issues.”

  He looked away, blinked and then looked back at her. “Hai, I am aware of this. I read over the notes from your college therapist.”

  “How…” she started to ask. But then decided this was an even better reason to have this discussion.

  “Okay, well then maybe you’ll understand why I can’t do this with you. All my life I’ve been letting myself get unhealthily attached to people who don’t care about me. Because I’m super co-dependent but apparently compulsive about putting my self-worth in the hands of others. I have so many issues, No, all sorts of things that make it hard for me to conduct relationships with healthy boundaries.”

  She shook her head at him sadly. “And what you’re asking me to do right now would only make them worse, make me worse. You’re like every bad pattern rolled into one man. And I don’t want to be—for my own sanity—I can’t be in the kind of contract partner you’re asking me to be.”

  She risked looking over to see how No was taking her words and found not the dragon, but the hawk, his face stony with remove. “You do not wish this kind of relationship with me, or to sign a new contract. What is it you want from me then?”

  “I want you to start treating me like a human being,” she answered, her voice shaking with a determination unlike any she’d ever had before. “If there’s something you want me to do with or for you, I want you to fucking ask me first rather than go behind my back. If you want a relationship with me, then have a relationship with me. But don’t move me around like I’m a character in the story of your life.”

  Against all possibility, No’s face became even colder, “So you feel you don’t have enough power over me,” he answered, his voice flat and hard. “You would have me beg for your company.”

  “No, not beg,” she answered. “I’d never ask you to beg. I just want you to ask me things, talk to me, like I’m a woman you actually like, not an incubator you want to keep fucking. I watched my niece cry this morning because she thought you’d moved out. I had to counsel her through it because we both thought you’d just up and left. I don’t even have your fucking phone number, No! That’s how little respect you have for me.”

  He jerked back his head, receiving her words like a physical slap. “So my forgiveness isn’t enough,” he said, his voice quiet and low. “You also want my face. You want me to kneel before you. Apologize for these unnecessary emotions. You want me to be weak now, but Nakamuras are not weak....”

  Lilli regarded his rigid posture, his tight jaw, his cold eyes, so cold they might as well be dead, and realized…

  “Yeah, I get it,” she said, her voice sad and low. “I’m asking you to be in the kind of family I want. To actually think about how it will affect Ruby and me before you make your decisions. But that is obviously way more than you’re capable of giving. So thanks, but no thanks.”

  She stood up with a heavy sigh. “Let’s just stick to the original plan and I’ll go ask Mrs. Santos to move your things back into your room right now. Stay here or go to Portland, it really doesn’t matter, but whatever you do, please make sure to keep any and all promises you made to Ruby. Like I tried to tell you before, she’s had a really hard year, and you mean something to her. She doesn’t deserve to get disappeared on again.”

  With that, she started for the closed office door. Sad for him. Sad for herself. But knowing as she opened the door to leave, that submitting to his idea of a family wouldn’t be good for her, Ruby, or the baby now growing inside her. She’d been raised by a mother who put the love of one man who did not love her back over everyone else in her life, and she’d be damned if—

  The sudden slam of the door and a hand appearing to the left of her peripheral vision cut off her determined thoughts.

  “No,” she warned. His name and the negative combined.

  But when she tried to open the door again, he kept his hand where it was, effectively blocking her from getting out.

  “Nakamuras aren’t weak…” he repeated, pressing his chest into her back. She could feel the drag of his breath against the back of her neck as he said, “I am descended from samurais on both sides. I don’t ask. I never ask. Why should I ever have to ask? Especially for something that’s already mine.”

  Lilli shook her head, her body weakening under the press of his, her resolve quaking under his claiming words, hot on her neck.

  “Please, just let me go…” she begged him. “I’ve spent way too much of my life catering to others. I can’t do that anymore. It’s not good for Ruby. It’s not good for me. And it’s definitely not good for this baby…”

  “Nakamuras aren’t weak!” he ground out, between what sounded like clenched teeth.

  “Yes, I understand—” she began to say, only to be cut off when he turned her around. Made her face him. Forced her to see the dragon now burning hot in his eyes.

  “But you make me weak., Ana. Make me willing to do anything. Give you anything. Say anything, just to be with you. From the moment I set eyes on you, I’ve done whatever it takes to be with you, to share your bed, even though I knew you’d eventually bring me to my knees. And you think I am a danger
to your mental health? You have no idea how you have twisted my mind…”

  This time he pressed himself into her from the front, his erection pulsing hard against the fabric of her scrubs.

  “You make me weak, but I’m asking you now to be with me, Ana.” His voice was little more than a coarse growl now. ‘To take me into your bed, onegai. Will you do that? Will you let such a weak man share your bed, your life?”

  After all that build up, she probably should have held out for at least a little bit longer. But the “yes,” came flying out of her mouth.

  “Please, yes. Just…just…”

  She didn’t have to finish the sentence because he turned her back around, shoved her pants down, and then pushed her legs open, just wide enough to…

  She sobbed, when he entered her from behind, filling her up with his breath hot on her neck as he whispered, “So weak…so weak!”

  It felt like he loved her in that moment, even though he hadn’t come anywhere close to saying the words.

  But there was only so far, one admittedly messed up woman could come in one day. This was her breaking point. In that moment all protests floated away. And instead of leaving, her head dropped to her chest, giving herself over, even as he claimed to be the weaker one in their relationship.

  “So weak!” he whispered in her ear, even as he made her cream with one hand shoved between her legs.

  So weak, he told her over and over again, but even as he said it, Lilli knew it wasn’t some power she had over him as he’d previously claimed. It was the one thing they had in common.

  At least she got to know that for a minute or two. That was all the clarity she was allowed before both his hands found their way under her scrub top, fingers taking hold of her nipples.

  And then…and then…

  She doubted even the closed door would be enough to keep Mrs. Santos from hearing her scream.

  “Sensei, what are you doing here?” Ruby asked, her eyes widening when she walked through the door and found them waiting in the front room for her. “Aunt Ana said you gone away.”