His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Page 25

  No hesitated, and for a moment, Lilli wondered if he’d go back to being the hawk. If this newest phase of their relationship had just been words spoken in the extreme heat of the moment.

  But then he stood and bowed to the small teen. “Mistakes were made, Ruby-chan. Mostly by me. I am very sorry for this morning’s confusion. I should have left you a note or given you a text so you would know I was not truly leaving Seattle, only taking an unscheduled trip to Portland, so that I could make further arrangements. You see, it was necessary for me to tell my business partner right away that my plans had changed and I would be staying in Seattle until further notice.”

  Ruby blinked, probably wondering about No as Lilli had wondered about her a few weeks ago, what body snatcher had paid a visit to this house. But then her niece just smiled up at him and said so very sincerely,

  “That’s okay. I’m just glad you back.”

  “It is not okay,” he answered with rough dragon shake of his head. And then he presented her with something even Lilli had never been given access to, up until a short while ago: his phone number, written in clean black type along with his name across the front of a crisp white business card.

  It was a very formal presentation on No’s part, delivered with a long string of official-sounding Japanese words.

  Ceremonious words that Ruby answered with a huge, “Ehhhhh!?!?!” before throwing herself at No’s chest, her thin arms wrapping around him for a big honking American-style hug.

  Lilli’s breath caught, wondering how No would respond.

  But then she hugged her back—at least as best he could with his arms trapped beneath her tight hold.

  And though Lilli had trained herself to stop believing in miracles a long time ago, it was then that she allowed herself to hope.

  Maybe this could work. Maybe these completely mismatched pieces could actually become some sort of family.

  Part Three

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “How long’s it going to take you figure it out, Lils? Your family ain’t a democracy,” Dallas informed Lilli six months later. “And it’s just always easier to do what the boss-man says.”

  Lilli sighed. Partly because her back was aching after a full day on her feet. And partly because after finally convincing No to let her buy a Honda Odyssey, a minivan that would allow her to easily haul Ruby and her numerous trial prosthetics to doctor’s appointments and gymnastics classes, she’d come downstairs to the hospital garage to find Dallas waiting for her in its driver’s seat.

  “I had to Uber over here,” he informed her with an annoyed huff. “And I don’t even want to talk about how thrilled Mr. Nakamura was this morning when he discovered you snuck out and drove yourself to work.”

  “Yeah, I got the texts. All 100 of them,” she said, rubbing her belly. Sadly, she was only slightly exaggerating. Six months ago when she’d finally received No’s number, she’d felt lucky to finally receive such a gift from him. But now she just felt dumb, because she’d invited No—aka the most paranoid future father in the universe—into her bed and her phone.

  “Don’t rub your belly while you’re talking to me, Lils. You get exactly zero sympathy from Dallas Montana, because guess who has to drive a friggin’ minivan now? The only thing worse than a man of my reputation having to take an Uber, is…can you guess?”

  “You know, you could just let me drive,” she returned with a sigh.

  “Yeah, whatever, just get in the car, ya crazy broad,” he answered as the mini-van’s long back door slid open for her to get in.

  “How much you want to bet he’s going to lead with the quitting talk again at dinner tonight?” Dallas asked a few minutes later as they rolled along the 520.

  Another sigh, because Lilli didn’t want to think about that minefield of a subject. She was afraid to even bring up how much her back had been hurting as of late for fear of him calling Harriet. Again.

  “So how’s Uta?” she asked Dallas in an attempt to change the subject. “Things still going good?”

  “Pretty good,” Dallas answered grinning at her through the Odyssey’s rearview. “In fact, I’ve been thinking ‘bout putting a ring on it after we get back from Japan…”

  “What!?!?” Lilli gasped. “Already?”

  Dallas shrugged. “It’s been six months and when you know, you know, right?”

  “Right!” Lilli agreed. Though in truth, she had no idea. No was great at worry. Like he could seriously win a medal in that particular sport. But he still wasn’t the best ever communicator. And while she was fairly sure there were no more Osaka Charm girls hanging out at the homes he still kept in Tokyo, Osaka, and Portland, he hadn’t said word one to her about putting any jewelry on her now rather swollen ring finger.

  But to Dallas, she said, “That’s great. So great! Any ideas how you’re going to pop the question?”

  Several apparently. And they were still discussing the merits of a hot air balloon proposal versus a jumbotron proposal at the Seattle Sounders/Portland Timbers game—a love of soccer being one of the few things he and Uta had in common—as Dallas pulled up to the house and they walked through the front door together.

  However, once inside, their conversation was interrupted by a sound Lilli hadn’t actually heard in quite a while: her niece’s raised voice.

  “Oh, I see Mrs. Santos has got the night off. How about I order us some Thai and let you take care of that down there?” Dallas offered, none too gallantly.

  “Yeah, sure, thanks for your support, Dallas,” Lilli grumbled as she negotiated her already huge belly down the narrow staircase into the sub-basement.

  Though she had to admit she was a bit alarmed by the screeching Japanese. Ruby had been great these last few months, and she couldn’t imagine why she was yelling, presumably at No, at the top of her lungs right now.

  Lilli waddled into the gym-dojo, giving her aching back one last rub before asking, “Hey, guys, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t do it!” Ruby answered in significantly improved English, thanks to six months of working with the tutor No’s Portland assistant had arranged for her. So her meaning was crystal clear when she yelled, “I’m not going to Tokyo!”

  “What?” Lilli said, because going with No on his business trip to Tokyo in two days, followed by the Japanese NHK Trophy Olympic qualifying gymnastics competition, was all Ruby had been talking about for the last several weeks.

  But now she was bouncing back and forth on the bladed computerized leg Go’s SocietyLab engineers had designed for her, claiming, “They’re stupid. I’m stupid. Just stupid girl who can’t let go of stupid dreams. I thought I’d be able to do everything. That if I had the right leg and the right coach, it would all be like it used to be, but look at this…”

  Ruby stood and suddenly threw herself backwards, body arcing perfectly as her ponytail sliced underneath her. It was a thing of majesty to behold until she crumpled on the landing. Falling into a heap of robo prosthetic and real limbs.

  “Oh my God, Ruby!” Lilli cried, rushing over to her while No just stood there with his jaw ticking.

  “See!” Ruby screamed. “Can’t even do a back flip. Most basic…”

  She broke down crying, and Lilli gathered her up in her arms. Sometimes Ruby talked like such an adult that Lilli forgot she was still a child. And like most children, she’d eventually have to realize not all dreams come true.

  “Oh honey, we don’t have to go to the trials in Tokyo. We can just hang out in the hotel room. Watch J-Dramas all day. I don’t care.”

  Ruby sniffed. “Really, I don’t have to go?”

  “Not if you don’t want to. We can do whatever you want,” she answered, mentally crossing her fingers that whatever Ruby wanted wouldn’t involve a ton of walking or anything else that would exacerbate her back pain. “Why don’t we give gymnastics a rest for a little while and go upstairs for dinner? Dallas said he was going to order Thai on the way home…”

  “You will do it again.�
��

  They both looked up to see No standing above them, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “What?” Ruby and Lilli said at the same time.

  “Do it again,” he repeated.

  “But I can’t,” Ruby said, her lower lip trembling.

  “Can I talk to you in private for a moment?” Lilli asked him, rising to an unsteady stand.

  “There will be no talking. Just flip,” No answered with a hard twirling motion of his finger. “Do it again, Ruby-chan.”

  “I can’t!” Ruby screamed back at him, tears springing to her eyes. “I’ve been trying for days. You know that!”

  Her niece’s tears tore at Lilli’s heart. “Seriously, No…” she began. “I really don’t think—.”

  No came to stand in front of Ruby, lowering himself to his haunches so he was closer to eye level with her. “Sometimes we are weak. I have learned of late that this is not actually a bad thing.”

  Only the fact that he was speaking in English and sent a small glance her way let Lilli know he was even aware she was in the room.

  “But now is not the time for weakness. Now you have a choice. You can go upstairs and eat your dinner, or you can stay here and do it again and again until you make your landing. One action will lead to a lifetime of weakness, of choosing dinner whenever a challenge is presented. The other will lead to greatness. You can either become your father, or you can become a warrior. You cannot become both, so you must decide now. Do you truly want to be the Nakamura House Samurai? Because if you want this job, you must land this move.”

  “Back handsprings have nothing to do with my job as house samurai!” Ruby screeched from her position on the floor.

  “That is for me to decide,” No answered coolly, rising to a stand.

  “But, I can’t, I can’t…”

  Ruby’s face crumbled with tears, and rage flared in Lilli’s chest. How did No not see that it was time to chill with the Tiger Parent Coach routine already? He was poking at every one of Ruby’s still open wounds.

  But No stood there, completely unmoved, as he watched the girl who had lost just about everything cry her heart out.

  Yet when Lilli bent back down, prepared to offer comfort where he would not, Ruby shook her head. “Thank you, Aunt Ana. But no…”

  She stood and bowed to Lilli. Then she bowed to No. And then to Lilli’s shock, she went to the edge of the mat and tried again.

  Lilli wasn’t going to lie. It was painful to watch. Eventually No did intercede, barring his hand under her back, then shouting at her in Japanese, what sounded like a listing of everything Ruby was doing wrong.

  The whole scene made Lilli’s stomach roll and she had to look away a few times, unable to stop the abuse, but knowing No hadn’t seen the level of ugly she was going to go to when they were once more behind closed doors.

  She’d hate to see a thirty-year-old treated this way, much less a teen girl. And that was when she realized how like her Ruby truly was. That she’d do anything to please the people she loved, even to the point of injury.

  Really bad patterns.

  Lilli was about to physically put a stop to this Sisyphean exercise and drag Ruby up the stairs to the dinner table if she had to…but then something miraculous happened.

  Ruby threw herself backwards, not nearly as gracefully as before, but it didn’t matter because her hands stuck. And then so did her foot and blade. So did her foot and blade!!!!

  Lilli screamed with joy, and No in a rare moment of abandon, yelled out like Japan had just won the world cup. Meanwhile Ruby laughed hysterically. Eyes crazed. Her face red with exertion, and her hair now a tangled sweaty mess.

  Lilli had seriously never seen anything so beautiful. Or felt more like a family as she bent over to sweep the girl up in a bear hug. She then turned to No, so swept up in the triumph that she almost…

  However, she soon remembered when he backed away from her incoming kiss…that wasn’t his way. In fact, the only way anyone who’d ever seen them together would ever know they shared a bed was by her swollen belly—and even then they might need Lilli to make it clear. Lilli’s arms awkwardly dropped back down to her sides.

  “Thank you for your patience,” No said to Lilli with a polite inclination of his head. “I could see that was very hard for you to watch, but I hope you know I would not have pushed her if I did not believe she could do it. I believed it, and I wanted her to believe it, too.”

  God, she wanted to kiss him. To stroke his hair and tell him, “You lied to me, No. You’re going to make a great father.”

  The impulse ticked between them, awkward and impossible. Not his way, she reminded herself, trying to ignore the pain in both her chest and back now.

  But then the pain in her backbecame impossible to tune out, piercing her spine, and suddenly tightening her stomach.

  “Oh, shit,” she said on a sharp inhale. “No…No…I think we need to go to the hospital.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  So yes, Lilli now believed No would make a great father. But in order to achieve that status, it turned out she’d have to go on the home equivalent of hospital bed rest until further notice. During her follow up visit the next morning, Uta and the concierge OB/gyn told her she was very lucky they’d been able to stop the contractions at the hospital. However, there was no way she’d be able to go on a plane until after the baby was born.

  “You will not make trip to Tokyo,” Uta told her with a pat on the shoulder. “But at least you can stay at home where you are comfortable, thanks to Mr. Nakamura’s resources.” Which included a guest bedroom on the first floor that Mrs. Santos had already set up for Lilli by the time she returned from the hospital in the middle of the night.

  Mr. Nakamura, however, didn’t feel quite as impressed with himself.

  “This is my fault,” he told her, taking her right hand in both of his as soon as the door closed behind the doctor and Uta, leaving them alone in the room. His face was the very picture of tortured remorse as he kissed her palm.

  “It’s not,” she assured him. “These things happen, No…”

  “I upset you yesterday.”

  “And I pulled a ten-hour shift at work. There are a million things that could have caused the contractions, but assigning blame isn’t going to help. Only bedrest.” Lilli sighed. “Lots and lots of bedrest.”

  The thought of doing nothing but lie around being of no help to anybody for the next few weeks pained her. But the main point was… “We’re still on track to be parents to a healthy baby boy in a few months. That’s all that matters,” she reminded her dragon, reversing the hold he had on her hand, so that she could cup his face. “And in just a few more weeks we’ll have a much better chance at a good outcome. But you know what could help me right now…”

  Lilli peeped up at him. “If you cancelled your trip to Tokyo? Put it off until after the baby is born?”

  No shook his head at her request, pulling her hand from his cheek to his chest. “Ana, I cannot. Ruby, however, has already told me she will stay here with you…”

  “Please, No, I don’t ask for much,” she said. Pregnancy hormone, exhaustion—whatever the reason, she was suddenly desperate to have him, the father of her baby, not her thirteen year old niece stay by her side. “I just need you to be here for me. For your family.”

  “Ana, you don’t understand…” No dipped his head, frowning at her, as if she’d done something grossly unfair by not only pulling the “family” card, but also asking him to stay here with her. “Go and I are working on something very important. Something that will potentially put us on track for our biggest contract yet. I must be there. For our business. For our family.”

  Lilli started to argue with him, but then stopped with a bitter shake of her head when she saw the shuttered black eyes staring back at her. The hawk was back, determined to have its way again, despite the progress they’d made in their relationship over the last few months. She could see that nothing she said, no trial sh
e was currently going through would make No change his mind about leaving her behind, while he went to Tokyo for two weeks on business.

  “Okay, fine…” she said, snatching back her hand and folding it over her shoulder, so he couldn’t get to it. A petty move to be sure, but petty was how she felt about No not even pausing to consider not going to Tokyo. Not even for a moment.

  “I’m going to rest now,” she informed him. “We had a long night and I had to get up early for the appointment with Uta and Dr. Owen.”

  Lilli closed her eyes, hoping he’d take the hint. That she didn’t want to talk about this. That they’d signed no new contracts and exchanged no rings and he still wouldn’t even so much as hold her hand in front of Ruby, much less their concierge team. That in this moment, their relationship probably wouldn’t survive them discussing him going to Tokyo while she was on bed rest. With his revenge baby.

  Thankfully he did take the hint.

  The next thing she heard was the soft click of the door.

  They didn’t talk about it again. In fact, No left that very day, telling her, “I hope to be able to wrap things up sooner this way.”

  Lilli didn’t answer. And since Ruby was also in the room, No didn’t even kiss her goodbye.

  “She is your aunt,” he reminded Ruby with a bow. “I am sorry you will not be coming with me to Tokyo, but glad you will be here to take care of her.”

  “Tokyo will always be there,” Ruby answered No with a bow of her own. “I will take good care of her while you are away.”

  Lilli’s eyes narrowed as she watched their exchange. Ruby had apparently gone from as excited as child before Christmas, to denying the existence of Santa Claus. And Lilli had to wonder if No hadn’t ordered her niece to stay here with her.

  Still, she couldn’t say having Ruby there didn’t bring her any solace in the wake of No’s departure from the Lake Washington house. They ate breakfast together in the mornings and then Ruby left for school and during that time, it felt to Lilli like she was willing the hours to speed by until her niece came home. They settled into a routine fairly quickly, with Ruby often doing her homework on the lakeside couch, then climbing into Lilli’s bed to watch anime with her until it was time for dinner, which Mrs. Santos—having apparently agreed to no more nights off while No was away—brought directly to Lilli’s room.