Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(51)

“Oh, I’d be more worried about what he’d do to your sack-of-shit face. Never mind if you hurt Ma. ’Cause in that case, you’ll have to watch out for both of us.” I stepped into him, eye to eye, glare into burning glare. “And I might be the nice one, but I’m the one who will fuck you up beyond repair.” I straightened up when he pushed off the doorframe. “Next time you need to harass me, you fucking call me to do it, or the deal’s off. I don’t wanna have to put you in traction, old man.”

A laugh, a cold, haughty laugh. “You just keep that cash coming, Teddy.”

“Sign those papers. Let her go.”

But he was already turning to leave. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get right on that,” he said, and I watched him walk away.

For a long moment, I couldn’t move, grappling with the sight of my father for only the second time in twenty years. But then I found a way to carry myself inside with mannequin legs, walking stiffly to the kitchen where I poured myself a drink.

Thank God Ma was out with Tommy and Amelia. Thank God John and I were on the same page.

And thank God things were fine.

For now.

I downed a glass of scotch and poured another just as the door opened.

Katherine appeared in the entryway, looking exhausted and utterly radiant despite the fact. And all I wanted, all I needed, was her in my arms.

I strode across the room, scooping her up with a laugh and a question that I swallowed when I kissed her. I kissed her long and hard, kissed her until she was soft and pliant in the circle of my arms. Kissed her until I wasn’t mad or scared or hurt anymore.

When I broke away, her lids were heavy and lips were smiling. “Well, hello.”

“Hello,” I said and kissed her again.

I kissed her with abandon, with wildness. I kissed her with singular purpose.

To erase John Banowski from my mind.





18





Mathmagician





Theo

20 weeks, 2 days

“Kassandra,” Katherine said, smiling down at her pasta, fork spinning in her linguini.

“Kassie. I like it.”

The joke earned me a stern look. “No nicknames. Maybe we should name her something like Jane so you won’t give her a pet name.”

“Like Janie?”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “What about Sarah, after your mother?”

“Too confusing to have two Sarahs in one house. What’s your mom’s name?”

Her humor was gone. “Susan, but she changed it to Sparrow when she turned eighteen.”

I watched her for a second, waiting for the punch line. One didn’t come.

“Well, I can’t think of a nickname for Sparrow other than Birdie or Cuckoo.”

A ghost of a smile flickered on her face. “A cuckoo isn’t even in the same family as sparrows, but my mother is crazy. So, there’s that.”

I kept on, not wanting her to unpack anything she wasn’t ready for, regardless of my curiosity. “What about Natasha? Gabrielle? Yvonne? Genevieve?”

“Those are names of hot spies, not babies.”

“Well, babies grow up,” I reminded her.

One of her brows rose. “You want your daughter to be a hot spy?”

“Good point.” I forked some penne. “What about something like…Hope? That way, there’s no nickname.”

She nodded, her smile spreading. “I’ll add it to the list.”

I took a bite, my eyes finding the sonogram picture on the table while we ate for a moment in companionable silence. We had come to Del Posto to celebrate three momentous occasions. Our first official date, Katherine hitting the midpoint of her pregnancy, and the cherry on the sundae—this afternoon, we’d learned the sex of our baby.

The fuzzy black-and-white sonogram lay on the table, a series of photographs of our daughter. Her small arms, hands fisted in some and open in another, her tiny feet kicking. She had moved around the whole time, the ultrasound tech chasing her measurements.

But what had struck me beyond seeing her kick and move and suck her thumb was even more simple and strange. It was her profile, white against black, the button nose and curves of her lips. Her cheeks and little chin, the shape of her head. One day soon, that little head would rest in my palm. Those little lips would smile at me. That tiny hand would hold my finger.

That little girl would one day call me Daddy.

That morning, I’d sat in the chair next to Katherine in the dark sonogram room, her face turned to the screen, most of the time spent in silence while the tech measured the baby’s forehead and amniotic fluid and spine and a dozen other things she never explained the significance of. And I held Katherine’s swampy hand and documented the moment, etching it in stone so I could remember it always. The look on her face, the joy, the discovery when we saw our daughter for the first time.

I loved Katherine with a fierceness I’d never known.

There had been no moment to pinpoint, no lightning bolt of realization. It had grown like ivy—in slow tendrils and unfurling leaves, day by day, hour by hour. It had been happening since the first time I laid eyes on her, in every minute spent with her, in every breath and heartbeat between us.

I loved her.

And God, how I wanted to keep her.