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.”

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.