Chapter 3

Beckett

This was dangerous.

I was known for my savage attitude. For cutting losses no matter the collateral damage. I was the beast the staff in my office feared.

And now, I was the baby whisperer.

Muffled hellion screeches echoed from the other side of the door in front of me.

I raised a fist and knocked then tucked my arms behind my back and commanded everything and everyone in the hallway. Which was to say, nothing and no one. Since it was late, and it was empty.

The only reason I’d come was for Penny. Not for Olivia. Penny was Mike’s daughter, and Mike’s death was my fault. Not directly, but it may as well have been. I was as guilty as the driver of the other car.

I tapped the heel of my shoe, checking my Rolex. I’d only come for Penny. For Mike. And because another hour of work would’ve put me to sleep, anyway. The office was blessedly quiet at night.

Maybe if I repeated that shit enough, I’d believe it.

Olivia’s rich walnut door clicked and swung inward, and there she was.

There she fucking was.

Her hair loose around her shoulders, tumbling down to sweep the silken robe she’d tied closed at her waist. A purple stain ran down her left breast, and there were smudges on her hem. Her eyes were red and puffy again, and it pushed me closer to anger.

Why does she cry? Can’t she understand what that does to me?

“Where is she?” I asked.

“In the second guest bedroom—I, this way.” Olivia stepped back, her gaze sweeping up and down my body, taking in the suit, the stature. I entered her living area and blinked at the sheer mess everywhere.

Clothes, crayons, and the sink overflowing with unwashed dishes. Open plan kitchen- living room-slash-baby garbage dump. Olivia swayed off ahead of me, crunched a crayon in half and jumped but didn’t look back. I watched her ass wobble, then shook my head.

I was here to perform a task, and it wasn’t to check out my college crush’s ass. That sweet ass that’d always been mine. The one she’d taken away from me because I’d refused to love it.

“Down here.”

I hightailed it after her, my shoes pounding on the wooden boards, until I reached the source of wailing. I entered the guestroom and found Penny, sitting upright in her crib, tears streaking her little face, her eyes screwed up.

I bent and swept her up, holding her little body firm as possible. She stiffened and opened her eyes wide, her mouth dropped open, exposing four drool-slathered front teeth. She let out a peep, then blinked at me.

Yeah, the kid recognized me all right.

“Beck poo,” she gurgled. “Beck poo! Beck poo! Beck poo here. Beck poo’s gonna stay night?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m here.” I hadn’t come sooner. I hadn’t looked up Penny, because I’d been too wasted or too busy. Too fucked up inside from losing Mike to see past my own pain. Asshole.

I tucked the little girl against my chest and rocked her from side to side. “I’m here,” I repeated.

She let out a sniffle and a hiccup. “Beck poo. Where my daddy? Daddy coming?”

“No, baby, Dad and Mommy are not coming,” I whispered.

“Beck poo here.”

“Yes, I’m here.” Rock, rock, rock. She was too little to understand that it had to be this way. And god knew, I’d spent enough time around Mike and Shelly… I hadn’t seen Olivia once in all that time.

No wonder if was tough for these two girls. They barely knew each other.

I turned, still rocking the toddler, and caught Olivia’s gaze. She hovered near the doorway, her fingers twisting the end of that robe’s belt, her full bottom lip caught between her teeth.

I nodded once then walked Penny to her crib. “It’s time for you to sleep now, honey,” I whispered. “Beck poo will be right outside the door.” I laid her down again, stroked her little forehead, and grabbed her bottle from the corner.

Penny glugged some water down, then tossed it aside and settled. She blinked up at me. “I love you, Beck Poo.”

Well, damn. Yet another woman to fall for my charms. “And I love you,” I said. The first time I’d said it to a woman. The second time I’d ever thought it. I straightened and walked toward the doorway where Olivia slumped against the jamb, shaking her head, still clutching her silky belt.

I brushed past her, my suit jacket sleeve tugging at the arm of her robe, and heat spread up my side. Why was I still into her? It’d been seven years since that night, and I still couldn’t rid myself of whatever fuckboy feelings had taken hold of me.

I walked toward the living room and the apartment’s exit.

Her footsteps rushed up behind me. “Beckett, wait.” She caught my arm.

I froze, turned my head, looked down at the point of contact.

She released me.

I waited for whatever she had to say. Another weakness on my part. I waited for no one. Except O. Always O.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I would’ve done tonight. Or this morning. Things are difficult right now. We’re settling in, but it’s been over a month, and it’s not getting any better.”

“What did you expect?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

She jerked back as if I’d yelled. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Olivia, you barely spent an hour with the child before Mike—before it happened. What did you expect? That she’d fall in love with you, and you’d have some independent woman movie-style fairy tale?” I hadn’t moved an inch since she’d touched me, but I did now. I closed in on her. She held her ground. “This is real life. Real life is hard. It’s gritty. It kicks you in the teeth, and you’ve got to spit out the blood and fragments and get the fuck up. You’ve got to move on.”

“Trust me, I know all about moving on,” she hissed, those cerulean pools blazing. The fire she’d lacked this morning and tonight was back. The same fire she’d had in college. “You taught me enough about that, all on your own.”

If only she understood—not a day had passed since that I hadn’t thought about this woman. Not one in the past seven years. “Then you should be fine without my help. Don’t call me again.”

“Beckett,” she grunted. “It’s not me who needs you. It’s Penny. I— Ugh.”

“Just admit you need the help. Admit that you’re not cut out for this. You should be in a spa or the Swiss Alps or some shit. You should’ve—”

“Don’t you dare tell me I should’ve given her up,” Olivia snapped and poked me in the chest. The stain on her breast would’ve been comical if not for the pure hatred seething from her. “Don’t you dare. I’ve heard it from everyone else, and I don’t need it from you.”

And we were back.

Back to the days of hating each other. Wanting each other. O had pretended she didn’t care, but it was my stupidity that I hadn’t seen through it at the time. That I’d walked off because she’d given away what I’d wanted myself. What I’d craved like the idiot twenty-one-year-old I was.

“Fine,” I said and walked around the back of her sofa. I sat down in front of the windows, floor-to-ceiling, affording a view of downtown Manhattan, glittering lights and towering skyscrapers. A New York skyline that should’ve soothed me, but didn’t. No TV in here. O had always been more into books.

“What are you doing?” Her voice cracked behind me.

“I’m enjoying the view,” I replied and cast a look back at her. The robe had slipped from her shoulder and exposed that slender, pale flesh. A few freckles spattered across her collarbone. “Care to join me?”

“No.”

“You want me to stay,” I said. “Even if you won’t say it, Olivia. You’re afraid you’ll need my help again, and I won’t be here.”

“You have no idea what I want,” she whispered back.

“Don’t I?” I got up again and walked over to her, got so close her tits brushed my chest. Her nipples hardened, poked the fabric of that stained robe.

She raised her chin, and I admired her again. The tiny wrinkles on her forehead, hardly there, that’d probably grow more pronounced as time passed. The beauty spot beside her left ear, the straightness of her nose. The plushness of those lipstick-free lips. Her eyes flicked from side-to-side as she absorbed me at the same rate I did her.

So different, yet exactly the same.

The last time I’d seen her, she’d hated me. Was it still that way? Could she spare any emotion after Mike’s death? I couldn’t. Whatever happiness I’d possessed had been sucked right out of me, and even then, it’d only been a smidgen.

A doped-up mother and a verbally abusive and negligent father had seen to that.

“No,” she whispered and focused on my eyes at last. “You don’t know. You never knew what I wanted.”

That was a sloppy punch to my gut. It was a bald-faced fucking lie. I’d made her quiver. I’d made her fantasize. I’d made her write.

I shifted her hair from her neck, dragged it back, and she squeezed her eyes shut as it caught at the dip, then disappeared over her shoulder. She exhaled through her nose. Precious O, fragile, delicious. Spoiled. Full of shit. She’d railed against me. She’d hated me.

But she was supposed to be mine.

“Tell me what you want, O.”

The last letter, our little nickname, stiffened her spine. Her eyelids flicked open, the stare hardened. “I’ll tell you what I want, Beckett. I want to sleep. I want one full night of uninterrupted sleep without worrying that Penny’s going to scream her little head off for a person I can’t be.” She looked up at the ceiling. “And I want to shower. I want to shower, and I want to smell good again. I want to wash my hair, Beckett. That’s what I want.”

I dragged my hands down her arms, then held her hands.

“And trust me when I say, the last thing I want right now is you,” she finished and whipped herself from my grip.

“Does that include my help? You want me to leave?” Her bottom lip trembled. “No, you don’t want me to leave,” I replied, and chuckled. “Come on, Olivia. Say you need my help, and I’ll stay. If Penny wakes up, I’ll settle her again. All you have to do is ask.”

The prospect of uninterrupted sleep had her shaky and teary-eyed, but she didn’t get the words out. Simply opened her mouth.

“That’s a good way to catch flies,” I said and tapped the underside of her jaw.

She clicked her teeth together.

“You swallowed enough pride to call me here. What’s a little more?”

“I’m maxed out,” she said.

I turned for the door.

“Wait!”

A slow smile spread my lips.

“Stay.”

“Ask nicely, O,” I commanded.

“Please stay, Beckett. I need your help.”

I nodded and faced her again, lifted a hand to stroke hers.

Olivia back-pedaled and put as much distance between us as possible, snatching her hands out of reach. Her body, fuck. “You can sleep in the first guest bedroom. It’s down the hall, past Penny’s room, right across from the bathroom.” And with that, she spun on her heel and padded off, her curves swaying beneath the robe that couldn’t possibly be sexy but made me crazy regardless.

Olivia Abbott.

My Achilles heel. The one who got away. The one I’d shoved away with both hands.

Sleeping a few feet from me.