Chapter 4
Cat
I don’t know how we’re going to make this work with everything and everyone against us. When my family finds out about us, they’ll probably disown me. Kate’s going to hate me. If I were her, I would definitely hate me.
Maybe the best thing to do is keep this thing between Nick and me a secret for as long as possible.
Nick’s not going to like sneaking around, lying to everyone for too long.
I hate the idea of us hiding the way we feel about each other, but I don’t want to be the one to break my family’s heart, to see the disappointment in their faces for what I’ve done and what I’m doing to my sister.
God, it’s going to be a hundred times worse when they find out she’s pregnant.
This was not what I envisioned when I decided to come back.
I thought Nick and I had a real chance of being together.
What can be better than being in love with your best friend, the person who knows you the best, who you can share almost anything with without being judged?
The last thing in the world I expected was to come home and find out my sister is engaged— much less pregnant—to the same man I spent more than half of my life loving.
It will always hurt every time I think about it.
Damn. Life can be a cruel bitch. When you’ve found the happiness you’ve always wanted, it slaps you across the face and tells you to wake the fuck up!
I roll back over to the other side of the bed to look at my phone again.
Sitting up, I scan the room for something to put on so I can go find Nick.
I see one of his white dress shirts folded neatly on a chair.
I throw the covers off, walk over and put it on.
It’s big on me, practically swallowing me up.
I feel like a little kid playing dress up in her daddy’s clothes, except this daddy is the hottest daddy I’ve ever seen.
A picture of Kate and a baby in her arms—who looks like Nick—pops into my head.
I close my eyes against the ache in my chest and push it out of my mind.
I hope this baby is not Nick’s. It would make things easier.
Wouldn’t it be great if I had a genie in a bottle?
I stand in the doorway, watching him. I can stare at him for hours.
He’s sitting on the floor in his pajama pants, shirtless, well-defined abs clearly outlined with his back against the sofa.
His legs are up, forearms on his knees, a beer bottle in his hand.
He’s deep in thought. To anyone else it would seem as if he’s relaxed and enjoying the view of the city.
But I can see his jaw is tense and his lips are drawn together.
Maybe he’s having second thoughts about us.
Why wouldn’t he? I’m having doubts myself.
As much as I want to be with him, I would be lying to myself and to him if I said I wasn’t scared about what lies ahead for us.
This is a no-win situation for everyone.
We all have something to lose. For me, the respect of my family and them seeing me in a different light.
What if they choose sides, and I’m not on the side they choose?
I don’t know if I can handle being an outsider in my own family.
As much as I don’t want Kate’s baby to be Nick’s, I know if it’s not, she’ll be losing out on a great father for her baby.
She’s still my sister and I love her, I want her have the best—to be happy and have everything she’s ever wanted; married to a wonderful man and a father for her child that will put the both of them first before anyone or anything else.
Like Ava said, a man that will show her and her child a love that only comes around once in a lifetime.
Nick runs the chance of losing a family he’s known and been close to for years.
He could lose a friend that is a brother to him.
Family comes first, but they are family to each other.
They grew up together, wherever one was the other was never far behind.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a friendship like theirs.
I watch him for another few minutes before I decide to walk to him.
Seeing him sitting there, raising the bottle to his mouth, taking a long pull of his beer, looking sexier than any man has a right to in the middle of the night, makes me want to run my hands through his charcoal black hair, ease my legs over him, taking his lips between my teeth, kissing him until I can’t think anymore.
“Hey, you,” I whisper to him, not wanting to disturb the peacefulness in the room. He takes my hand, and I can’t help but smile at the feeling that flows up to my arms through my body from this one simple touch. I sit down next to him and flick my tongue over his shoulder with an open-mouthed kiss.
“Mmm…if you keep that up, I’m going to rip that shirt off, and we’re going to go for round three right here on the floor.”
“I wouldn’t object. I think I might like that. Me on my back, you on top of me, doesn’t sound too bad at all.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
He kisses me softly on the lips and puts his hand on the side of my face with the beer bottle in the other hand.
I open my mouth and run my tongue against his upper lip.
I feel the warmth of his mouth against mine, the sweet taste of beer mixed with his unique flavor.
I moan and pull back to look into his eyes, and he rests his forehead against mine.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I woke up and you were gone.”
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, you were gone for a while. I missed you, so I decided to come looking for you. You looked like you had something on your mind. Are you having second thoughts about us?” His eyes close down a little, and I can see the intense look that changes the shade to the color of the sky on a cloudy day.
“There are no second thoughts when it comes to the way I feel about you, and us being together. I know what I want. I want you. I will always want you. Do you understand me?” he says, with all the intensity I see in his eyes.
I nod my head. “Yes.” He runs his thumb over my cheekbone, kissing me on the corner of my mouth.
“Don’t ever doubt the feelings I have for you, Cat.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s late, you should go back to bed.”
I place my hand on his arm before he has a chance to get up. “If you’re worried about it, then it’s something for me to worry about. Don’t try to lie to me. I know when something is bothering you; we’ve been friends far too long for me not to know.”
He puts the bottle down to the side, spreads his legs apart, pulls me between his legs, and puts his arm around my shoulders.
He lets out a deep breath, and I rest the back of my head against his bare chest. Bending down, he kisses me on the side of my neck and wraps his other arm around my waist. I could sit here like this with him forever. Just the two of us, safe and secure.
“I love that you know me so well. I missed my friend. I’m glad you came back to me.”
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s on your mind. I know if there was something on my mind, you wouldn’t stop until you knew what it was.”
“I was thinking about a case I’m going to take—and my father. Life in general.”
“Is your father a part of the case?”
“No, he’s a part of the reason I took this case.”
“Why? Did he ask you to?”
“It goes back to what he taught me about being in business and a lawyer.”
“What did he teach you? He’s a pretty good lawyer. If you learned something from him, it had to be good; it helped make you the success you are now.”
“Yeah, it did, but at what cost? When you’re a lawyer, somewhere along the way you have to do things and make some deals that go against what you thought you believed in. Things that you thought you would never do to get to the top of your game.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s say there’s a case where a young man allegedly mugs an old woman.
He’s arrested, and his father believes he’s innocent.
I know he’s one hundred percent guilty, but his father wants the best for him; he doesn’t want his only son to go to jail.
He wants to get the best money and power can buy for him.
I refuse to represent his son. He says, ‘There’s a case you’re working on, and I can give you what you need to win—something you can’t get on your own—to keep an innocent man from going to jail for life, for a crime he didn’t commit. If you represent my son, it’s yours.’
“What would you do? Would you accept his offer?”
I think about it, while he’s rubbing his hand across my stomach.
“I know what you’re thinking. This is a simply answer: it’s black and white, yes or no, right or wrong.
But if I refuse his offer, an innocent young man goes to jail for fifty years.
His life is over before he has a chance to experience it.
On the other hand, if I take the case, even though his son is one hundred percent guilty of attacking this poor old woman, I’m sure can get him off.
“There are no witnesses, she didn’t see what he looked like, her eyesight is failing; she can’t even tell you what he was wearing at the time of her attack.
The only thing she can recall is the scent of the cologne he was wearing.
He was arrested five blocks away from where she was mugged with the exact amount of money she had on her at the time and a pen identical to one her granddaughter had given her for her eightieth birthday. ”
I blow out a long sigh.
“All I have to do is put her on the stand and make her look like a senile old lady by making her doubt herself. If I don’t take the case, someone else could take the case and get him off, and I run the risk of sending an innocent man to jail for a crime he didn’t commit, or I could take the case, help set an innocent man free while at the same time letting a guilty man that committed a far lesser crime free.
The punk wouldn’t see a day in jail for the crime he committed. ”
“If you were this lawyer, what would you do?” I ask, not coming to any decision of my own.
“I would take the case and set an innocent man free.”
“What about the elderly lady? The other victim, where’s her justice? Who is going to stand up for her and give her the justice she deserves?” I ask him, feeling sad for her.
“She becomes an unfortunate casualty in the pursuit of justice for all. Her cuts and bruises will heal. She’s had a chance to live her life. Sometimes you make a deal with the devil, and he comes back to collect.
“That was the first deal I ever made. I’ve made a few more since then. Today was the last of my deals I made with one of the many devils out there. He came to collect.”
Wow. “Have you ever regretted making the choice you made?”
“No. But I was sorry she didn’t get the justice she rightfully deserved. I know it doesn’t make up for what happened to her, but I paid her legal fees and paid her rent anonymously until she died last year.”
This is a side of him I’ve never known. He’s really showing me everything, good and bad.
“In many ways, I’m like my father, as much as I try not to be. I’m not perfect, Cat, I’m the definition of perfectly imperfect.”
So am I.
“That’s another reason I tried so hard to fight my feelings for you.”
“Personally, I don’t know your father well, I’ve heard things about him, but what does that have to do with your feeling for me?”
“My dad was never faithful to my mother. Well, maybe he was in the beginning of their marriage…that’s what I assume, anyway, from their pictures and the way my mother used to talk about the start of their marriage. It definitely wasn’t the case toward the end of their marriage.”
“What happened, why did they get divorced?”
“He couldn’t keep it in his pants. He had women practically falling out the kitchen cabinets. Didn’t even try to hide it.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“Yeah, it was so bad I was afraid to go in the kitchen. I was afraid a big-breasted woman might fall on top of me and smother me to death.”
I laugh at his attempt at a joke. “Nick, that’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is, you’re laughing. Picture the headlines.”
I shake my head at the thought. “He was a repeat offender.”
“A repeat offender?”
“A guy who cheats more than once—it’s their thing. I dated a few of those; I’m so happy I didn’t sleep with any of them.”
“That makes two of us.”
He takes a sip of his beer and puts it back down.
“I can’t believe he would do that to your mother. She’s such a nice person.”
“Seriously, fucked-up things usually happen to the nicest people.”
“I’ve only met your father a handful of times, but he was always nice to me.”
“He was probably scouting you out to recruit you to be one of his new mistresses when you came of age and were ripe for the picking.”
My eyes wide, I turn my head up. He looks down at me with a smile and a soft chuckle.
“Eww, I’m glad you’re joking ’cause that would just be gross, a real perv move.” This is the first time Nick has ever really talked about his father to me. Now I know why. “It must have been hard to go through that, to see her go through that. I know how much you love your mother.”
“I don’t want to hurt you like that.”
I twist around in his arms and sit up on my knees in front of him. “Will you?”
His knees up, he puts his arms on top of them looking directly in my eyes. He doesn’t say a word, it’s like he’s searching for the answer. It shouldn’t take this long.
“No.”
Putting my hands on his face, I look into his eyes and run the pad of my thumb across his lips, searching for my own answer.
“I believe you.”
Grabbing me by the back of the head, he kisses me long and hard until I can’t breathe. I put my head on his chest and my arms around his waist. He cradles me in his arms, finishes his beer, and I listen to the steady beat of his heart, the moon and stars watching us.