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“If you’re planning to throw another punch, skip my face.” I point to the fading bruise on my jaw. “I have too many meetings this week to nurse a black eye.”
Dominik looks at me like he’s considering it before he shakes his head. “I think my blow already landed.”
50
LAILA
People who say they “slept like a baby” have clearly never met a baby. They’ve definitely never put one to sleep before.
Because it’s warfare, and I’m fresh from the battle.
My hip aches from pacing a marathon across the room—back and forth and back and forth. Nina’s eyes would drift closed, and I’d just merely think about considering the possibility of laying her down, and thenwham, they’d snap right open again.
Then, for no discernible reason, she went from perfectly content to screeching at the top of her tiny but powerful lungs.
My daughter is a perfect angel sent to us to make Earth a better place, but the hot and cold thing—she gets that from her father.
Finally, after an hour of pacing and bear-hugging her to my chest so she couldn’t fight her way out of my arms and go splat on the floor, she crashed out. I’ve just nestled her into the bassinet and backed away slowly when there’s a knock at the door.
Panic that she’ll wake up and this entire process will start all over again is the only reason I wrench it open without checking to see who is on the other side.
Arsen takes a step back as I whirl into the hallway and shush him. “I just got the baby to sleep. So help me God, if you wake her up…”
He glances past me into the room. It was supposed to be our room—mine and his—but it’s mine and Nina’s now. I pull the door partially closed behind me.
“You have a minute?” he asks when the silence has fallen again.
“I never have a minute anymore. I’m supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps.”
Yet another saying that reeks of people who don’t have children. If I sleep when she sleeps, when do I shower? When am I supposed to change my clothes or brush my teeth or eat something that isn’t a stale cracker wedged in the cushions of the rocking chair?
“It won’t take long.”
Compared to what?I have no sense of time anymore. It’s been a week since Nina was born—a week since Arsen took me out to dinner, a week since we came back and had sex on the couch, a week since he abandoned me in the hospital with our newborn—but it might as well have been six months.
I shrug. He can go ahead if he must. It makes no difference to me.
“I had a talk with your father.”
Okay, that might make a little difference to me.
“Why do I get the feeling that it was less of a conversation and more of an abduction?”
I don’t expect him to tell me anything, but he slides his hands into his pockets. “I set his car on fire.”
“Youwhat?”
“I made sure he got a front row seat to the fireworks, too.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I can only hope he understood the message. But just in case he’s thicker than I suspect and he tries to contact you again, I need you to tell me right away.”
I blink. It’s a lot to take in at once. A week ago, my father reaching out would’ve been a five-alarm meltdown. But after countless hours of lost sleep and dirty diapers, it barely registered on my radar. I had almost forgotten about it until now.
“Your old house and the land it’s on are my responsibility now. If you give me a copy of the deed, I can make sure it’s ironclad. Charles won’t even be able to dream about that house without raising an alarm.”
“I’ll get the deed to you tomorrow.” I step back into the room, ready to close the door on him. “Thanks for taking care of it for me.”
“It’s my job.”
How’s that for a reminder?
