Page 43 of Vegas Baby

He still had to wrap his mind around the fact she had a rich father but she wasn’t rich.

“We should probably work out a custody arrangement before we turn bitter and use our child as leverage against each other,” he said, half joking.

She picked up her ice water and sipped from the glass, a slight curve to her mouth. “I think it’s a good idea as well. I’ll have my attorney contact your attorney.”

“Between my assistant and your assistant, and my attorney and your attorney, we don’t really need to talk, do we?”

“Wait until we get a nanny.” She laughed and leaned back in her chair, yawning. “Sorry, I get tired early these days.”

“You want to continue working then?” He pushed his plate aside and slid his thumb along the sweating glass.

“I never gave it much thought. I planned on taking the baby to work with me, or work from home. Unless you want to be a stay-at-home dad.”

He tried to control his grimace.

She shook her head, her slender hand raised. “Don’t volunteer to do something you have no intention of doing.”

Howler had no intention of doing so but her accusation stung and he had no idea why. “I can’t say with any certainty what I will or won’t do.”

“You travel a lot.”

“So do you,” he reminded.

She frowned; her mouth tight. “Yes, but that’ll have to stop once the child is due. If Miller wants me to continue to work for him, he’ll let me have my way. But until then, let’s assume we’ll need a nanny.”

He nodded, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the decisions needing to be made. “Unlike Miller, my family won’t require an appointment. I think we should keep with the same story we crafted for Patel. The only person I’ve told the entire truth to is Sam. Does Trent know every detail?”

“He knows the truth, yes.” She bit the corner of her lip and raised inquisitive eyes to his. “And Leo of course. It never occurred to me he’d see the email…”

“It never occurred to me either but we couldn’t hide it forever.” He inspected the line of her jaw, skin silky soft, kissable. While he promised she could make the call for when they have sex, he wasn’t above trying to expedite it. He stared into liquid blue eyes; his pulse thrummed at the prospect. Good old-fashioned flattery might do the trick. She was right. He was an asshole but he wanted to kiss her again and it was proving difficult not to.

She settled back into her seat, a dot of color on her cheeks. Could she read his thoughts, or were hers running along similar lines? He hoped it was the case.

“When do you want to visit your grandmother and your cousins in Spokane? I’ll have to clear my schedule for the trip since I’ll be working more weekends,” she said.

Fuck. He stabbed a piece of carrot from his salad, crunching it between his teeth, the action somewhat satisfying in his current agitated state. Introducing her to Grams and Pop would be tricky but if he wanted this to work out between them, he owed her the truth, at least a partial one.

Except talking about his father, David, still infuriated him and he didn’t want to go to a dark place, not tonight. It simply wasn’t worth the headache. “I haven’t been back to the Rez for over ten years. Grams took me in after my mother died of a drug overdose and my father, well he wasn’t around. I was fostered by a family in the tribe until my Grams was located.”

Gripping his fork, he studied Raina’s face, stomach clenched. He waited for the fallout of his confession. People usually felt sorry for him, and it was insulting. He didn’t want that from Raina. “My grandparents took great care of me and the other five kids they fostered. Not my real siblings but we were like family, still are. I’ll check with Grams but I have to warn you, it’s a very loud household.”

After the trauma of his youth, he’d wanted to hide away but it wasn’t possible in Grams’s house. He’d been forced to participate with the living and in hindsight, he was grateful for her insistence. Without his siblings, he would have retreated to a dark place instead of living in the light.

“I’d like that. I missed out on having a big family. Which reminds me,” she licked her lips and cleared her throat. “When we were at the wedding, you said you didn’t want kids of your own. Obviously, we’re having a child, and if we stay together, I want more children.”

Children, as in plural? He rolled the idea around his head, unsure how to feel about it. When he pictured his life, it was never with a wife nor children. Just him and his job. If she wanted more kids, it could be a game changer. He’d never thought he’d have one child, yet in less than a year, their baby would be born. A child he hadn’t planned on but one he wanted to raise. His entire world was going insane and he along with it. “How many is more?”

“I don’t know, three. I’ve always wanted a big family. We don’t have to decide on it now. I mean, we haven’t even had the first one yet. But I needed to put it out there.”

Choose your words carefully. “It’s an important question. My father had given my grandmother such a bad time over the years, running away, and then returning with some stray teenager before he disappeared again, she became a foster parent. I grew up around lots of kids and as the eldest, I helped take care of the younger ones.” He’d felt weighted down by the responsibility, but he couldn’t share this with Raina. He was no longer a kid himself. He was about to be a father and he’d be a hell of a lot better one than David.

“It was Brandi and me. She tended to find men with grown children. She isn’t exactly the maternal type and prefers to marry older men with money. That’s one of the things she and Miller had in common. He was a trust fund baby, used to the good life. She was a stripper who worked for money and snagged a rich boyfriend, got pregnant and blackmailed him into an undisclosed settlement. To this day, I have no clue how much he paid her.”

“You did say Miller was the king of the non-disclosure.”

“Actually, I was born pre-NDA. Miller’s dirty little secret.” Her fingers tightened on her fork, the bite in her tone telling.

“Boy, we sure came from some jacked up parents,” he said, taking a sip of water. The room had cooled substantially since the sun went down and she crossed her arms, the actions pushing her breasts high. The V-neck of her sweater exposed her cleavage and the respite from his own libido was over. Awareness once again snagged his imagination.

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