His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington (20 page)

She opened the door.

She SO couldn’t do this.

Lilli’s heart completely froze when she spotted No standing behind Harriet’s desk with his arms folded. Well, technically it was No…but it only took one glance for her to realize this was not the No she’d left behind in Japan. Her No had been clean-cut and model handsome, never letting so much as a hair fall out of its swept back, contoured

place unless they were in bed together.

However, this No was nothing at all like his former self. This No stood behind Harriet’s desk as if he, and not the hospital administrator, had complete authority here.

This No wore a suit, but the ubiquitous white shirt had been replaced with a black hoodie. And this No’s hair, though still black, held little resemblance to his previous style. It was no longer swept back. Instead it fell in unfettered waves, the ends indistinguishable from the black of his hoodie.

Back in Japan, he’d put her in mind of a slightly amused hawk. But here in Harriet’s office, the hawk had been replaced by a fierce dragon with burning obsidian eyes.

“Hey!” she said on a shaky breath. “Long time, no see! This is crazy, right? And hey, look at your hair! It grew, like…super fast. So fast…”

She was babbling. She knew this. But his very still, very unsmiling face was making her nervous as hell. Lilli took a deep breath and tried another tactic.

“So…I hear you have some questions,” she said, deliberately calming her voice while gingerly taking a seat in one of the guest chairs. “Questions I’d be happy to answer if you want to sit down, too.”

She indicated the leather swivel chair behind Harriet’s desk. Hoping to bring him closer to eye level so he’d look more Takeshi Kaneshiro, less Ken Watanabe.

But No’s eyes merely flickered toward Harriet’s chair before landing back on her.

Okay
, she thought to herself while beginning to hyperventilate. She definitely, definitely,
de-fin-it-ely
could
not
do this.

“Look, No. I’m sorry. I’m very,
very
sorry about what happened in Japan,” she blurted out. “I think about the situation and how I handled it almost every day. It was a bad move on my part and you definitely didn’t deserve to be treated that way. And…

well, I just can’t apologize to you enough for what I did.”

Lilli paused, giving him a chance to respond. Shout. Stomp his feet. Call her a whore.

Anything.

But he didn’t so much as blink an eye. And she began to wonder… “Are you even hearing what I’m saying?”

No response.

“Okay, look. I realize you’re giving me the silent treatment. Like, the silent treatment on steroids. Which is fine, I guess. But frankly I’m having a real hard time imagining you came all the way here and arranged to meet with me in my supervisor’s office just so you could stare angrily at me and say nothing.”

No acknowledged her comment with a very slight incline of his head. A mere centimeter. Yes, it was more than he’d given her so far, but still not nearly enough for Lilli to know how to proceed.

And though she was trying hard to keep it together, Lilli finally had to ask, “Why are you here, No? Please tell me.”

A beat passed. Then, “You can call me Mr. Nakamura from now on, even in your thoughts.”

Whoa. Well, ok then.
But at least he’d actually spoken.

“Sure, I get it. The intimate nickname train has clearly left the station. I completely understand. Anything else?”

Her only answer was angry silence.

Lilli could only sigh as she said, “Okay, well, I’ve got sick kids to look after upstairs because, you know, cancer…and,” she tapped her badge, “I’m a nurse in real life, so I can’t stay here and do this with you. But you should know, I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about how angry and betrayed you must be feeling right now...must have felt for a long time after I left without any explanation. So if you want, we can talk tonight after I get off of work. I promise to answer any of your questions to the best of my ability—”

Without warning, his arm swung like a sword and hit the intercom at a precise angle. The sudden movement cut Lilli off in mid-apologetic babble.

“Ms. Fields, we are done here. I would like to speak with you about my donation now.”

Whoa! That was abrupt. Then again, who was Lilli to judge? She had no right after what she’d put him through. Yes, she’d had her reasons for the choices she made, but No clearly wasn’t interested in hearing about any of that. And who could blame him, really?

Maybe he only came here to glare at me,
she thought to herself. But what No probably didn’t realize is Lilli had spent the last year living with an angry, grieving teen.

An experience that had required Lilli to develop a very thick skin in a very short period of time. So if he wanted to make her feel even worse about what had happened in Japan, he’d have to do a lot more than glare at her and give her the silent treatment.

Just then the door opened, mercifully interrupting the awkward silence between Lilli and No. Harriet entered her office.

“Good conversation?” she asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Her tone was chipper enough, but Lilli could sense the overbearing older woman was fighting not to lose her shit after having been more or less kicked out of her office by a complete, albeit wealthy, stranger.

Lilli rose from her chair with a tight smile. She was more than ready to get the hell out of here. But she apparently still had some residual muscle memory left over from her time in Japan. Because like Pavlov’s dog, she waited to be dismissed before leaving the room.

“Thank you for the use of your office,” No—Mr. Nakamura to her—answered, giving Harriet a small bow. “I’d like to discuss a few more points with you now that I’m done speaking with Ms. Tucker.”

“Oh fantastic!” Harriet answered with a bright smile. Then with slightly less enthusiasm, she said, “Would you prefer that Ms. Tucker remain here?” It was pretty clear from her tone of voice that she really wanted Lilli to just leave already. And at this point, Lilli was in 100% agreement with her supervisor.

“It is not necessary for Ms. Tucker to stay,” No answered. “She may go now.”

It was all perfectly polite. But his response sent a chill through Lilli. And the expression on his face when he dismissed her without so much as a second glance her way…it was as if an iceberg had made its way into Harriet’s warm office.

The icy chill of that meeting followed Lilli out of the hospital administrator’s wing and clung to her as she made her way back to the oncology center. It took all of her mental effort to stay focused on her patients for the remainder of her shift. She just couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that, in spite of the few words she and No had

exchanged, this situation between them wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

God, the look in his eyes as he’d stared her down. It was the complete opposite of the way his gaze had burned for her in Japan…

“You are very attractive to me, but I do not think you realize this…”
No had said to her once while they were eating dinner together during their last night in Singapore. Then he’d stroked her with his eyes, touching her with them in a way he never did in public.

He’d been right. Lilli hadn’t been aware of her own attractiveness. Not until he told her. Not until he made her believe.

Don’t think about No
, she told herself before redoubling her efforts to do the job she was being paid to do.

By the time she ran down to the curb in front of the hospital to meet Ruby’s bus, Lilli was beyond exhausted. They had another fitting appointment today, plus Dr. Tatum, Ruby’s psychologist, had agreed to see Ruby afterwards, just in case… feelings arose.

Then Lilli had to drive her niece home and come back to the hospital for another shift.

She’d been signing up for as many doubles as she could get, just so they could afford their apartment in Fremont, the only district with a dual-immersion Japanese middle school program.

But at least Lilli’s job was a straight cross-town shot from Ruby’s school. One bus and Ruby was delivered to the front of the Children’s Hospital.

Except today, she wasn’t.

Lilli waited until every single person had gotten off. And no Ruby.

Cursing under her breath, Lilli texted,
“How far away are you?”
to Ruby’s phone.

“No fitting today. Meeting with friend.”
Ruby’s immediate answer came back.

Meeting with friend? What friend? The last time Lilli checked, her niece didn’t have any friends. She was too sullen, too angry, and too handicapped to attract any company during lunch at her new school—just one of the many things Ruby had complained about since Lilli “dragged” her here.

“Ruby, I’m using my entire shift break to take you these appointments. You need

to get on a bus and get down here.”

“No I don’t. You’re not my mother.”

Lilli worked hard to ignore the barrage of angry curse words flooding her head. She took a few deep breaths before typing,
“
True. But I am the person in control of your

screen access, so if you ever want to watch anything again, you need to get down

here immediately...”

No answer. And of course, her niece never arrived.

Feeling utterly defeated, Lilli somehow managed to survive her second shift and eventually trudged home to their apartment building in Fremont. The Lake View Apartments might not have any views of either Green or East Lakes, but the building advertised itself as a “terraced balcony complex”—which was why their ground floor unit had been the least expensive option she could find in the area. Not cheap, mind you, but just about affordable on her nurse’s salary.

Ruby, Lilli wasn’t surprised to find, hadn’t opted to wait up for her. Or even so much as leave a light on in their unit.

Don’t lose your shit, Lilli. Don’t lose your shit. She’s only thirteen and she’s going
through a lot. She needs understanding, not screaming,
Lilli told herself as she trudged

toward Ruby’s room.

It was late, but Lilli had to at least check that her niece was actually asleep and not hunkered down in her bed doing whatever it is pissed off teen girls did at night on their smart phones.

With a sigh, Lilli quietly opened the door to Ruby’s darkened room, really hoping her niece was sound asleep. Because if she wasn’t, Lilli knew she’d be obligated to talk to Ruby about what had happened. Which would most certainly lead to one of Ruby’s patented meltdowns. And that was the last thing Lilli wanted to deal with after pulling a double shift on what had quite possibly been the shittiest day she’d had in a long while.

Lilli paused at the door of the dark room, realizing she was dangerously close to losing perspective. Something she couldn’t afford to do, no matter what. Because Ruby was her niece. And she’d been through a lot. And at the end of the day, Lilli and Ruby were the only people either of them had left.

She just wished Ruby could see even a little past all her pain and misery to realize she was pushing away someone who loved her and only wanted the best for her—

Just then, Lilli’s worries took a back seat. Something wasn’t right. From where she stood on the threshold of Ruby’s room, Lilli noticed the ominous silence that occurs when a room is supposed to be occupied but is, in fact, empty. Lilli knew without having to see inside the room that Ruby was gone.

What the…?

Lilli flicked on the light. Only to find Ruby’s bed empty, still made up from this morning and completely undisturbed.

“Okay, okay…” Lilli thought, heart racing. Ruby wasn’t here. Maybe she was still at her anonymous friend’s house—

Again, her thoughts cut off, because she just couldn’t believe Ruby had managed to make a friend—especially one who’d actually invite her over. Ruby wasn’t exactly a typical kid, even amongst her school’s small half-black, half-Asian population. Her thick Japanese accent set her apart, and she didn’t really fit in with the majority of native Japanese students because they typically came from two-parent households.

“I’m fleek,” she’d complained to Lilli just last week.

And it had taken five confusing minutes of back and forth between them before Lilli understood Ruby thought she was a freak at school.

So no, it wasn’t going well there. Or at home.

But had Ruby been so miserable she’d decided to run away?

No
,
Lilli assured herself. First of all, where would she have run to? She had no friends, and she depended on Lilli to help her with her prosthesis, and feed her, and get her to school. But just in case she might be wrong…

Lilli went over to the small set of IKEA drawers she’d bought for her niece, only to have her heart stop when she realized the top drawer was empty. And the next one.

And the one after that.

Oh God. All four drawers were completely empty of Ruby’s things.

She
had
run away.

Sprinting back into the living room where she’d tossed her purse, Lilli snatched her phone out, all the while cursing herself for not coming home earlier. She had to call the police. She had to—

Lilli stopped short when she saw the item she’d failed to notice when she first arrived at the apartment. An 85-inch Naka LED 4K television now stood in their living room.

And on it was a post-it note with an address scrawled across it in handwriting she recognized as Ruby’s.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“WHERE THE HELL is my niece? Tell me! Tell me right now.”

No forced himself to remain where he was. Pretended to peruse the red lace leaf maple in the tea garden of his ultra-modern Lake Washington house, in order to disguise what he was really doing. Bracing himself to look at her again.

It turned out that reminding himself of her betrayal did nothing to prevent his seemingly automatic response to her. He carefully buttoned his jacket over the growing bulge inside his trousers before turning to face the duplicitous little nurse.