Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) (19 page)

His eyes, she noticed anew, were really amazing. As clear and hypnotic as staring into a handful of uncut brown diamonds. No one else had eyes like
this
...

“I’m hungry.”

Startled, Angela turned to see Maya come down the hall with a now neatly dressed and coiffed Barbie. Reaching out to the girl, Angela felt the steady pressure of Justus’s unblinking gaze still on her face. He didn’t even greet Maya.

Angela knelt in front of Maya, profoundly grateful for the diversion and the opportunity to unfog her brain. She seriously needed to stop looking him directly in the face like that. If he discovered the unnatural power he had over her, he’d use it to train her to cluck like a chicken whenever he wanted, and she’d never know the difference.

“Come here, sweetie.” Angela surveyed her critically. “You look pretty good. Clean face. Neat hair. I think you’re ready for dinner. Did you say
hi
to Uncle Justus?”

Maya obediently walked over to Justus. Angela stood, tugged her jeans up over her hips, then turned to face them. Her face still felt hot, so she kept her eyes lowered.

Safer that way.

“You could...come with us,” he told Angela, absently patting Maya’s back. “Or did you have”—he swallowed—“other plans?”

“No.” Growing more agitated by the second, she sifted her fingers through her bangs and straightened a stack of books on the coffee table. “Well, I mean I don’t have any other plans, but I can’t. I need to do some work, and I wanted to start getting some of my stuff out of Maya’s room.”

Justus nodded curtly.

“Where’s your jacket?” he asked Maya, focusing on the child for the first time. “We need—”

The doorbell rang, startling them.

Sparing Justus a quizzical look—who’d stop by without calling at six-thirty on a Friday night?—Angela hurried to the door and checked the peephole.

It was Ronnie.

* * *

S
he opened
the door but blocked his entrance and kept her hand on the knob in case she needed to slam the door in his face.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “And why are you looking at me like that?”

Ronnie got his eyes back in his head with some difficulty. “My God, you look great,” he blurted.

“I—thank you,” she said, unsettled. She couldn’t remember the last time Ronnie had complimented her like that. “What’s up?”

After another sweeping once-over that lingered on her sliver of bare belly, Ronnie got to the point. “I...didn’t like the way we left things the other day. I didn’t call first because I figured you’d tell me not to come.”

“You were right.”

Just then, Justus materialized at her side, gave Ronnie a scathing look, and touched her elbow. “You okay?”

“
Yes,”
Angela said quickly, hoping to defuse the situation before Justus flew off the handle—something she knew instinctively would be bad. Very
bad
. He already looked as if he wanted to find her needle-nosed pliers and start yanking Ronnie’s teeth one by one. “Ronnie just wants to talk.”

This turned out to be wasted breath, because Justus wasn’t listening.

“She told you the other day she didn’t want to talk to you.” On the danger scale, his hard voice registered only slightly lower than the sound of a rifle being cocked. “Why aren’t you listening, son?”

Ronnie stiffened and then puffed up with outrage, managing to look like a yappy little terrier next to a panther. “I didn’t realize you were Angela’s spokesperson.”

Justus made an indistinct sound of irritation, jerked Angela behind him, and put his hand on the knob. “Get out,” he told Ronnie. “Don’t come back. Ever.”

Wait a minute.

“Excuse me,” Angela snapped. “This is
my
house.
I
do the expulsions around here.”

“Be my guest,” Justus said, gesturing toward Ronnie.

“Ronnie’s got one minute,” she said. “Not that it’s any of
your
business, Justus.”

Justus kept his hand on the knob but pivoted to gape at her. “
What?
”

Angela raised a calming hand. “I’ve decided—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Justus barked. Still staring at Angela, he jerked his arm and the door slammed like a thunderclap in Ronnie’s startled face.

“Are you kidding me?” Angela cried. “Will you calm down?”

“Calm down? Are you going back to this jackass?” Justus jabbed his thumb at the closed door. “Is
that
what this is about?”

“Of course not. I’m going to hear what he has to say, then he’s going to leave.”

“Yeah, right,” Justus muttered.

“What’s gotten into you?” Angela demanded. “Why are you acting like a caveman again?”

“Aunt Ang-la?” A wide-eyed Maya crept around the corner. “Who’s there?”

Angela smoothed out her expression before she scared the poor girl to death. Turning to face her, she tried to smile. “No one, sweetie. Just a friend of mine.”

Turning back around, Angela shoved Justus, who guarded the door, legs braced, like a military policeman watching a high-value terrorist.

“Get out of the way!” she said.

Grumbling under his breath, a vein throbbing visibly in his temple, Justus stepped away from the door. “Let’s go, Maya. Grab your little coat.”

Angela opened the door. Ronnie leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, apparently prepared to wait indefinitely.

Justus brushed by Angela from behind, towing Maya along with him.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered before disappearing down the hall.

With a nervous swipe to her hair, Angela held the door open for Ronnie. “Come on in.”

Ronnie stepped inside and looked warily around, as if he expected Justus to magically spring out from behind the sofa and kick his ass after all. He sat and stared up at her, his expression accusatory.

“I thought you said there was nothing going on with him.”

Angela couldn’t believe she’d ever dated anyone who was this big a hypocrite. “First of all, my personal life is no longer any of your business,” she said. “And second, there’s nothing going on with me and Justus. You’re the only lying cheat around here.”

Ronnie’s eyes narrowed. “Then why is he so possessive?”

“He’s not possessive. He’s protective.”

“Yeah, right.”

Angela had had about enough. Maya would be back before she knew it and Angela still hadn’t eaten dinner, done any work, or started on Maya’s room yet.

“Why are you here, Ronnie?” She checked her watch. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before they come back. If you want me to pack up your toothbrush and your—”

“No.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I want you to know how sorry I am about Carolyn. And how sorry I am that you have to deal with our breakup and her death at the same time—”

“Oh, don’t worry about
that
,” Angela said, her claws out now. “The good thing about my sister dying was that it put our little breakup right in perspective for me. I haven’t given you a second thought.”

Ronnie winced. “Don’t, Angela,” he said reproachfully. “We really had something—”

“Not much, apparently.”

“Angela—”

“Why couldn’t you have just told me you wanted out? At least then I would’ve had some good feelings left for you instead of this...”

“You hate me,” he said, slumping back against the cushions.

She hesitated. “No, I don’t.”

It was true, she realized. She was sad over a failed three-year relationship, of course, although that was much better than, say, marrying him and divorcing, as they surely would have.

But she wasn’t
heartbroken
. Life would go on and Ronnie’s loss wouldn’t kill her.

Funny. She hadn’t really broken stride over his loss. She wondered if she ever would.

“I have been wondering, though.” This was the question no woman ever wants to ask, but Angela didn’t want to spend any more time speculating. “What does she have that I don’t?”

Ronnie flushed and studied the floor. “I don’t think—”

“It’s the sex, isn’t it?”

Ronnie had the decency to keep quiet, but Angela
knew
.

Of course it was the sex, she thought bitterly, her cheeks burning with humiliation. He’d decided that three years of lukewarm sex was more than enough and had gone in search of—and easily found—greener pastures.

God. This was so much worse than she’d expected.

She’d feared that Ronnie would claim he’d taken one look at this new woman and fallen in love with her...that destiny brought them together and their love was too powerful to be denied. But the truth was so much more painful:

He didn’t love the other woman, but he damn sure preferred her bed to Angela’s.

She should’ve known.

“I, uh...” She cleared her throat and got up. “I have things to do.”

Ronnie also stood. “You’re a wonderful woman, Angela. I’m glad for all the time we spent together.”

Sure, she thought dully.

He admired her. Respected her. He just didn’t
want
her.

There was a lot of that going around, she decided, her thoughts reverting to Justus.

* * *

J
ustus watched
Maya play with her dessert, which was the same unappetizing concoction of soft-serve vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, gummy worms, and M&M’s she always got when they came to her favorite buffet restaurant. They’d been here more times than he cared to count because Maya liked the freedom of being able to choose her own food. So he’d trail behind her in line, balancing their plates, while she barked out orders about what she wanted. Generally she wound up with some sort of Jell-O salad or other, fried shrimp and fish nuggets, pizza, and a cheeseburger—more food than she would normally eat in a month. When he registered the obligatory protest that she hadn’t chosen anything healthy, she grumbled and grudgingly let him put a small scoop of corn on the edge of her plate. Then, when she’d finished a few bites of everything, they’d return to the buffet for her little sundae.

Usually they had a delightful time.

Tonight had been a complete bust.

“Aren’t you going to finish your ice cream?” he asked.

Maya listlessly stirred the soupy mess in her bowl. “I’m full.”

“Are you getting sick?” Justus reached across the table and checked her forehead. She scowled. “You don’t feel warm.”

Maya fished a gummy worm out of the ice cream with her fingers and dangled it over her face, then lowered the dripping mess into her mouth.

“I’m done,” she announced.

Well, thank God for small favors. The entire lower half of her face was covered with ice cream and hot fudge, as were her hands.

“I’m going to have to take you out back and hose you off,” he muttered.

She giggled, the first sign of the old Maya he’d seen all night.

“How are you doing, little girl?” He dipped his napkin in his ice water and tried to clean her up a little by wiping her fingers. “You haven’t said much tonight.”

She shrugged. “Good.”

“How was school today?”

“Good.”

“Did Emily hit anyone today, or was she being nice?”

“Nice.”

Justus went to work on her face. “Did you have cheese and crackers again for snack, or—”

“No. Sam brought cupcakes for his birthday.”

“
Cupcakes
. Nice.”

Justus hesitated. He wanted to ask whether she missed her parents, which would, of course, be a really stupid question. Angela was right, though—they needed to see the child psychologist as soon as possible.

He sighed. “You ready to go, little girl? You look tired.”

She screwed up her face. “I don’t like that man!”

“What man?” he asked blankly.

“At Aunt Ang-la’s house.”

Oh,
that
man. His stomach twisted back into its jealous knot.

Join the club
, he wanted to tell her.

Instead he did the responsible parent thing. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“I don’t!”

“Have you, uh, seen him before?” he asked casually, ashamed to catch himself interrogating a preschooler about Angela’s personal life, but willing to get past it if the tactic produced useful information.