Page 17 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

“I want to meet him.”

Her head shook before she even thought to speak. “No. No way.”

“I have to meet him,” Baxter said. “Did you think you could keep us apart forever?”

“In time, maybe, once you’ve had the chance to get used to the idea.”

“Did he have the chance to get used to me?” he asked, sounding snide. “You told him my name, right? Does he know you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes, he knows,” she said, doing her best not to sneer. “And I told him your first name. I really don’t think he gives a shit about who I’m seeing.”

“Have you met his girlfriend?”

“He doesn’t have one,” she said, forcing herself to pick up a fry.

Baxter raised his hips to retrieve his phone from his pocket. “Let’s find out.”

Her wrist loosened, dropping the fry. “What are you doing? You don’t have his number,” she said, hoping he hadn’t invaded her phone at some point to copy the “Baby Daddy” number from her contacts.

He turned the phone around to show an online search bar bearing JD’s name. “World of instant information. Don’t tell me you never Googled him.”

“Never,” she said. “Well, yeah, I did, back when I found out I was pregnant, but that was about as useful as an umbrella in a forest fire. Sometimes I see stuff by accident, but I never—”

“Gabriella Wellesley,” he said and flashed the screen at her briefly, just long enough for her to glimpse an image of JD with a svelte blonde. “Billionaire heiress and model.”

“He’s not seeing her.”

He lifted the phone closer to his face and swiped some more. “They look pretty close to me… Oh yeah, check out that one.”

Showing her again, he extended his arm to give her a better look at JD on the beach with the same blonde.

In a tiny bikini, little was left to the imagination.

The girl had an amazing figure. Amazing enough to make her blanch at the sight of JD standing, holding the woman, his hands resting on her pert, almost-naked butt.

Baxter swung the phone away and kept swiping. “Wow, this guy doesn’t seem to have a type. There’s a redhead, a brunette. One from here, one from there… is he just working his way through the continents?”

“You should know better than to believe everything you read on the internet,” she said. “He’s not seeing anyone.”

“Looks to me like he is… wonder which one he’ll introduce to your kids now that the gag is gone.”

“He wouldn’t introduce any of them to the kids,” she said. “And he isn’t seeing anyone.”

“Think you know better than the internet?”

“Yes,” she said. “Because I heard it from the horse’s mouth. He isn’t seeing anyone.”

Adjusting the angle of the phone, Baxter’s ogling apparently became reading. “Hmm, maybe you’re right. This article here says he and Gabriella broke off their engagement a month ago. Funny, that’s like right before he showed up here… Guess the kids are the flavor of the month.”

“Don’t,” she said, losing her battle with the sneer. “Don’t do that. Don’t imply he’s only here because his relationship broke down.”

“An engagement, that’s a big deal,” he said. “Did she ever meet the kids?”

“What?”

“This woman, the billionaire heiress, did she meet the children?”

“No.”

“Because you asked him that too?” Baxter put his phone on the table. “You don’t really know what he did with the kids on his weekends. Maybe she stayed with him at his mother’s.”

Maybe. She couldn’t refute that. She’d never probed into who the kids met at his mother’s, as her encounter with Anya had proven. If JD was planning to marry this Gabriella woman, and he’d told the kids about it, she couldn’t imagine neither of them would mention it to her.

“I’ll ask him about it.”

“Why?” Baxter asked. “Does it matter? If he’s going to marry her, the kids will have to get to know her. If they’ve broken up, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“It matters if JD is introducing random women to my children.”

In asking, she’d tread carefully, having used her only free pass when it came to accusing JD of prioritizing sex over their offspring.

“A fiancée is hardly random.”

“She is if they’re over now,” she said. “He can propose to whoever he wants, but he better be damn sure the relationship is going to last if he wants the woman to be a part of my children’s lives.”

“You’re getting defensive.”

“You’re upsetting me,” she said, shoving at the plate, unable to consider eating. “I don’t want to think about something like that.”

“About Jamison with another woman?”

“About my children getting attached to someone and being hurt when they’re snatched from their lives,” she said, and grabbed her purse from the bench beside her while shuffling to the edge.

“Where are you going?” Baxter asked, tensing, leaping to the end of the booth.

“Home.”

“To him?”

The exit in her sights, she didn’t wait when he pulled out his wallet to throw money on the table. Yanking on the long metal bar granted her blessed freedom into the nip of the evening air.

She was striding down the block when Baxter caught up at her side.

“Go away, Baxter,” she said. “Go home.”

“No,” he said and tried to grab her arm, but she pulled it away. “You can’t even stand to stomach it, can you? Thinking of him with another woman makes you sick and you expect me to believe you feel nothing for him?”

“This has nothing to do with him,” she said.

“Are you kidding? You couldn’t wait to get out of that restaurant and rush home to confront him about this other woman!”

“Stop it,” she spat and tried to walk faster. No way she’d ever outrun anyone with legs so much longer than hers. “Goddamnit, I thought you’d be happy I could finally tell the truth.”

“Yeah, and I might have been if this didn’t open its own can of worms. Shit, Rylee, can you tell me you wouldn’t feel the same if the situation was reversed?”

“Would the mother of your children threaten me? No! I know the children are the priority. They need two loving parents. If those parents can get along, that helps them. It helps the kids, Baxter, that’s it… Maybe if you had children, you’d understand.”

This time he got hold of her arm and spun her around to face him. “And maybe one day we will, but you better remember that I’m your man. I’m your future. You can’t prioritize him over me.”

“What? That’s not what I’m doing.”

“You’re with him every minute and with me for a few hours every other weekend. This relationship won’t last unless you make room for me in your life,” he said. “More room.”

“Bax, I… I don’t know if we’re ready for that.”

“It’s been months.” But not a lifetime. Commitment had never come up. Until that point, everything was casual. He had his life, she had hers, and they got together whenever their schedules matched. “We’re ready.”

Were they? Much as she knew her next words would aggravate the situation, she had to be honest. “Me and the kids, Baxter,” she said. “I don’t know if me and the kids are ready for it.”

Letting her go, he stepped back. “Didn’t take long for him to come between us, did it?”

“This isn’t JD’s fault,” she said. “You’re making assumptions. This is a big development in my life. No one’s known who the father of my children is and now the world will. I don’t know how this will change things for the kids, but they have to be my priority.”

“And it never occurred to you that I could help you? That I could be a support to the three of you? Why is it your default to keep me on the outside?”

Until then, she’d had no other choice. Being unable to reveal the truth meant there had always been a secret between them. Now that need for secrecy was gone… Had she been using it as an excuse to keep herself from getting too close?

“I need you to… to be patient,” she said. “Please, we’ll figure this out, just… give me time.”

He backed away. “I’m not a patient guy.”

Turning around, he strode off, and she watched him go. Confused, tired, and upset, figuring out what she wanted from her relationship with Baxter was no easier than guessing how her life might change now the world knew the identity of her children’s father.