Page 2 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

The twins would like it if Daddy started working in town.

How long would it last? His corporate MO: buy a company, spend some time shaping it, then move onto the next one, put an expiration date on her children’s happiness.

Always expanding his portfolio, JD often spliced companies into parts, keeping some and selling others.

For him, it was all about growth… at least that’s what his mother told her.

It had been anyway. How would that change with him in town?

He’d come in, mix things up, and then ride off into the sunset.

A storm front leaving carnage in its wake. And just like a storm, JD wouldn’t notice or care about collateral damage.

Going through the motions, preparing for the following day, her other eye was on her twins seated at the long dinner table to the left of the kitchen island.

“But, Mommy, I eated lots of it,” Kye complained.

“You eated less than me,” Sky said.

Her four-year-old twins poked at each other’s plates, comparing what remained of their dinner portions. Typical siblings, they each had a lot of love for the other and liked to show that by riling each other at every opportunity.

Switching to mommy mode, she cleared her mind. “Ate,” she said. “The word you’re both looking for is ‘ate.’ You’ll keep on eating until you can both say you ate it all.”

Someone knocked on the front door.

“Is that Grama?” Sky asked, bouncing up high on her knees, desperate to bolt from her chair.

She raised a hand to stall her children, signaling they shouldn’t scurry to the door.

“No,” she said, rinsing her hands and grabbing a towel. “You’ll see Grama tomorrow. It’s probably Auntie Brenna.”

Both kids deflated with disappointment. Hilarious. Grama would take their side on the finishing their dinner debate, Brenna wouldn’t. Their grandmother doted on her grandchildren. Their aunt enjoyed playing with people too much to give anyone an easy out.

Still smiling, she tossed the towel over her shoulder and went across the apartment to open the front door, expecting to see Brenna.

Instead, JD stood on her threshold. “You have an employee file,” he said, which she guessed cleared up the question of how he’d got her address.

Astute, or arrogant, he answered the question before she’d asked it. Brenna and Marjorie had her address. If he’d gone through the employee files rather than asking his relatives, she’d bet that meant his family didn’t know he was in town. At least she wasn’t the only one blindsided.

Catching her breath, there wasn’t much time to gather her wits. “At Spotlight Solutions? Yes, I have an employee file. Know why? Because I work there. And this is not there. This is home, not work. What are you doing here?”

He skipped over the last question. “You work there,” he said, but it wasn’t really a question. Good, he was supposed to be smart, and they’d clarified her position of employment already. “I had no idea.”

Really? Sarcasm drawled through her brain. Spotlight Solutions was a prominent software firm. If he’d wanted something local, it would be the most attractive candidate for purchase. Not that she’d known it was for sale exactly. Given the company struggles, she’d bet he got it at a good price.

He couldn’t have expected to buy Spotlight and keep it secret forever. It wasn’t like he’d taken an anonymous position in the mailroom; he would take over as CEO. The person at the top of the pyramid was usually the most recognizable. Had she thought of him as smart?

Somehow, it fell to her to point out the obvious. “We met at a software expo,” she said. “It never occurred to you that maybe I worked for a software company?”

JD looked almost baffled. “It never occurred to me to look.”

“Of course not.”

Speaking fast and matching his pace was a necessity. Talking before thinking things through was typical of them. Stubbornness, and their back-and-forth banter, had drawn them to each other in the first place. Old habits and all that.

They brought out a need in each other to get in the last word, to match each other quip for quip. Mature? No. It was what it was. Honestly, she hated how exciting baiting him could be and how easily she confused their repartee for having fun.

She was supposed to be mad at him, or at least demanding answers. Her heart rate kicking up was nothing more than an increase in adrenaline caused by him aggravating her. That was the reason. The only reason.

A little hand grabbed her knee and pulled at her until a tiny body squeezed around her leg.

“Mommy, I want to see,” Sky said, blinking upward.

“You’re not supposed to—”

Sky squealed. “Daddy!”

JD bent to scoop her up. “Hello, Sproutette.”

Putting her arms around him, Sky glowed, then grabbed his face in both hands. “Did you be missing me?”

“Of course I missed you, sweetheart. You’re my angel.”

JD kissed the end of their daughter’s nose. Though she rolled her eyes and folded her arms, it was kind of cute to see them together. These interactions weren’t something she usually got to witness.

“Did you come to see my bedroom?” Sky asked but didn’t wait for the inconvenience of an answer. “Mommy, Daddy wants to see my bedroom.”

The kids were his ticket to getting inside. Not that she was keeping him outside exactly, but he’d tickled her suspicion by avoiding the question of why he’d shown up.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said and kept going before JD could correct her.

“Daddy wants you to sit at the table with Kye to finish your dinner.” Sky blinked at her father, giving her mother the chance to glare at him.

“Because Daddy would never dare undermine Mommy’s authority on something as important as feeding you. ”

His smirk stayed on their daughter, though it was for her, not the little one. “What are you having for dinner, Sproutette?”

“Pasta,” Sky said, screwing up her face.

He gasped. “Oh, wow! Pasta? I love pasta!” he said with more enthusiasm than he would if talking to an adult.

The act worked like a dream with Sky.

The grumpy little one quickly reverted to her bubbling joy. “You want some of mines?”

Her kids might think they were smart, but watching out for their tricks was her full-time job.

Still, Sky had seen her father; it would be unfair to keep him from Kye. Sky also wouldn’t give her parents peace, meaning she wouldn’t get to the bottom of why JD showed up until they appeased their daughter.

Inevitable was inevitable.

“Uh, no,” she said, entering the apartment, leaving the door open for JD to bring Sky inside. “If Daddy wants to eat with you, Mommy will fix him his own plate. You have to clear yours.”

The scrape of her son’s chair legs on the slate floor came before the front door even had a chance to close.

“Daddy!” Kye called out.

In a few weeks, their babies would turn five. Their little bodies needed the help of booster seats to reach the table, but both were professionals at climbing up and down either to get up or to get away.

Returning to her place on the other side of the kitchen island, she hung up the towel but faltered.

The vision of JD standing at the foot of the dining table, holding both children, sent her mind back to the hospital on the day the kids were born.

That was probably the last time she’d seen him holding them both together.

Babies then, both considerably smaller, JD didn’t make it look any more difficult now than it had all those years ago.

Shaking off the moment of sentiment, she cleared her throat. What had she been doing before he showed up to disrupt their lives?

“You had to come at dinnertime when I’m trying to get them both to eat, didn’t you?”

Their inability to give each other a break was mutual. She didn’t expect him to prostrate himself, and he didn’t disappoint.

Haughty, JD was unapologetic. “That’s why Daddy’s here, to help you eat dinner,” he said, moseying up the length of the table.

Putting each of the kids back in their chairs, he pushed them in at their places, then kept going to seat himself at the head of the table, in pride of place.

Typical that he should take the most eminent position in the room without invitation.

“Comfortable?” she asked, propping a hand on her hip.

JD tossed her a quick, impudent wink, then leaned toward the kids who were poking at their food again. “Is it good, buddy?”

“It was,” Kye grumbled.

Sighing, if JD wanted the responsibility of getting them to eat, she wouldn’t take it away from him.

“Kye spent so much time irritating his sister that I think it’s almost cold,” she said, returning to her chopping. “But they have to finish it.”

“Can Daddy have some?” Sky asked.

Trust her children to take advantage of every situation, just like their father. The twins were wily. Whatever her daughter’s ultimate goal, she’d guess it had something to do with a particular movie.

“You know how busy Daddy is,” she said. “He doesn’t want to eat dinner here. He probably has other places to be.”

“Not tonight.” When she scowled at him, JD just bobbed his brows. “I’d love some pasta… thank you.”

The food would still be warm. Going to the pot on the stove, she scooped a meager portion into a bowl and took it to him with a fork, dumping it onto the table.

“This is all quite domesticated, isn’t it?” JD said, wearing a smile as he picked up the fork. “Civilized.”

Oh, he was so proud of himself and loving every minute.

“It’s novel for you,” she said. “The rest of us call it life.”

He popped a piece of pasta between his lips and surprised her by closing his eyes on a groan of bliss. “Oh my God, this is incredible,” he said, forking up more to fill his mouth.

The pasta wasn’t that good. She never worried about poisoning her kids, but her cooking skills weren’t exactly of the highest order. The food she made was edible, though not as edible as their grandmother’s, as she’d been told, many times, without subtlety. Four-year-olds were rarely subtle.

But he wasn’t mocking her. It was a ploy. JD wasn’t ignorant of the sway he had with their children and was using that influence for her benefit. Their twins idolized their father. Utterly idolized him. There was no other word for it. He could do no wrong.

So although she sighed at his melodramatic reaction to the meal, inside, she was grateful. Their beautiful babies gazed at their father, eyes wide in wonder as he gobbled up the pasta like it was the most incredible thing he’d ever tasted.

She hid a smile.

“You two better hurry…” JD said, his mouth full, “or I’ll be moving on to yours next.”

So uncouth for a man known for his manners. It took all her energy not to laugh when both kids suddenly copied their father’s exuberance for the pasta. He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her again.

Okay, so that got a small smile, but she shook her head too. “Wow, look at you three go. I must be in the wrong trade,” she said. “I should open my own five-star restaurant.”

“Maybe you should,” JD said.

He’d done what was needed, the kids were eating. He slowed until they weren’t looking anymore and tried to rise from his chair.