Fearless In Love(37)

Wending their way through surface streets to reach the San Jose office, Noah chattered about school, the mummy museum, meeting Ari’s friend and her son. He was glad Noah was distracted, because the neighborhood wasn’t the best. He was pretty sure he saw a drug deal going down in an alleyway, and an inappropriately dressed lady attempting to attract business, even on a Sunday morning.

He’d seen worse in his old Chicago neighborhood. A stabbing or a shooting on a Friday night was common. But when Noah came along, he’d realized the true importance of having made it out of that life. His mission was to make sure his son never lived the kind of childhood Matt had, the kind of life all the Mavericks had experienced. If not for Susan and Bob, he didn’t know where they’d all be. The Mavericks were his blood brothers. But Susan and Bob had been their heart.

Turning a corner, he almost hit the brakes. Golden-blond hair, skinny jeans, and an innately sensual walk that stopped his heart—he’d know that rear view anywhere.

What the hell was Ari doing here?

She stopped at a corner apartment building, its flaking paint faded to gray and the awning ready to fall off its struts. His foot unconsciously lifted off the accelerator, and the car slowed as she opened the outer door and disappeared inside.

This was where her friend lived?

This was where she’d brought Noah?

It couldn’t be. She’d vowed to keep his son safe, and he trusted her to keep that promise. Ari wouldn’t bring Noah here. So what was up? Had she lied about where she was going? Maybe she planned to meet up with a man instead of her friends.

After what they’d done Friday night, Matt’s mind twisted imagining another man’s hands on her, another man’s lips covering hers…

“Daddy?”

Damn it. He’d stopped paying attention to Noah. “Yeah, buddy?”

“Do parrots bite?”

“We’ll find out today.” His son was priority number one, not what had happened with Ari the other night. But he still couldn’t strip the image of her with another man from his mind—or the jealousy that knifed deep into his gut.

Because even if he couldn’t have her now, for one perfect night Ari had been his.



Noah adored the puppet theater, and he’d gone back to the petting zoo three times, hunkering down to stroke his hands along the goats’ sides. They learned that parrots could bite and their beaks had tremendous pressure per square inch. Matt approved of how carefully the docent handled both the birds and the kids surrounding them. When the talking parrot repeated what Noah said, he giggled, his hands over his mouth. By the end of the day, they’d vanquished Irene’s ghost completely—at least until the next time she dropped in to stir things up. Happy, laughing, joyful Noah chattered all the way home.

“We have to tell Ari about the llamas, Daddy.” Matt had lifted him up to pet them.

That had been Noah’s refrain all day long: We have to tell Ari.

It was impossible to stop thinking of her when Noah clearly wished she had been with them too.

If Irene was the specter…Ari was the dream.

A dream Matt couldn’t let himself have. Not just because she was his son’s nanny, but also because he didn’t have anything to offer her beyond wild, beautiful, fabulous sex. Matt didn’t have what it took to cement a real relationship that would last, not after Irene or a childhood like his. He could still see Ari’s horror when he’d told her about Natural Born Killers.

It was close to dinnertime, and Matt stopped for takeout pizza. The closer they got to home, the faster his heart beat with anticipation for the mere sight of her car parked in the garage.

Damn it, he had it crazy bad for her.

They found Ari in the kitchen, the refrigerator door open as she surveyed the contents. He’d told her she was free to indulge in anything available.

God, how he wanted to indulge in her.

No. He needed to keep his perspective. Needed to remember that their night together had been a mistake.

But when Noah rushed to her, and she closed the fridge and knelt to hear a blow-by-blow replay of everything he’d seen, all with a child’s wonder, Matt’s heart blossomed watching her with his son.

She was the caregiver he’d always wanted. The others had been too stern or too lax, too standoffish or too uninvolved. One had adored the luxury of his house, using it like her own mansion when he wasn’t home, hosting pool parties for her girlfriends. Another had designs on moving permanently into his bed. But to all, Noah had been merely a job.

To Ari, Matt’s son was a special person who deserved all her attention.

“I brought pizza.” He held up the box. “There’s enough for you to join us if you’d like.”