Her Billionaires_ Boxed Set(133)

“This is a start.” For the first time, he got a good look at Josie. SpongeBob pajamas and sockless, with flip flops. What a fashion plate. Then he remembered—3 a.m. She had sprinted like they had, and he felt a combination of extreme fatigue and gratitude. Too bad he’d been too stupid to take Josie’s advice when she’d flung it at him that night at Jeddy’s. Thank God Laura had a good friend through all this.

A look at Mike, who was looking at him. A shared smile. Maybe this would be OK, he thought.

How were they going to raise a child? Nausea settled in. Or maybe that was just hunger. Josie rubbed her eyes and took a good look at herself, head tipped down. Chin on chest, she started laughing, a coarse, harsh sound.

“Man, I gotta get home and make sure those cats haven’t destroyed everything. And I need to sleep. My shift starts at three.”

“You work in a factory?” Dylan asked. She had a hard look to her, like someone who was streetwise. Yet when she softened and smiled, she seemed delicate and intellectual. What a chameleon.

“I’m a nurse,” she said flatly, as if she were offended he thought her working class.

“Cool. I’m a paramedic.”

“No—you’re a billionaire,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

Deadly stare. “And you’re a—” The rest of his sentence was cut off by Mike, who wrapped an arm around his shoulders and steered him away from Josie.

“We’ll be back in a few hours to check on Laura and talk about our daughter,” he said, soothing the simmer that threatened to bubble over in Dylan. Another hand on his shoulder, then a matching one on Mike’s.

“Hey.” Josie’s voice was clipped and edgy. “You two blew it, and if she lets you back in, let me make one thing perfectly clear.” Dylan’s temper rose somewhere in his throat, floating like bile.

One long fingernail pointed at their crotches, one by one. “The warlock waitress will be wearing very real balls if you mindfuck her again. And that baby, too.”

Holy shit. “You really have some nerve,” he nearly shouted, letting his voice rise, feeling it like an old friend. The nurse, Diana, looked at them from behind a large desk, eyeing them warily.

“Me? I’m not the one who—oh, fuck this. I’m done trying to help you two.”

“Offering to chop off our balls isn’t my idea of help,” Mike added, his voice flat and dry.

“It’s 7:30 a.m. My best friend and her baby nearly died in a fire. Now I have to help her not feel guilty after I’ve spent the past three months trying to convince her to tell you two assholes.”

She what?

“You two lied badly enough—twice—to crush my best friend’s heart. The best friend I’ve been with now through the first half of a pregnancy.” Her voice rose. “Were you there when she cried her eyes out over you two? When she started to get morning sickness? How about when I went out to get the tests and we went through them, one by one, and they all read positive— where were you?”

“We didn’t know—”

“I know you didn’t know, Dylan. Why do you think you didn’t know?” Nostrils flaring, hands on hips, she looked like a miniature Joan Jett doing a SpongeBob imitation, all yellow fury. “Because she thought you didn’t tell her about your money because you didn’t trust her. She was fucking overwhelmed and confused. And by the way—use a damn rubber sometimes, you two!”

OK, she had him there. He should have. Mike didn’t? A side glance at Mike, who imperceptibly shook his head. So it really could be either of them.

“Forgive me,” she said bitterly, as if asking for anything but forgiveness, “if I seem overly protective. Someone has to be, though, because the greatest threat to Laura—and her baby—so far has been fire, and you.”

Wham. As if struck between the eyes by a hot ball of lead, Dylan nearly sank to the floor. Fuck all. He resented the hell out of what Josie was saying but he had to admit she was right. The wince on Mike’s face said she’d struck his target, too. Bullseye.

Double bullseye. She walked off, fast and efficient, just like a nurse. Except they weren’t her patients. Quite the opposite. They were her wounded, her words meant to hurt, to get the point driven home.

And she had succeeded.

Shoulders slumped, he sighed. Ah, man, he had to get back to the station to do reports and go through debriefings. Mike looked at him and pointed to the hallway toward the parking garage. A slow walk to the elevators was rote enough that he just kept moving forward, brain turned to mush.

“What now?” Mike asked as they waited for the elevator.