Chapter 65

I could still see Josh on my doorstep when we pulled up.

“Doesn’t he have a job?” asked Mr. Czarn.

“Maybe they fired him? Though it is Sunday.”

“What did he do?”

“Insurance.”

“How droll.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Pool boy.”

“What?” I squawked.

“Right, he’s a ginger. Probably burns like bacon in the sun. Never mind.”

I didn’t know where Mr. Czarn’s good mood had come from. If I didn’t know better, I think he was excited to face off with my cheating ex who was convinced he’d put a baby in me.

“Please don’t cause drama,” I said, just as a disclaimer.

“I won’t cause you any stress, darling, and nor will he, I promise.”

“Don’t call me darling either.”

“Sorry. Just slipped out.”

He managed to parallel park along the street, and we got out. After spending two days in his jungle palace on a hill, my five-story apartment building was looking especially bedraggled.

“Let’s take the elevator,” his arm scooped around my shoulders all too naturally.

“I am not taking the elevator. That thing is slow as tar.” And broken half the time. And rickety. Most likely killed a few people in its lifetime.

He frowned at me. “You’re trying to avoid cramps.”

“It was only after two hours of dancing that I started getting cramps yesterday. I think I can handle some stairs.”

His frown deepened, pulling his eyebrows down along with it. “You should have said something. You’re supposed to avoid contractions completely.”

“They’re just cramps—”

“Contractions. Don’t justify this.”

“Alright, alright, I got carried away, but the point is I stopped.” I eyed him. “I thought you said you weren’t going to cause me any stress?”

We took the stairs.

Good boss.

I expected Joshua’s eyes to be bugging out when we stepped onto the top landing and might have been looking forward to it. One didn’t need to know Mr. Czarn was insanely rich and successful to know arm candy when they saw it. Joshua didn’t look bad at all, but he looked like a squid standing next to my boss.

But he either held back his eye pop or got it out before we reached him because he was all unpleasant, stone-cold glare. He wore the letterman jacket I knew too well and remained sitting on my doorman, back to the wall.

“Figured,” he spat.

I opened my mouth to ask why the hell he was wearing his jacket in August (the storms had long blown over and the heat was back), but Mr. Czarn’s hand on my back stopped me.

“Go ahead, sweetheart. I got this.”

I wanted to glare. How many times did I have to tell him not to call me by any endearment like I was his already? But I didn’t want it to look like I wasn’t getting along with my eye candy in front of my clingy ex, so I swallowed it down and moved to step over Josh’s legs to get to the door.

It was dumb that I was relieved that he didn’t trip me. His eyes were on Mr. Czarn, however, which was nice. Means I didn’t have to bother with the gun.

“Alaina.”

He didn’t need to look at me to use his mouth, though.

I jammed my key into the door lock. I avoided breathing through my nose, so I wouldn’t get his scent and all the memories along with it. Ugh, what if it’s soaked into my doormat? Freaking jerkwad.

“Don’t ignore me. I’ve waited for two days—”

“And obviously don’t seem to know that’s not socially acceptable behavior,” said Mr. Czarn, all smooth, all cool, all James Bond.

“Shut up. I don’t care how much money you have. You can’t keep me from my family.”

“Family? You have one of those?”

I finally got the door closed behind me, where I quickly locked it. I didn’t care if that meant I’d locked out Mr. Czarn as well. He wasn’t my husband. I didn’t owe him anything. He wanted me to not stress, fine—no men allowed in my nest.

I got away quickly from the door, so I couldn’t continue to hear the soap opera playing out, then finally took a deep, deep breath of my own air. A tight ache in my lower gut I had been ignoring released instantly.

Home. Home sweet home.

With my nesting instincts purring, I made a beeline for the baby bassinet, then took it with me into my bed. Despite being who knows how many hundreds of dollars cheaper and older, it felt ten times more comfortable than the bed at Mr. Czarn’s.

I hummed with happiness and buried my face into the fuzzy swaddling cloth.

Only to be startled by a man’s roar and the loud clang of a body hitting the metal railing.

Baby Bean jerked a little too. I didn’t think six-month-old fetuses could get startled.

“I don’t care,” I muttered, covering my face with the little blanket. “Good chi, good chi, all the Zen.”

It was several more bangs down the stairwell and some last muffled yelling before all went quiet again. I sighed and snuggled up tighter into my messy bed cloth.

My phone beeped a text. I ignored it.

It beeped several more times before I finally gave in and yanked it out of my back pocket.

Of course, Mr. Czarn couldn’t leave me alone. They were all questions of whether I needed anything, whether I’d be coming back, verification that Joshua was gone, yadda yadda. Honestly, he was like a clingy high school boyfriend rather than a self-assured billionaire.

‘I’m fine, I’m home and detoxing, go away.’

I deleted ‘go away,’ figuring the man didn’t deserve such grouch when he’d really done me a huge favor. I replaced it with ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Thanx for everything,’ then silenced my phone in preparation for a long, beautiful day of finally being alone. There’d be a bath somewhere in there, as much of a dance session as I could get in my small living room, and probably a murder mystery marathon because like hell was I ever going to watch a romance ever again.

At least not after freaking living one.