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Instead, he gritted his teeth. “My mother will answer to me for all of it... as soon as she’s on her feet again.”
Relief that he was angry at his mother and not her put Chloe at ease. She rested her head against the cushion behind her. The truth was, she hadn’t slept much the night before. Nik’s overwhelming sadness at hearing his daughter telling him to go away kept Chloe awake. She’d gone over what to say to Mia at least two dozen times.
“If your mother is really sick, let’s just forget about the past. We don’t need to make things worse for her.”
“Of course,” he said. “While I’m in town, I should check on some of our holdings and stop by the office.”
“You don’t need my permission for that.”
“I wasn’t asking for permission. Simply filling you in on my plans.”
She sat up straighter. “You can stay in Vegas as long as you need to, but Mia and I are only staying for two days. She has school, and I have a bakery to run.”
“My bakery,” he reminded her. “I bought it for three hundred thousand. Remember?”
She stiffened. “Actually, you didn’t. I’ve been thinking about what happened my first night back in Vegas. You said I was gambling and wound up owing your casino a bunch of money. Correct?”
He nodded. “That is right.”
“The casino belongs to you, and I know for a fact you let your women play for free all the time. You even fix it so they’ll win. The fact is, you didn’t lose anything. You set the whole thing up to steal my business and get even with me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You gave my sister a free trip to Vegas just to get me back in your territory.”
He slowly shook his head. “Wasn’t me. I looked into it after I sent you back home.”
She gasped. “Don’t tell me it was your mother. Why would Estelle want me back in Vegas? Why would she want to chance you and me hooking up again?”
“I honestly don’t know why my mother does what she does.”
What if... was it possible Estelle knew about Mia?
Chloe launched to her feet, every nerve-ending going into immediate panic as everything became clear to her. “She knows! Your mother knows about Mia already.”
Nik met her in the middle and grasped both her arms. “Calm down. She doesn’t know anything. I didn’t suspect you’d given birth to my child, so she certainly doesn’t know.”
“Then why would she do this?”
“There isn’t any point in speculating.” He pulled Chloe into an embrace and cradled her head against his chest. “We’ll ask her. If she’s not in bad shape, we’ll ask her.”
Sounded reasonable, but would Nik stand by her against his mother? In the past, he had let his mother get away with way too much. Although it was true that she hadn’t verbally attacked Chloe in his presence, she had done other negative things. Nik used to excuse her bad behavior by reminding everyone that his mother was alone. A widow. Nik insisted his father’s death made his mother extra insecure and bossy and nosy.
“You will be on my side, won’t you?” Chloe asked.
Nik let her go and took a step back. In obvious irritation, he raked a hand through his dark hair. “Are you ever going to trust me?”
“Me? Trust? What about you? You dumped me because you didn’t trust me.”
“That was six years ago. I’ve changed.”
She shook her head. “Maybe in some ways, but we are about to jump into the same situation as before. You believed your mother over me, and you always took her side. How do I know this time will be different?”
“I never took her side against yours.” His irritation seemed to grow. “You kept everything to yourself and didn’t say a word about how she was treating you. If you had told me, I assure you that I would have stood by you. I would have put a stop to her nasty remarks.”
Chloe forced a half-smile. “Forget the past. Doesn’t matter. I just need you to stand with me now. No matter what she says or does.”
He promised again he would do exactly that while kissing his way down her cheek to her lips. She relaxed as they sat together on the same couch with her leaning back against him. His arm rested around her middle. For a moment, she felt like they were a normal couple.
