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Five
Jake stood and paced. Suddenly, this small house felt stifling. The home-cooked meal. The cute kid. The beautiful mother. All the things he had managed to avoid in his life.
In Atlantic City five years ago, Nikki had appeared as a sexy woman from his past. A chance to indulge in some hot and heavy no-strings sex. But now, Nikki had changed. She had moved on. She had grown up and matured. Or maybe she had already changed five years ago, and he hadn’t seen it.
Though Jake admired her for the life she had created despite her father’s deeds, he was wary. He’d been on the run for far too long to be seriously tempted by the idea of settling down. It would be unfair to let Nikki think that he might. Better to keep his distance and fight the sexual hunger that consumed him.
Maybe Nikki was right. He had no business playing “Daddy” unless he was ready to go all in. And he wasn’t.
Returning to Falling Brook had been hard enough.
This little blue-collar town where Nikki lived, Poplar Ridge, was less than an hour away from where she had grown up, but by every other measure, it might as well have been on a different planet. Jake had hung his hat in all kinds of communities over the years. He’d enjoyed luxury, and he had found meaning in testing himself with deprivation. But all the while, he had known he had a safety net. He always had money.
Even when he fled Falling Brook and the reporters that were hounding him, he’d had secret money saved from playing poker. Jake had used his skills in day-trading and gradually built his fortune.
But Nikki and her mother had been left with virtually nothing.
Roberta Reardon had come from a social background and a generation where trophy spouses entertained and visited the spa but weren’t employed. Nikki had been seventeen, almost eighteen, when her father disappeared. Not a child, but certainly not a full-grown adult. In the midst of grief, her whole world had imploded. At the time, Jake had insisted she was partly to blame. Even now, he regretted that.
He had lashed out at his teenage girlfriend, because the truth was too much to bear. Vernon and Everett had embezzled money and left their families behind. In search of what? If Everett Reardon hadn’t been killed, if he had joined his partner in the Bahamas, what were the two men hoping to accomplish?
That unanswered question had shaped Jake’s life. Bitterness and angry regret kept him on the run. Or maybe it was the memory of the woman he had lost that locked him in a lonely cage of his own making.
Thinking about the past was never fruitful. Jake shoved aside the baggage and sprawled in a chair, his focus returning to the present. What would Nikki and Roberta do with their windfall from Black Crescent? Jake had thought about asking if Joshua could add Nikki and her mom to the list of people Black Crescent was repaying, but Josh had beaten him to the punch.
Would Nikki and Roberta want to return to Falling Brook?
His turbulent thoughts were eventually interrupted when Nikki appeared in the doorway. Her ponytail was mussed from being in bed with her daughter.
“Is she asleep?” he asked.
“Close,” Nikki said. “She played hard today.”
Jake patted the sofa beside him. “Come sit with me.”
Nikki hesitated, but did as he asked. It didn’t escape his notice that she left a good four feet between them.
Didn’t matter. He felt connected to her and drunk with wanting her. He didn’t know what to do about that.
“Emma is delightful,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you.” Nikki’s response was subdued. In fact, she seemed to be having trouble looking at him.
He sighed. “You’re right about me. I don’t know that I’m father material. I’d still like to hang out with her now and then while I’m here. But I won’t cross any boundaries, I swear. I would never tell her she’s mine. That would be cruel.”
Finally, Nikki lifted her head. “I don’t know if you saw it, but what happened between you two tonight was extraordinary. She’s usually shy with strangers, especially men. But with you, she was happy. Excited. How can I not tell her the truth?”
Now the roles were reversed. Nikki wanted full disclosure, and Jake was uncertain about the future. “Let’s give ourselves time,” he said, feeling some unseen noose tighten around his neck.
“So, what? You’ll just stay away until we figure it out?”
“Do you have a better idea? If our goal is not to hurt our daughter, we both have some thinking to do.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right.”
“But let me be clear about one thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh?”
