She pulled up to her house in one of the safest neighborhoods on the island, and the feeling of pride she always felt on seeing it filled her chest. She lifted Jayla from her car seat, loaded the numerous bags onto her shoulder, and walked slowly toward her front door. Her first attempt to get the key in the door failed, and the entire key ring went crashing to the tiled entryway.
“Perhaps I can help?”
Nakia was so startled she almost dropped the baby.
“Whoa, let’s not drop my daughter before I get a chance to meet her.” Justin took the baby from her.
Nakia swayed slightly on her feet as her heart rate accelerated to dizzying proportions. He was still the most beautifully rugged man she’d ever met. She looked up at his imposing figure, and the memory of his huge hard body covering her, loving her, flooded her senses. The remembered passion between them temporarily dulled her ability to form a cognitive thought.
“Hi, Jayla,” he whispered gently.
Her stomach bottomed out then kicked into overdrive and did somersaults at the sound of the soft gravel in his voice. He didn’t try to hide his awe at the sight of Jayla, and Nakia couldn’t help responding to his visceral emotions.
Jayla cooed up at her father.
Nakia was jolted out of her state of paralysis and gritted her teeth in annoyance at her inability to be immune to him despite all that he’d done to her. “Don’t get too excited. She smiles at everyone, and she probably has gas,” she muttered as she quickly picked up the keys and opened her front door. Pivoting in front of the door to try to block his access, she reached for her baby. “Give her back, please.”
Justin wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her—bags and all with one arm and the baby in the other—into the house.
She shrieked in outrage at his highhandedness and the additional stimulus of his touch, which seared her senses. Nakia was pissed when her response made Justin laugh, and Jayla first stared at her with wide eyes, and then burst out in a frightened cry.
“It’s okay, baby. Mommy didn’t mean to scare you.” To her chagrin, her voice only seemed to make Jayla cry harder.
Justin rocked the baby against his chest. “I’ve got you, sweetness. Daddy’s got you,” he told her softly.
Jayla stared up at him in wonder, whimpered weakly, and then stopped fussing altogether. With a watery emerald gaze, Jayla watched him intently.
“She’s probably just reacting to your strange voice.” Nakia tried to hide her body’s embarrassingly obvious reaction to his presence behind a mask of sarcasm.
“Or she recognizes me, as her mother does.” He smirked, looking pointedly at her taut nipples.
Nakia turned away in a huff to put down the many bags still weighing down her shoulders. “What are you doing here?” she asked after taking time to put everything away and finally getting some semblance of equilibrium.
“Do you really have to ask that question?”
“Given our last conversation, hell yeah I need to ask. Last time we spoke you were very clear on your position of me in your life. So, I need to ask again. What’re you doing here?”
“I had re-evaluated my position on you being in my life almost immediately after I told you that. If you’d waited a few hours until I woke up, you would’ve gotten my apology. And if you hadn’t changed your name to Danica McKenzie, I might have found you sooner and apologized.”
“What would you have been apologizing for, Justin? Please enlighten me.” She stared at him coolly, determined to pretend that nothing he said mattered in her life anymore. This time when she reached for Jayla, she was successful in taking her from him.
He gazed at her sheepishly.
“Would you’ve apologized for asking me to leave for my own safety?” she taunted as she carried Jayla into the baby’s room. “No?” She whipped off the soiled diaper with a little more aggression than necessary, which got a few kicks and giggles from Jayla. “And by the way, I changed my name after I realized I was pregnant. I didn’t want to take the chance that there were still threats out there. I couldn’t chance it.”
“Stop. Look, I know I was an asshole to you.”
“You think?” Nakia scoffed. She placed Jayla in his arms after changing her diaper. “Yes, you were an asshole, and what you did was unforgivable!”
“Tell me what you really think,” Justin tried to tease but immediately sobered when she stared back at him stonily. He followed her as she turned to walk into the ensuite bathroom.
Nakia slammed the door in his face and locked it for good measure. She took care of her business, washed her hands, and then used a warm damp soapy towel to cleanse her breasts. It felt as though her heart had expanded several inches when she walked back into Jayla’s room. Justin held the baby against his chest, staring down at her with what could only be described as an adoring gaze. Remembering his desire for a child and his love for his nephew, she shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d respond to their daughter the way that he had.
She cleared her throat mainly to unclog the tears that were so close to the surface and to get him to stop chipping away at her anger with him. “I need to feed her.”
Justin reluctantly placed Jayla in her arms.
Nakia was embarrassed when Jayla immediately started fussing for her food. Grinning as if he was enjoying her discomfort, Justin refused to leave the room when she asked. Nakia ignored him and sat in what she treated as her nursing chair and freed her nipple. Jayla latched on with an enthusiasm that had Justin laughing and Nakia smiling down at her baby.
Nakia didn’t want to continue arguing with him during Jayla’s feeding, so she contented herself with simply gazing at her daughter and trying diligently to ignore him.
“She’s beautiful, Nakia.”
“Thank you,” she muttered.
Justin grinned at her disgruntled tone. “I love her name too.”
“Good for you.” She still refused to look in his direction.
“I should’ve never sent you away.”
She snorted. “Why? Because I was pregnant?”
“No, because being without you has been hell.”
“Right…” She wanted desperately to look into his eyes and see if they were brilliant green with desire or gunmetal gray because he was hiding his emotions. She didn’t dare look.
“I regret that I missed seeing you grow with our baby.” He sighed, and she could hear him pacing.
She kept her gaze locked on Jayla, who was doggedly sucking her milk. Nakia wanted to laugh at her daughter’s gluttony, but she didn’t dare show any sign of weakness to Justin. He already had the advantage of noting her body’s shameful betrayal.
“Not being there for her birth was my fault, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life,” Justin told her solemnly as he continued pacing.
“Are you expecting me to feel sorry for you?” Nakia switched Jayla from her right breast to her left.
“No, I don’t expect that. However, I had hoped that the message you sent me was the truth.”