Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (129 page)

“Stay put,” Zeke told me. “I’m going to
come and drive you home, okay? I’ll get Trevor to ride with me so he can drive
your car back to your place, and he’ll get a cab to the office.” I started to
tell Zeke that it didn’t make any sense for his assistant to take a cab, but I
couldn’t make myself say it. I was too scared, too exhausted, and only too
willing to let him take control of the situation. “I’ll be there in ten
minutes,” he told me before hanging up.

Chapter
Thirty Six

Zeke

I glanced at Natalie in the passenger seat
for probably the third or fourth time since she’d put her seat belt on. “You’re
sure you’re okay? You don’t want to get checked out?” She shook her head.

“I just want to get home, and have a very
large glass of wine and a bubble bath,” she said, giving me a weak smile.

“Is Brady with a babysitter?” She shook
her head again.

“He’s at his grandparents’ house,” she
told me. She took a deep breath and sighed, looking out through the window.

“How did he find you?” That was the
question that really plagued me. How had an abusive asshole like Nathan managed
to find Natalie on a date?

“That is something that Katie is going to
try and find out,” she said, shrugging. “I would really like to know, myself.”
She chuckled, sounding almost bitter.

“This the first time something like that
has happened to you?”

Natalie nodded. “First time,” she
confirmed. “The attack was a first, too.” She closed her eyes for a moment and
then turned to look at me.

“That’s got to shake you up,” I said. “How
are you handling it?” She shrugged.

“I’m sure probably 99% of the guys I get set
up with for coaching would never do anything like what Nathan did,” she told
me. “But this…and another situation that’s come up recently…” she shrugged
again. “I’m starting to think that I may need to get out of the business. Move
onto something else.”

“Move on?” I stopped at a light and looked
at her. “What would you do?”

“No idea,” she said, grinning wryly.
“Hopefully I can find something in the psych field, but I haven’t really been
looking seriously. Just sort of thinking.”

“You’re not going to cancel on me, are
you? I don’t know if I’d work as well with a different coach,” I said jokingly.
My heart was beating faster in my chest at the thought of losing her presence
in my life all at once. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew I’d be
hurt if she just disappeared on me. She laughed—and it sounded a little better
than the bitter, fearful laugh she’d let out before.

“No, I’d wait until all of my current
contracts are done before I moved on,” she said. “It would only be fair.” My
heart slowed down in my chest and I took a quick, deep breath.
You shouldn’t be this relieved,
I
thought.
You know it’s not going anywhere
with her—it’s not meant to.

“That’s good to hear,” I told her. “I
think we’re almost at your place.”

“Looks like it,” she agreed. She looked at
me. “Would you miss me if I left coaching?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m going to miss
you when you’re done coaching me—I’d obviously miss you if you left early.” She
smiled slightly and I wondered what was on her mind—but I didn’t want to upset
her more.

I parked outside of her apartment building
and hesitated. “If you want to be alone…”

“No,” Natalie said. She looked at me and I
could see the fear in her eyes. “I really—I know I shouldn’t invite you in, but
you’ve already been inside my place before, so it’s not like I’m crossing a
boundary with you for the first time…” She swallowed. “I’m still kind of shaken
up I guess. I think if I was alone, I’d just end up crying or something.”

“I’ll come in, then,” I told her. “As long
as you want me there—and as soon as you tell me to leave, I will.”

We went up to her unit and I made a
beeline for the kitchen; Natalie had said she wanted a glass of wine and a
bath—and while I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to take a bath while I was
hanging out, I figured a glass of wine would probably go down easily. “You
remember where everything is,” she said, almost questioning.

“Pretty straightforward,” I pointed out. I
got a corkscrew out of the drawer and got to work opening the bottle of wine I
found in the cabinet. “Go sit down in the living room, put something on TV.”

“Ordering me around in my own house,” she
said wryly. “So like a man.” She left the kitchen and I got the wine open, and
poured a glass for myself while I was at it. By the time I walked into the
living room, she had put something on—a movie or something, I wasn’t paying
attention.

“Here,” I said, handing her the fuller
glass. “Drink up.” Natalie snorted and took a long sip of the red wine, closing
her eyes and breathing deep while she did it.

“Okay, yeah, that’s a little better,” she
admitted, looking at me with a slightly sheepish smile. “I feel like such a
wimp right now.”

“You managed to get that asshole on the
ground—not a wimpy thing to do,” I pointed out. “You stood up for yourself and
held your own.”

“Only because I knew that Ethan—that’s the
new client I was with when Nathan attacked—was going to be completely useless.”
She shook her head and drank another sip of wine. “And, I had warning this
time.”

“Stop trying to make what you did sound
like less than it is,” I told her. “There are tons of people who wouldn’t have
been able to stand up for themselves, even if they’d had warning and knew the
person they were with would be a wet noodle.”

“Hopefully that’s the last time I see him
outside of a court room,” she said.

“Cheers to that,” I agreed, raising my
glass.

Natalie seemed to wind down bit by bit as
we sat talking about nothing at all, and I was glad that she had thought about
me. “Why did you call me of all people?” She looked at me sharply for a second
after I asked the question and then shrugged.

“You were the first person I thought of,”
she admitted. “I guess maybe because you’d been there when the first attack
happened, I figured you’d understand what I was going through.”

“Even if I hadn’t been there,” I told her,
“I would have been happy to pick you up and drive you home.” My phone vibrated
in my pocket and I held up my hand to ask Natalie to give me a moment; it was
Trevor.
Back at the office.
“Trevor
has made it back safely,” I told her.

“You really didn’t have to do that—have
him bring my car here,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why have a personal assistant if I don’t
occasionally make him do random non-office-related things?” I put my phone away
again and grinned. “Besides, it’s not like it’s a bother to him—he got to leave
the building for a little while, and he’s charging the ride to the corporate
account.”

“Can you even do that?”

I shrugged. “If not, accounting will send the
bill to me, and that’ll be that. It’s not like it was an expensive ride.”
Natalie finished off the wine in her glass and before she could say anything
else, I took it from her and went back into the kitchen.

I brought the bottle back with me and
filled her glass. “I don’t remember if I thanked you before,” Natalie said,
accepting her refill from my hands. “But in case I didn’t: thank you.” I
laughed.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve thanked me at
least three times already,” I said. I took a sip of my own wine and set the
glass down. “So you’re really thinking about changing careers?” She shrugged.

“I haven’t decided,” she admitted. “But
between getting frustrated with some of my clients, and what just happened, and
all of it…” she sighed. “It just seems like I’m spending a lot of energy on
something that isn’t benefitting me as much as it used to.”

“You got into this to meet people, right?”

She nodded. “After my divorce, it seemed
like a good way to sort of…ease myself back into interacting with guys, you
know?”

“That makes sense,” I agreed.

“Of course, I realized that I couldn’t
date anyone I was coaching, not really, but I figured that I wasn’t really
ready to date someone for real anyhow, and that it would be good practice for
me.”

“How long were you married?” Natalie’s
lips twisted upward in a wry smile.

“Couple of years,” she said. “At first, it
was great. And then, when I got pregnant, it was okay. And it went downhill
from the time that Brady was born. Apparently, Alex wasn’t all that ready to
have a kid. Not really, anyway; not in the way that makes a relationship last
through that kind of stress.” She sighed.

“Sounds like you’re better off without him
then,” I pointed out. She laughed.

“I am in most respects,” she agreed. “But
Brady thinks I need someone to play the part of ‘Daddy.’”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Yeah, he sees two-parent
families, wonders why he’s different.” She nodded.

“And I’ve kind of concluded that with the
job I have, I’m not really getting any closer to making that happen for him,”
she explained. “I can’t date any of the guys that I work with, obviously, and
dating people for fun just kind of becomes…” she shrugged.

“Busman’s holiday?” She nodded again.

“So you’ll move onto another job, and
maybe find the guy who’d make a great dad for your son,” I told her, smiling.

“One can only hope,” she said. “But even
if I don’t, I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay.” I looked her in the eyes for a few
moments, and I believed her. But just looking at her, seeing how brave she was,
how confident in herself, how dedicated she was, the impulse to kiss her came
over me. I didn’t fight it. I gave into it, even though I knew I probably
shouldn’t. I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers, and Natalie
started—but she didn’t push me away, didn’t freeze up, didn’t do anything to
indicate she wanted me to stop.

I kissed her with all the pent-up desire
I’d been feeling for weeks, ever since we’d had sex. I started to let my hands
roam over the curves of her body and Natalie began to really respond, kissing
me back, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pressing her body against
mine. I could feel myself starting to get turned on already—it was a
hair-trigger response, a reaction to knowing exactly what it would be like if
we made the next move, and knowing that someone had tried to hurt the
beautiful, wonderful woman in my arms.

But I pulled back, swallowing against the
tightness in my throat. “We should probably change the subject,” I told her
quietly. “Obviously getting personal like this just…leads to us making bad decisions.”
Natalie laughed and changed the channel on the TV.

“You’re right,” she said, nodding. “Let’s
talk about something else.” I asked about the menu at the place she’d been
having lunch at, and she began talking. In the back of my mind, I thought to myself
that even if Katie somehow managed to make a clone, I’d never find a woman I
wanted as much as Natalie.
But she
doesn’t want you that way.
I’d have to find a way to settle for less than
the best because it was obvious to me that even after she quit her job as a
dating coach, Natalie had a different kind of guy in mind.

Chapter
Thirty Seven

Natalie

The timer went off on the stove and I
hurried over to the burner where the macaroni was boiling, grabbing a pair of
potholders on my way. It had been about three days since my second altercation
with Nathan, and I had a day off—after dealing with the police a second time,
filing reports at the office with Katie, and doing all of the paperwork I could
to make sure that I wouldn’t have to deal with the abusive stalker Nathan had
turned out to be short of trial.

I picked up the pot the macaroni was in
and carried it carefully off the stove, thinking about the fact that the first
person I’d thought to call after the incident happened had been Zeke. Even if I
knew it had been a mistake to ask him to come into my house, and even more of
one to let him go on kissing me, I had to admit that I couldn’t think of anyone
who could have done a better job of comforting me in that moment than he had.
None of my friends would have been as good; none of my family would have been
so undemanding. I wouldn’t have been able to even talk to Brady about what had
happened—he was far, far too young to deal with baggage like that.

I smiled to myself, draining the pasta and
thinking of Brady in the living room, playing with his toys while he sang along
with one of his favorite TV shows. Brady had asked about “Mr. Zeke” earlier in
the day, and I had told him that we would probably see the man again soon—even
though I wasn’t entirely sure when that would be.

It was wrong of me, I knew. I was still
grappling with the fact that I had to make a decision, and that I had to either
cut Zeke out of my life completely—and with him the risk of ruining my career—or
drop my career for him, thereby risking my heart. I thought of what I’d said to
Zeke about quitting. It was true; I was no closer to finding someone for myself
than I had been when I started working for the agency, though the reason for it
was completely different. I knew that I liked Zeke, and I was pretty sure that
he liked me, but whether or not he liked me enough to stay with me was more
uncertainty than I could deal with.