“It’s a very low dose of Trazodone, love. You’ll be fine.” And in a few minutes, I’ll be out like a light. “Mr. Myers would never give you anything that would hurt you or his baby.” She sounds like she is scolding me, and I bristle at the term ‘his baby.’ She isourbaby, but I take the drugs, ready to sleep.
I am luckier than most newborn mothers. I have a night nurse who comes and checks on my baby and me, and we have Gloria during the day. On the weekends there is another nurse, all from the various hospitals where Beckett works. All of them seem like they want to impress him, but when they meet me and see Rayne, they usually back down a little.
I don't need much help, just a little assistance taking a shower. I can get around my room just fine. I still have a regimen of medication to take and since I am not allowed to go anywhere I really don't needmuch more than that. I am not exclusively breastfeeding because I don't have much milk for some reason. At night, the nurses supplement my lack of milk with formula. I am not too worried about that because it sets a good precedent for Rayne to learn not to be a fussy eater.
In the morning I am trounced on by Mia. I am still asleep and have no idea what time it is when a petite figure bounds into my room and throws herself across me and the bed.
“I’m breaking you out of here,” she shouts, and boy she is loud.
“I have to give the kid a boob,” I say before even opening my eyes.
“Well, whip out the tit and get to it. We’re going to Panache for brunch and then I’m taking you shopping.”
I finally open my eyes and look at my bundle of adorable Mia. For the first time, I see traces of Beckett’s handsomeness in her face. Mia is adorable and blonde, so pretty and perfect, but she is like my sister. I think of Beckett as a reckless, dashing man who plays fast and dirty with his life, but he really isn’t any of those things, I don’t think. He just looks like he is.
“Wow, how did you get the Crypt Keeper to agree?” I say, putting on the robe Beckett had taken off of me the night before.
“Brother extraordinaire doesn't know. You know what they say: better to beg forgiveness…” she laughs.
“You’ll be begging forgiveness; I’ll be chained up in the basement with him taking a paddle to my ass,” I say, feeling a little giddy to be getting out of the house.
“Kinky,” she dismisses. “We won’t be too long and you haven’t left this penthouse in weeks. You deserve a day on the town. I’ll tell him I kidnapped you.” She offers me one of her signature flirty smiles and it doesn’t take more than that to convince me.
I am dressed and ready to go in ten minutes. I breastfeed Rayne and Mia makes cute faces which she seems to love. After Rayne passed the six-week mark she had a lot more personality and loves smiling. She has a tiny little dimple on the side of her cheek that reminds me of Beckett. He has a dimple, but I almost never see it because he rarelyever smiles.
My baby has my dark hair and my blue eyes and that is it; the rest are Myers genes. Beckett and Mia are beautiful, so I don’t mind. Mia holds her niece in her arms and coos, playing with her little fingers and toes, and then we hand her off to the nurse and the two of us escape.
Panache is an exclusive restaurant in Midtown that we drop Beckett's name to get into. It is hard to get a reservation, so Mia put ours under her brother’s name earlier that morning. The food tastes better than anything I've ever eaten. I get a mango soufflé with an egg white, truffle, and heirloom tomato tartlet and a beautifully frothy cappuccino. I could have died and gone to heaven, the food is so good—and I have a private chef, so that is saying something.
“So,” I start asking questions I didn’t ask when she visited me at Beckett's loft because I was pretty sure he had the place bugged. I wouldn't put it past Beckett to have surveillance cameras with sound all over my room. “Tell me, how do you really like your place?”
“Ugh.” She lets out an exasperated sigh. “It's too big, it's too lonely, and it's too close to my meddling brother. But I like being near you. That was a non-negotiable.”
“I kind of started seeing this guy. I mean, it's nothing too intense. He's a rock star in a rock band or a rock legend in his mind. I’m not quite sure because he goes by a pseudonym, but won’t tell me what his real name is, which is a little weird, but I don’t care, the sex is good. I kind of like him. Right now it's just sex and good banter but I don't know, it might go somewhere. I also like having the Rock Star because every time Beckett sees him in the hallway he scowls. That makes me happy.”
“Oh my god, that would make me happy too.” We both laugh.
I glance over at the table just a few tables away from us. I usually don't pay attention to people in public. Not to be vain, because I never really cared that much about it. I was used to being stared at. Ever since I was a little girl I was told how beautiful I was. Because so many of the men coming and going from my house focused on my beauty with such disturbing intensity when I was young, I learned to block outeveryone's stares and comments. But there is something about this guy and how he looks at me that sends a shiver down my spine. He isn’t looking at me with a distant longing, no. He is watching like he is waiting for something.
“Do you see that guy over there?” I indicate the guy by rolling my eyes in his direction. “Don’t look now, but do in a minute,” I tell her.
Mia waits the obligatory minute then casually stretches and turns to look at the guy. Not her smoothest move but I don’t care because he is still staring at us.
“Shit, what is his problem?” she whispers when she turns back to me. “It’s like he's a mafia spy or something. He has spy eyes.”
“Right?” I agree. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“He’s probably just hard-up horny, but we should get out of here. I want to go shopping and you could use a few things now that we’re both dripping in moola.” Another cute smile and Mia stands up.
“I thought you shunned his money?” I mean, I am not one to talk. Beckett Myers is paying for everything for me too.
“We fought. We nearly came to blows especially after I let him buy me the apartment and then he said the money was mine. My dad was a dick, but it was his dick that made me and I deserved the money, so I took it because when Beckett is done fighting, he’s done. And, well, it’s nice to have a little extra or, you know, enough to buy a small island and a yacht.” She giggles.
“Well, I’m glad you gave in. This was fun.” I’ve finished all I could eat and I stand up too but feel a little lightheaded and have to pee so badly. A downside to giving birth is the inability to control the old bladder with just a little liquid in it. Every woman is different, but my bladder decided she is on strike.
“I have to pee,” I tell Mia. “Can you hold my purse? I’m just going to be a sec.”
“Yeah, sure,” she says lazily. “I’ll pay the bill and meet you outside.”
