Chapter Twenty-Three
Five days. It had been five days of caring for Saoirse ‘round the clock. While he wouldn’t have it any other way, and he hated to admit it, Arthur was feeling the strain of it.
When she was sweet and docile, he loved nothing more than holding her on his lap and reading to her or watching a movie—she hadn’t seen most of the animated ones that had come out since she’d been in college because people would tease her about liking them so they had plenty to catch up on.
He loved bottle-feeding her, giving her little morsels of solid food, watching her build legos or put together puzzles. Dressing her in the mornings was a delight, and God did he love making her come. And spanking her when she was naughty, of course.
What he loved less were the tantrums. He knew she wasn’t feeling well, and that even though 90 percent of the time she seemed to love being little that she could suddenly become frustrated and angry and out would come the girl he remembered from the first time she lived with him: the one who would on rare but multiple occasions scream and stomp and throw things.
It would take a while, he knew, for her to truly believe that he wouldn’t leave her no matter what, and to build up her courage to talk to him about things before she got so overwhelmed the only way she could let off the steam was to blow up.
He’d told her several times that if she wanted a break from being little everyday—change her clothes, go out somewhere by herself, that kind of thing—she could have it. And she’d insisted she didn’t. Was that because she meant it or because she was a driven and stubborn girl who wouldn’t compromise on something if it made her feel as though she were “giving up”?
Plus there was still that lingering doubt that she’d told him everything about why she’d left law school. Arthur didn’t care for not having all the information in a case or in life but he’d sworn to himself he’d be patient with her, give her all the time she needed to build her trust and faith in him and then she’d tell him. He knew it. Until then, he would keep showing up every day and caring for her as best he could—with some consultations with Eric.
He’d just put Saoirse down for a nap and now had a call to return. Vance had kept his word and done a very impressive job of keeping the number of calls and emails from Arthur’s associates down to a minimum and Arthur was going to owe his partner big time.
Knowing Vance, he wouldn’t insist on being compensated but he suspected the toll Nikolina would extract for this would be high enough for the both of them. Plus she refused to speak with Arthur directly. Hopefully a day would come when she would put that aside, otherwise they may as well break up the firm.
Hopefully that wasn’t what Vance wanted to chat about.
In the library Arthur set up his screens—lots of the young people at the firm had more than one screen on their desk, but he only had his laptop and the monitor app on his phone. Saoirse wasn’t quite asleep yet, but she seemed to be singing to Ziggy and that was a good indication she’d be knocked out soon.
On his laptop screen, Vance popped up and Arthur had to smile. Vance could be impulsive and unconventional in ways that sometimes made Arthur choke, but he was an excellent attorney and a fine man.
“How’s Saoirse?”
It was that kind of thing that made people like Vance. He remembered to ask about whatever you’d talked about in your last conversation with him whether it was big or small. Obviously this was pretty huge since it had Vance playing go-between but it was nice that he framed it as caring about Saoirse as opposed toIs this over yet because it blows.Even if it did.
“Withdrawal is ugly and hard so she’s not feeling so hot right now, but she’s doing amazing. She’s a tough cookie.”
Vance tipped his head, narrowed his eyes.
“This is maybe out of line, but…is Saoirse just your ex-wife’s daughter? Or is there something else going on that you haven’t mentioned?”
Prevaricating had never been one of Arthur’s specialties, especially not with Vance and Nikki. They so often had to behave a certain way with clients and judges, colleagues from other firms and younger attorneys—it could take a toll. And having an office to come back to where you could blow off steam with people you trusted was essential. Vance and Nikki had been his family and it wounded him to think he might never experience that camaraderie with Nikki again, that he’d hurt her so badly.
“She’s my little,” Arthur said simply. “It happened fast and hard and I don’t quite know how but here we are. I love her beyond reason and I can’t imagine giving her up.”
Vance’s brows rose halfway up his forehead.
“No shit. Well, I owe Nikki a bottle of del Porto.”
“The AsomBroso?”
“Yep. Son of a bitch.”
Nikki had had her eye on that bottle of extra añejo tequila for a long time but she couldn’t bring herself to spend two-thousand dollars to satisfy her curiosity, especially since she could get a very good bottle for under two-hundreddollars. Looked like Vance was going to do it for her.
Arthur had to laugh. Nikki and Vance were forever making wagers and booze was their favorite currency. And not for nothing but Nikki had a better-stocked bar than Vance.
“She knew, huh?”
“Yeah. Told me so after she’d spent a couple of hours rage-working in her office.”
Oof. Nikki was always a force to be reckoned with but she liked to make phone calls when she was angry and wow, that woman could have a customer service rep sending her apology chocolates and flowers after fifteen minutes on the phone.
“How?”