Page 2 of Nothing Without You

Liam sighed like I was slow or something. “Superhero mask, Mommy. I want KJ to see it.”

If I wasn’t already so flustered by the morning, I might have laughed.

“This isn’t a superhero mask, Bear.” I tossed my bra on the leather couch before I ushered him out of the house and toward our car, which was parked on the street in front of our house.

Liam grumbled about his superhero mask the entire way to the car, while I buckled him in, and the entire ride to my job. I filled his blabbing with frequent uh-huhs, yeahs, and okays.

By the time we pulled up to my work building, Liam seemed to have gotten all his complaining out. As I helped him out of the car, his grumbling turned into excitement.

“KJ, Mommy! KJ!”

“Yes, baby. KJ,” I replied as I locked the car and walked toward the entrance of the pristine building.

KJ, as in Keegan Junior, was Liam’s best friend. He also just so happened to by my boss’s son. Actually, Keegan Slater was more like my boss ten times over. Keegan owned the tech company I worked for, and I worked in the HR department.

I had a late start with college. Liam’s father, Damien, and I had a toxic ass relationship, and he held me up from a lot of things straight out of high school. I gave that man way too many years of my life. Toward the end, I started getting myself together and preparing to give my son the best life, even if I had to do it myself. In my last year of college, Damien and I finally broke up. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in human resources, and shortly after that, I found out I was almost three months pregnant.

I took the first job I could get, and it just so happened to be with Keegan’s company. It was a tech company that made millions, though my salary was a lot humbler than that. Still, I loved what I did, onboarding new hires and holding all the orientations. It helped that there was affordable on-site day care. That was where I met Keegan. We dropped our boys off there around the same time every morning, and we started out with small talk. It was months before I found out that he owned the damn company.

KJ and Liam were the same age and had been thick since they were babies, since they were the only two in their age group at the day care. Keegan and I even had a couple of play dates for the boys at my house, but I always made sure to keep things friendly and not personal at all with that fine-ass man. It wasn’t hard. Believe me.

Inside, Liam clapped his hands and took off running toward the elevator.

“Liam, stop!” I shouted across the lobby.

He didn’t stop. “KJ, Mommy!”

My four-inch pumps were no match against his energy. I tried jogging to catch up with him, but his little ass jumped onto the elevator, and it started to close. I was still a few yards away and wouldn’t make it in time. My heart hammered in my chest. I knew the building had cameras and whatnot, so he wouldn’t be hard to track down, but that was the last thing a mother wanted to deal with. The panic of your child getting on an elevator without you and not knowing which floor he might get off on.

“Liam!” I shouted again just as the elevator doors closed.

Tears swam in my eyes, but before I could start hyperventilating, the elevator doors popped back open, and this time, I could see who was inside with Liam.

Keegan Slater.

KJ stood next to his father, holding his hand and looking up at me curiously.

“Doll, Daddy. It’s Doll,” he said as he pointed up at me with the cutest smile.

I tried to smile back at him. His calling me by the nickname Keegan had given me had always melted my heart, but I was sure my smile looked more like a grimace at the moment. The elevator made its ascend to the third floor where the day care was.

I dropped down to my knees and grabbed Liam by his arms. “Liam, why didn’t you stop when I told you to?”

“KJ, Mommy,” he muttered as he pointed at KJ. Tears rimmed his eyes, and I knew that he knew he was in trouble at that moment.

Instead of scolding him right away, I brought him in for a hug. “You need to listen to Mommy, Bear, even when you’re excited. Do you hear me?”

“I sorry.” He cried against my neck, and I closed my eyes and shook my head.

When I pulled away from him, I held his shoulders. “Don’t do that again. Do you hear me?”

Liam nodded, and I stood up, wiping tears of frustration from my eyes. Slowly, I turned to glance up at Keegan. My knees felt weak looking up at all that sexiness. He nodded at me. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

His light brown eyes seemed to only ever soften when he looked at me. It was one of the many things I noticed about him. Most people in this building looked at him like a tyrant. I’d even seen him act an ass with others, but whenever he interacted with me, there was a different version of him.

“You sure? You need me to talk some sense into the lil nigga for stressin’ his mama out?” he asked.