Page 58 of Beauty and the Bosshole
Five years later…
“Are you drinking enough celery juice, dear?” Nina’s concerned face squints at me through the screen of my laptop, which is sitting on the coffee table of our family room. I’ve not drunk any celery juice today, or this week, or ever. But like I have for my last two pregnancies, I nod politely and tell my mother-in-law a little white lie.
“Yup, yum.”
She relaxes and sits back away from the screen, satisfied with my answer. “It’s all I drank when I was pregnant with Reese, kept me from being gassy.”
At that moment, Teagan, our four-year-old scrambles onto my lap, and Nina forgets all about her gassy pregnancy to coo at her granddaughter.
“I drew Max.”
Teagan holds up a picture with an orange blob on it, and Nina claps her hands like it’s the perfect rendering of our cat and not a squiggle with eyes.
Max became the pinup boy for Pussycat Rescue, the charity I founded when we got back to Porter.
I’ve rescued thousands of cats and kittens over the last five years and managed to rehome them all, including several dozen who now live at our place. The cats have their own wing of the house with climbing frames, sleep towers, and floor-to-ceiling windows so there’s always a sunny spot on the floor.
They also have free rein of the house, which is why there’s now a tabby rubbing against my legs and a Siamese asleep on the back of the couch behind me.
“It looks just like your daddy, dear. Well done.”
Teagan frowns. “It’s not Daddy, it’s Max.”
But Nina rattles on about the bright colors, entirely unaware she’s misheard Teagan.
Not wanting her sister to get all the attention, Lena crawls onto my lap and I shift back on the sofa so they’re not squashing their brother who’s kicking fiercely in my tummy.
“There’s my girls!” Leon sits on the couch next to Nina, his sun-wizened face in a wide smile I never thought possible when I first met the old gangster five years ago.
He puts one faux snakeskin boot on the coffee table, and Nina puts her hand on his knee and rubs it affectionally.
I’ve never seen love change a man as much as it changed Leon Anderson. As soon as he and Nina were married, he gave up all his old operations and came to work for Aurora running the Las Vegas distribution.
Inspired by my cat charity, he set up a snake rescue center and spends his days caring for injured snakes and rehabilitating them back into the wild. He threw away all his snakeskin accessories and went full vegan, only wearing faux snakeskin outfits now. The one he has on today is a silk coat in a snakeskin print, and Nina is wearing the matching trousers, the one outfit shared between them.
While the girls chat away to their nanna and pops, I excuse myself from the couch. Max is in his usual spot at the top of the cat tower, and I give him a rub as I walk past. Below him, Mindy and Snuggles (named by Teagan) stretch lazily while Vegas scampers past, almost tripping me up.
They might have their own wing, but some cats like to be where the action is. Our newest kittens play on the floor, and Max eyes them warily. Presiding over operations like the king he is.
I chuck him under the chin, and he purrs softly.
At that moment, the nanny, a middle-aged French woman, bustles into the room, holding my personal vibrator in one hand and the solar charger in the other.
“Your device is charged,” she says without a hint of irony.
Heat creeps into my cheeks. After five years with Reese, you’d think I’d be comfortable discussing personal pleasure devices, but it still makes me blush.
“Um, thanks.” I take the slick silver case from her. It houses my personal vibrator and the small attachments it comes with.
“You’ll have to show me how to use it sometime.” Martine eyes the device, and I almost choke.
“Excuse me?”
“I haven’t seen a phone like this before. Is it only in America?”
I swallow a laugh and take the device from her. “It’s not really…”
I’m saved from having to explain myself by Teagan barreling into Martine. She loves the nanny who comes twice a week to look after the girls. “Are you taking us to the park?”