Mia Like Crazy (36 page)

Drew seemed thoughtful again as he turned into the apartment parking garage. “I’m not sure if I was in love with you the first time I saw you,” he said. “But I was so aware of you… I noticed the way you smelled, the way your mouth moved, the way the light reflected off your hair…” His face held a wistful expression. “Then, when I was trying to scare you, we were so close, and you looked up at me without any fear at all. Your lips were open just a little bit and I wanted to be in there so bad, but I was afraid if I touched you, I would lose control of myself.”

He had pulled into his spot in the parking garage. He put the car in park, turned to me, slipped one hand behind my head and placed his other palm on the side of my face. He drew me toward him and pressed his lips to mine, plunging his tongue into my mouth in a searing, lust-filled kiss.

“That’s what I wanted to do,” he said afterward.

I was glad I’d been sitting down for that one.

“Anyway, I knew I was in love with you the next day, when you came back after reading the articles, but the third day, when you didn’t show up at nine sharp, I thought I was gonna die. So I swiped you from your hotel.”

“Hoping, if you nursed me back to health and kept feeding me, I’d stick around.”

“You can’t argue with success.”

~

As we walked into the apartment, the phone rang. It was Meridith. “I just heard what happened with Mason,” she said. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re better than okay, Meri,” I said. “We’re really good.”

“Mia’s good,” Drew tried to yell into the phone. “I’m great!”

Meridith sounded concerned. “He hasn’t gone off the deep end has he?”

“No, actually—”

“Can you come over here?” Meridith interrupted. “There’s something I need to tell the both of you, right away.”

“Um…okay.” Then to Drew I said, “We need to go to your sister’s.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Drew and I stood in front of Meridith’s door, acting like a couple of teenagers returning from a date. As he dipped me backward and playfully tried to fasten his lips onto my neck—to disprove my claim that his D-shaped New Year’s Eve hickey was a fluke—I squealed and tried to swat him away.

I noticed Meridith standing at the door watching us, an odd expression on her face.

“Drew…your sister!”

He removed his lips from my neck and looked at Meridith. “It’s okay. We’re married. It’s all perfectly legal.”

“I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,” Meridith said with the same bewildered expression on her face. “I didn’t hear the doorbell.”

“That’s probably because we forgot to ring it.” Drew smiled broadly as we all walked into the living room.

“I must say, you two don’t act like people who just lost
ninety million
dollars,” Meridith said. “Have you been drinking?”

“Certainly not!” I said. “It’s just that we found
something much more important than we lost.”

“May I ask what?” Meridith’s curiosity was obviously peaked.

Drew jumped in before I could answer. “Well, I found myself, then we found each other—oh, and then I found a baby in Mia’s tummy.” He pointed proudly at my abdomen.

“Congratulations!” Meridith exclaimed as though she didn’t already know. “I can’t wait to be an aunt. Would you like some coffee?” She turned and headed for the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

“This must be serious if Meridith wants to talk about it in the kitchen,” Drew murmured.

I worried our happiness might be short-lived as I tried to remember if Meridith and I had ever talked about anything unimportant in her kitchen.

As we sat down at the table, he couldn’t seem to control his pessimistic thoughts. “Meri, are you okay? You’re not dying or anything—”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that!” Meridith assured him. “It’s actually good news. It turns out, if your marriage was not acceptable to Mr.
Mason
,” she uttered his name with uncharacteristic hostility, “…then, the money reverts to me. Since it is, rightfully, your inheritance, I’m giving it back to you.”

It was bizarre to me, the way Meridith spoke so matter-of-factly about multi-million dollar fortunes. She sounded as if she was telling her brother she would be returning the marbles she’d won from him in a game.

Since we were speechless, Meridith continued, “I know it’s more complicated than that. Mia, you can get together with the lawyers and accountants, and figure out the best way to do everything, for tax purposes and all, but, what I’m saying is, you’ll have your inheritance, Drew.”

I had become very close to Drew’s sister over the previous six months and, although Meridith was delivering great news, I got the distinct feeling she was still hiding something. I scanned through all the possibilities and came up with a question.

“Meri? How long have you known about this?”

Bingo
. Meridith looked as guilty as the criminals in those trials I’d observed in college.

“About what?” she stalled.

I looked at Drew, who couldn’t seem to fathom that his sister would be hiding anything.

“How long have you known if he didn’t get the money, you could just give it to him yourself?”

“I guess I’ve known for a while
…
” When Drew and I both raised our eyebrows, she rushed through the rest of the story like an auctioneer. “Well, my father’s lawyer didn’t think Drew should have the money at all, so when he realized I was planning a wedding for you, he called me and suggested I might not want to be so helpful because if this didn’t work out for Drew, the other ninety million would be mine.” She finally took a breath, held it and flinched like she was waiting for her execution.

“You knew about this since before
we got married?” I was flabbergasted. “Why wouldn’t you have told Drew…and
me
?”

“Because, then, you two wouldn’t have had any good reason to get married. You hardly knew each other, and, Mia, you would have felt the only reasonable thing to do was to back out,” Meridith replied defensively. “I figured Drew would try to keep you on as his lawyer, but with his hang-ups, it would have been years before anything happened between you two—if you weren’t living in the same house, as a couple.”

At first, I was shocked to learn Meridith was capable of such deception, but then I remembered how, time and time again, she’d been able to hatch instant plots whenever I needed help with a Drew problem.

But I had never imagined sweet Meri was doing the same thing behind
my
back. It irked me to realize just how gullible I was.

“So you orchestrated this entire relationship, under false pretenses?” I paraphrased. “Did you work some magic to make sure I got pregnant too?”

“Oh, no. You two took care of that all by yourselves,” Meridith answered with a satisfied smirk.

Drew turned to me. “And I thought she was so sweet and innocent.” He looked at Meridith. “You’re the best diabolical-criminal-mastermind sister a guy could have!”

He got up and walked around to where Meridith was sitting, leaned down, hugged her from behind, and gave her a loud smack on the cheek.

Tears sprang into Meridith’s eyes. “That’s the first time you’ve ever done that,” she said, holding her hand to her cheek.

“That’s the first time you’ve deserved it so much,” he replied.

Meridith laughed.

I was still fuming. I prided myself on having been completely in charge of my life since I was a child. My independent nature didn’t allow for this kind of blatant, personal interference.

“Aren’t you just a little appalled that your sister has been manipulating us—fraudulently
—
for the past six months?”

“Well, counselor
,
” Drew said playfully. “In the past six months, I’ve gone from being a pathetic loner to a real person, who got to marry the woman he loves, had some
absolutely
incredible
sex—” I whacked him on the arm for that, but he ignored me and continued. “And now, I have my own little baby that I put in there myself
.”
He pointed proudly at my stomach again. “Plus, I’m a multi-millionaire—where’s the down side?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at his antics, in spite of myself.

Meridith was speaking quickly again. “And since you’re both in a good mood now, um, I told the Russells—the neighbors who are selling the house that backs up to this property—you might be interested in buying.” She put her hands up in front of her face, palms out, as though she thought I might want to shoot her.

I rolled my eyes. “I think we have enough people here for our first meeting of ‘Control Freaks Anonymous,’” I sighed. “I don’t see how any of these kids have a chance with the three of us in charge.”

“Now, is it really so terrible to grow up with a perfectly clean house, perfectly carved pumpkins, and a perfectly planned schedule?” Meridith asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll find out when they write their books about us.”

“Well, we don’t have time to talk about it now,” Drew interrupted. “We’ve got to go.”

“Why? Does the cleaning lady come
here
today?” I asked sarcastically.

He was already dragging me toward the door. “We’ll see you in about a week, Meri,” he yelled.

When we were in the car, I asked, “Are we going to lock ourselves in the apartment to celebrate?”

“Not even close,” he said. “We’ve got plane reservations. When I woke up at five o’clock this morning, I called Meridith’s assistant to get her travel agent’s number. She found a resort in Mexico where the rooms look like little grass huts. We’re going for a week, and I’ll even let you keep the place as messy as you want.”

“From clean-freak hermit to messy tourist overnight,” I exclaimed. “Gee, Drew, you’re scaring me.”

“See, I knew you were afraid of me!” he said cheerfully, as he turned the car out of Meridith’s drive and onto the main road.

~ ~ ~

Want to know more? To get a glimpse of Drew and Mia’s lives 20 years later, read Mia’s confession about why she quit the law firm and learn secrets about Drew, Mia and Meridith not included in the book, visit Nina Cordoba’s blog at ninacordoba.com (
http://ninacordoba.com/Blog
)
, “Book Extras” category.

~

Inspirations:

Mia Like Crazy
is fiction and Drew and Mia are fictional characters. This is the place in my books where I usually talk about people, places, and things that inspired me to write the novel. However, the people who inspired this story (who were close to me over the years) would not want their names publicized. In fact, like many in their situations, they don’t want to think of themselves as victims at all and speak of these things rarely. But not speaking of them doesn’t make the repercussions less real.

I dedicated this book to “the ones who never stopped trying” because many who have experienced the kind of physical or emotional pain Drew and Mia suffered don’t throw in the towel. They try. And when their childhood traumas slip back into their subconscious and cause them to fall, they get up and try again. Few people they come in contact with are ever aware of their struggles.

Drew and Mia’s issues are a compilation from several friends and loved ones, who were physically abused, emotionally abused, felt unloved or neglected by parents, and/or suffered the effects of racism. In their adult lives, they must overcome trust issues, intimacy issues, anger, memory loss, blocking of feelings, and are sometimes unsure of their own motivations. But still they try.