Command My Heart ~ Book 2 - The Royal Blood Collection

Chapter 21

Nisha huffed as Otanawa smiled, almost like she knew what she was doing.

"Just put a fresh one on," I said, offering the clean diaper.

Removing the soiled diaper, Nisha slid the new one under Otanawa's backside and quickly did the tabs up. Otanawa babbled as she slobbered on her hand. To Nisha's disgust, Otanawa was trying to roll over.

"Stay put." She grumbled.

"Roll her back and pull the pants up."

"It's a bit hard when she's twisted."

Reaching up to the mobile, I turned the dial and made the music play. Otanawa was enthralled, watching it turn the little teddy bears around. With Otanawa distracted, Nisha was able to dress her with ease.

"Now what?"

"Well, now that she's got strong muscles in her back and neck, she's started to sit up on her own so you can do this."

Taking her hands, I gently pulled Otanawa up.

"Boo!"

She shrieked a giggle that was infectious. Stepping aside for Nisha, I flicked my head to the child that had grabbed a bear.

"Lift her up."

The whole movement was awkward, Otanawa refused to let go of the bear now that she had a hold of it and Nisha didn't know what to do. I gently opened the chubby fingers and pulled the bear free.

"She's big enough now to sit on your hip."

"What?" Nisha asked with a frown.

"Move her to your hip, hold her from behind."

Nisha looked genuinely impressed when Otanawa was in the right spot.

"How come you know so much?"

I looked at Nisha and knew that I could never escape. No matter how hard I tried, I could never run from the past. Going into the army was a foolish attempt to do that, and I'd failed. The past was always there, lingering, haunting.

With a huff, I wandered over to the toy chest and pulled out the tub of soft blocks. Nisha sat Otanawa on the floor in front of her.

"It was a few years ago."

As I got down on the floor, I upended the blocks and put the tub aside.

"Met a girl, she was working for Ceroni in The Red Room."

I shrugged as I looked up at Nisha.

"I walked into the place not knowing it was owned by a gangster, one that was a hated rival of the guy that I was doing odd jobs for. Because it was only a few jobs now and then, Ceroni didn't know who I was. I met this girl; she was working behind the counter because she was pregnant and had started to show. We got talking because I wanted to drink my ass off and she was pissed off because she was earning less than what she usually made, pissed off because one of her clients had gotten her pregnant."

As I spoke, I stacked the blocks. Otanawa was having a grand old time knocking them down.

"So, drunk me said that I wouldn't care if the girl I was with was pregnant and stop looking at me like that because I know it wasn't the right thing to do."

Nisha rolled her eyes, but there was a smirk.

"She was broke; I was cashed up from a recent job for Caplan so I said that I'd happily pay her for something. That something was pretty good, so I kept going back. She was happy because she was getting money, even if it wasn't much and well, I was happy too."