Accidentally on Purpose 6 Book Box Set

by L. D. Davis

  When Kay Kay was a month old, Emmy brought her and Lucas to the firm to meet everyone. Even Kacey’s dry ass had a smile for the beautiful baby, but when I caught her smiling, she scowled and looked away.

  Emmy started meeting me once or twice a week at Iris’s. She tried to get out without the kids for a little while, but sometimes she came with them. I was always glad to see my kids, but when she came alone, her hands were free to hold on to me while I kissed her senseless. When the doctor cleared her six weeks after Kay Kay was born, she came directly to my office…and in my office…and on my office desk…and in my office chair…

  Everything was perfect.

  And just like that, everything fucking shattered…

  That morning, I made love to my wife before leaving for work. I almost didn’t go into work. I wanted to stay in bed with her all day, but she reminded me that we had two small children who would interrupt our day of doing nasty things under the covers.

  Before leaving, I ate breakfast with Lucas and read him a Dr. Seuss book. I fed Kaitlyn a bottle of breast milk and changed her diaper. After kissing Emmy and the kids goodbye, I told her I’d see her later in the evening and to be careful going to and from the doctor’s office, because the weather was supposed to get bad. I suggested she ask Diana to come help her out and then I left. I called my mom using the Bluetooth in my car to see how she was doing, and hung up satisfied that she was doing well.

  In the office, everything was going so smoothly that I felt I could sneak out for a little while and grab a cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee. I was a ball of energy when I walked into the shop and waved at the regulars. Iris and I exchanged our usual pleasantries as she bagged my cinnamon bun and poured my coffee.

  “Do you have a minute?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, putting my nose inside the bag. I loved the smell of a fresh baked cinnamon bun. “What’s up?”

  “I need help moving something in the back,” she said and nodded towards the back.

  “You really need to hire some hot young college guy to move stuff for you,” I teased as I followed her to the back.

  “Why do that when I can have a hot lawyer move things for me instead?” she threw back over her shoulder.

  “I don’t look at Steve like that,” I joked. “But if you think he’s hot, well okay then.”

  She led me to her office and not the supply room, but I didn’t think anything of it. I raised an eyebrow when she closed the door until it was only open a little bit.

  “Actually,” she said, rubbing her hands together and looking nervous. “I wanted to talk to you about something. I didn’t want anyone else to overhear.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. I guessed she had a legal question. She probably had something going on, and I didn’t blame her for not wanting her customers to overhear her problems.

  “Okay,” she breathed before looking up at me. She took a step closer to me. I automatically took a step back. I don’t know why. I usually don’t step away from anyone. Vivian intimidates people all of the time by stepping into their personal space and making them step back until their back hits a wall, but it never works on me. I never step back from her. In my lifetime, a few guys have stepped towards me, ready for a fight. Even if they were bigger than me, I didn’t step back. I don’t step back.

  But when Iris stepped towards me, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. If I were a cat, my back would be arched I would be hissing.

  “I think there’s something happening between us,” she said, licking her lips nervously. “I think there is at least potential for something to happen between us, and to tell you the truth, I’m getting impatient. I’m ready to push it to the next level.”

  Say what?

  I felt my head fall to one side, tilting like a confused dog as I studied her.

  “Wait. What?” I said.

  “I’m attracted to you, Luke, and I think you’re attracted to me,” she said simply. “And I’m ready to move forward.”

  Did I fucking miss something? What. The. Hell.

  “Iris,” I said, shaking myself from a brief stunned silence. “You’re friends with my wife. Emmy adores you. Have you been drinking this morning?”

  That had to be the only explanation for the words that were falling out of her mouth.

  “No, I haven’t been drinking,” she snapped. “I mean every word I just said. And I love Emmy. She’s great, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything between us.”

  “Are you hearing what you are saying?” I asked her, trying not to snap. “You just told me my wife is great and then suggested that there is something between us. My wife is more than great, Iris. My wife is fucking fantastic and there is nothing between you and me.”

  “Give me an opportunity here,” she said, almost pleading. “I know you have to feel something, too. You’re in here every day, we talk, we flirt, and you seem to really care about me.”

  I put my hands on my hips and looked up at the ceiling. She was fucking serious.

  “Iris, I treat you like I treat every other woman that isn’t my wife. You’re blowing everything out of proportion.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that I am.” She took another step towards me and I took a step back again.

  “I can’t,” I said to her, shaking my head. I looked at her more carefully and I swear her eyes were a little scary. I almost felt like she was going to pull a big ass knife out of her apron and go all Glen Close on me. I chose my words delicately. “You’re…you’re a great woman, beautiful and intelligent…and sexy, but…I have my wife and two kids.”

  She took another step forward and I took another step back.

  “I know,” she said, sounding desperate. “I love Emmy and the kids but I can’t…I can’t help the way I feel about you. I’m not asking you to leave them—just give me one night. One night, Luke. Or one day. I’ll even close the shop for a day and we can go somewhere and just be together for one day.”

  I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. I had been going to her shop for months and just being a nice guy and had no idea that she was building this crazy idea of us together in her crazy mind. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there and go hold my wife.

  “One day will turn into one more day and one more day will turn into another day after that until it is out of control, Iris,” I told her, and realized that my choice of words could have done nothing but give her hope. I wasn’t trying to give her any hope. “And this…this is madness. I would never do that to Emmy.”

  “I know you feel something for me, Luke,” she said. “Don’t you think about what we could be like together?”

  “No, Iris, I don’t think about it,” I said, thoroughly disgusted. I never once considered any kind of relationship with Iris besides the one I thought we already had. I was perfectly happy with being friendly to the woman who made my favorite pastry and treated my wife and kids well.

  “The fact that you are still standing here and having this conversation tells me that you aren’t as satisfied with your life at home as you pretend to be,” Iris said.

  Okay, she was definitely delusional. Why do I always end up with delusional women? Even Emmy was delusional at one point, but Emmy is a fucking goddess and Emmy fixed her shit.

  “I love my wife,” I said simply. There was nothing else to say, but that.

  “I don’t doubt that you do, but if life with Emmy is so perfect, you wouldn’t still be standing here considering this.”

  “I’m not…” I said, confused as to why all of my rejection was translating as consideration.

  She stepped forward and I stepped back until I hit her desk. She put her hands on my arms. I should have stepped away. I should have pushed her away. I wanted to, but she was obviously unstable. Though we never discussed that night I took her home, I had spotted her on a few other occasions drinking in the shop, both during and after hours. I didn’t want to get involved again, and she was a grown ass woman. It wasn’t my pla
ce or business, though I wondered if she wasn’t having some issues. Sometimes she seemed like she was struggling to get through a day, but again, I didn’t ask. It’s not that I was heartless, but it just was not my place. If she wanted to discuss it with Emmy, than that would have been fine.

  Now with her standing there with her hands on me, I had the urge to slap some sense into her, but I don’t hit women. Ever. I stood there, glaring at her.

  “But you are,” she said softly. “I have my hands on you and you’re not pushing me away. I made a proposal and you didn’t scurry away back to your wife. You’re still here. We’ve been flirting with this for months, Luke. I’m tired of flirting. I’m forty-three years old and I’m over the flirting game. I know what I want and I don’t want to play games to get it. I don’t know…maybe one day will lead to another day and another day after that, but if you think that will happen then it means something. It means that maybe…maybe there’s a chance for us. Don’t you want to find out? Do you really want to be left wondering ‘what if’ when we can find out?”

  I sighed in exasperation and pushed her hands off of me. I opened my mouth to speak and with animal reflexes she was on me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and planted her lips on mine. I stood there for maybe one stunned second before I was peeling her off of me and pushing her away. It felt like an eternity that her hands were on me, and my lips burned with shame for not blocking her before she could get that far, and for not reacting in a fraction of a second instead of the second it took. I was disgusted with her and disgusted with myself for not walking the fuck out of the room the moment she opened her damn mouth.

  I couldn’t breathe. The ramifications of my lack of reaction ran through my head and knocked the breath out of me.

  “No. I can’t do this with you,” I said, pushing her further away from me. “Oh my god.” I was in a full-blown panic now, bent over, ready to heave. My life was fucking perfect. I wasn’t going to let Iris or anyone else ruin my family. “I can’t. I won’t,” I said aloud to myself.

  “Luke,” Iris put her hands together in a plea.

  “No, Iris!” I roared. “Fuck.” I put my hands in my hair, pulling hard in frustration and fear. I started pacing back and forth across the room. I couldn’t believe that I let this happen. I couldn’t believe that I just stood there, possibly fucking up everything. “Fuck fuck fuck. I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “I know you’re torn but—”

  I said I never hit a woman, but Iris was pushing my limits. I got in her face so suddenly, she shrunk back as if I would hit her. “I’m not fucking torn. I’m a fucking idiot. I’m not coming back here—don’t come to my office again, don’t call me, and stay away from my family. If Emmy comes in here, you give her a fucking muffin or whatever it is she wants and stay away from her. I had to fight so hard to get her; I’m not going to throw my life with her away for you or anyone else.”

  A bell sounded from the front. I hadn’t even noticed that she had put one up there when I came in.

  “You stay the fuck away from me,” I said with a brutal quietness that scared even me.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured and began wiping away tears.

  She turned away from me and opened the door, but she stopped at the threshold, staring at something I couldn’t see. For a moment I thought this was going to be the part where she turned around and stabbed me with something. I stepped up behind her, hell bent on shoving her out of my way so I could get the hell away from her. I had told her to continue giving Emmy whatever she asked for, but I needed to tell Emmy what happened. If this had happened to Emmy with another guy, I would want to know. If she found out on her own, she may assume the worse on my part, and she may never forgive me.

  I looked up, ready to push Iris out of my way and locked eyes with Emmy.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Emmy was running away from me before I could even speak her name. I did shove Iris out of my way as I took off after my wife. I ran out onto the sidewalk, shouting for her as she ran down the street.

  It started to rain hard. Before stepping into Iris’s shop, I had been in such a euphoric mood, I had not even noticed the pregnant rain clouds.

  “Emmy!” I screamed after her.

  I felt like my whole damn life was running away. I had to catch up to her and explain. I was almost to her. Almost there, but she suddenly sprinted into the street. I watched in horror as she just narrowly missed getting hit by a car. I screamed her name again and again and suddenly she was getting hit by the front fender of a car. My heart lurched in my chest. Horror could not adequately describe what I felt as I watched her stumble from the impact. That car hit her pretty hard, but she didn’t fall. She was so anxious to get away from me, that she kept right on running. I also started darting around moving cars, playing a terrible game of Frogger, trying to reach her as I frantically called out her name. I had to make sure she was okay.

  I ignored the horns that were honking and the people that dared to put their windows down in the rain to yell at me. When Emmy scrambled into the back of a cab, I chased after it and just landed my hands on the back of it before the light ahead changed and the car took off.

  I ran back across the street and went right to my car, feeling lucky that I had my keys in my pocket. My guess was that she had parked and took the L. I decided to just meet her at home instead of trying to catch her getting to her car. Once I was inside the car, I started calling her repeatedly, getting her voicemail each time.

  “Fuck!” I yelled, slamming my hands on the steering wheel.

  I felt like my whole world was washing away with the rain. Emmy had run from me instead of punching Iris in the face and kicking me in the balls. I would have preferred that over her running away. I would have preferred for her to yell and scream and beat me than to run away. Running away signified defeat. Running away meant that she had already given up on me before I even saw her there in that hallway. I had no idea how long she had been there, but even if she had been there from the very beginning, it was the end that would have done her in. The end where I didn’t act fast enough shove Iris off of me before her lips could even touch mine.

  My driving was unsafe by any standards. I crept through red lights and stop signs, missing some altogether. I drove too fast for the weather and narrowly missed running off of the road several times. When I sped into the driveway, I felt very little relief. I didn’t see her car. It was possible she already parked in the garage and was waiting for me inside with a baseball bat, but what greeted me when I got inside was so much worse. It was silence. And an obvious hasty retreat.

  ***

  I held my tie in my hands as I called Donya again.

  “No, I still haven’t heard from her,” she said when she answered. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “No,” I said and hung up on her.

  I stared down at the tie as I tried not to cry. I would rather hang myself with that fucking tie than to face a lifetime without Emmy.

  It had been hours. Fucking hours. She wasn’t answering my calls or text messages. She took the kids and left in a hurry, probably only moments before I got home. I called Sam and asked if she had spoken to her but gave her no details. I didn’t have time to give anyone details. I had to keep the line open incase Emmy called. I called Mayson and asked if she had heard from her, too, and got the same negative response.

  Honestly, I was ready to even call Kyle Sterling. Would she have gone that far? To run back into his arms? If she did, it would have been my fault entirely, and I would deserve nothing less than to hang myself with that damn tie.

  My sisters heard nothing. The few friends Emmy had made over the year hadn’t spoken to her either. I tried calling Diana but only got her voicemail. It was as if Emmy and my kids were in the wind.

  My kids…had I destroyed their lives, too? Would they blame me later for having to grow up in a broken home and having to be shared between me and
their mother? Fuck. I didn’t deserve to even be their father.

  What if she was seriously hurt after getting hit by that car? What if she was dying somewhere while my kids sat by crying for their mother?

  Like the weak man I apparently was, I cried again for the third or fourth time that day. I sat on the edge of the couch with my head in my hands, crying. I had fucking lost everything. If Emmy didn’t come back, I wouldn’t be able to survive.

  ***

  I had to go find her. It was getting dark and she had been gone for hours and hours. What if she was so upset that she got into a car accident? Where the fuck was she? Where the fuck were my kids?

  I didn’t know where I was going to start, but I had to go look for her. I got up and just stepped onto the foyer when the front door swung open. I watched Emmy walk in through wide eyes and my heart fucking shattered when she looked away from me. I wanted to pull her to me and apologize, but Lucas was there, needing my attention. I was beyond grateful that he was even there for me to pick up in my arms. I told him I missed him and tried to control the quavering in my voice.

  I looked at Emmy, hoping to god she wasn’t just popping in to get the rest of her shit and leave again.

  “I’ll put him to bed and then we can talk?” I said to her, not hiding how much I was hoping she would agree.

  She turned away from me without a word, carried Kaitlyn into the living room, and said nothing. I had the awful feeling that this woman I loved so much was going to leave me. She was going to leave me for dead, because that’s what I’d be without her.

  “Emmy?” I called her name, trying not to break down with Lucas in my arms.

  “Just put Lucas to bed,” she said in a dead voice as she started to take Kaitlyn out of her car seat.

  I stood there, staring at her back for a long moment. I was afraid to take my eyes off of her again. What if I came back down and she was gone again? And then when I went to look for Lucas he was gone, too?