by Summers, MJ
Luc looked rumpled in the same T-shirt and jeans, with his hair messier than normal. Megan’s heart ached at the sight of him. He was so handsome and had slid so effortlessly into their lives. Here he was, making breakfast and packing Elliott’s lunch as though these were things he had been doing for years. He smiled at Megan, but in his eyes was a look of concern. She could tell he was worried that she would be upset he had stayed the night.
Megan smiled back gratefully. “Good morning,” she said as she walked over and gave Elliott a kiss on his forehead.
“Morning, Mom! Luc made my breakfast, and now he’s packing my lunch for me. I said we should wake you up but he thought we should let you sleep a bit more.”
“Thank you, Luc. That is really sweet of you,” Megan replied as Luc handed her a coffee.
She held the mug in both hands, feeling the warmth of it before she took a sip. “I should run upstairs and get dressed to take Elliott to school. I might take a quick shower, if you don’t mind holding down the fort for a few more minutes.”
“Go ahead. We’ve got everything under control here. Elliott is teaching me how to get kids ready for school.”
Megan gave him a big teasing grin. “Good. So you’ll know what to do in case you decide to start a daycare as your next big business venture.”
Helen looked up from her toast. “Megan, can you drive me over to my house after you drop Elliott off at school? I’d like some time at home to pay some bills and pick up a few things. I’ll be fine on my own for a few hours.”
“Okay, Mom.”
She hurried up the stairs to shower. As she started to undress, memories of the night before came flooding back into her mind. She and Luc had nearly had unprotected sex.
I’m acting like a horny teenager, she thought. Thank God Luc pulled out in time.
She was irritated with herself, realizing that her desire for him was so overwhelming she would have risked so much so stupidly just to be with him. She had never been this irresponsible in her life, even as a college student. Her heart sank as the realization that she was completely in love with him washed over her. She stood under the hot spray of water, knowing she would have to make him leave, and soon, before this went any further. She could not under any circumstances fall in love with this man. In her panic, she completely forgot about her dream.
* * *
“So, you must be really rich, right?”
“What makes you say that?” Luc replied mildly as he took a bite of his toast. He was seated at the table beside Elliott, who was finishing his second bowl of cereal.
“You took my mom on a private jet. Only rich people do that.”
“That’s solid logic, Elliott. It isn’t polite for me to talk about it, but I guess you could say I have enough money to do what I want.”
“Good. That means you can move here then.”
Luc choked on his coffee. “Why is that?”
“I can tell you like my mom, so if you can do whatever you want, that means you can move here and help her out. I’m looking for someone to help my mom out. My friend Jase’s parents are married to each other and it’s nice, because his mom doesn’t have to do everything for herself. Even if you aren’t married, you could still help my mom. She’d like that,” Elliott replied.
“Oh, well,” Luc stumbled to find the right words, “it’s not quite as simple as that. I have a lot businesses that I have to run in different parts of the world. I can’t just leave it all and move here.”
“Why not? You can just pay people to look after your businesses, can’t you?” Elliott looked perplexed as he tried to piece this together.
“Ah well, true, but when you own businesses like I do, you’re responsible for keeping an eye on everything to make sure that things are running smoothly. You owe it to the people who work for you to have a job for them. Does that make sense to you?”
“Sort of, I guess. But if your businesses are all over the place, you could live here and then keep going to check on them, couldn’t you?”
Luc didn’t notice that Megan had stepped into the room a moment earlier. “Elliot, if you’re done eating, you need to run upstairs and brush your teeth.”
“Can Luc take me to school, Mom?” Elliott asked as he passed her on his way upstairs.
“No, buddy. He’s got to get going. He has to go back home today.” Megan avoided looking at Luc while she spoke.
“Aw, really?” Elliott whined. “But when will he come back?”
“Just go brush, we’re going to be late!” she replied impatiently.
Luc eyed Megan uncertainly as she unzipped Elliott’s lunch kit to check it. She quickly zipped it back up. “Thank you for all your help,” she said without looking up.
“I’ve done something to upset you,” he said quietly as he stood and walked toward her.
“No,” she said quickly, turning away and going to the closet. “Um, it’s just . . . We’ll have to talk about it later. I should get Elliott to school.”
Luc rubbed his cheek with his hand, feeling the stubble against his palm. There was nothing more he could say with Helen standing at the door with them.
Elliott came running down the stairs and Megan handed him his coat. He slipped it on and rushed over to Luc.
“Here,” he said, placing a tiny green soldier in Luc’s hand. “So you know I’m still your friend, even when you aren’t here.”
Luc gave him a surprised look. “Are you sure you want to give me this? You just got it.”
“Yup! I’m sure I want you to have it. Besides, I have a whole box of them!”
Megan stood by the door with her coat and boots on, holding his backpack out to him. “Come on, Elliott. We really have to go.”
Elliott gave Luc a big hug and then held his hand out to do a fist bump. Luc returned the gesture. “Goodbye, Elliott. I’ve had such fun getting to know you.”
“Me too!” Elliott called back as he hurried over to Megan.
“See you in a bit,” Megan said, her voice expressionless.
Luc sat, holding the small toy in his hand, not sure what had just happened. Elliott had grown so attached to him that he had just asked him to move here. Megan’s demeanour had changed completely since her shower. It seemed like she couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she was worried. She knew he would never make a good father for Elliott, and she had as much as just told him to leave. The night before, he and Megan had come dangerously close to admitting they were in love, which was the only rule they knew they couldn’t break in order for this to work. He was going to break Megan’s heart and her little boy’s too if he stuck around much longer. Luc could never live with himself if he became that guy who showed up to get what he wanted and then abandoned them over and over again. Helen was recovering quickly, and Megan didn’t need him to stay any longer to help her out.
* * *
After dropping her mom at her house, Megan pulled over on a side street. Helen had been quiet during the ride, having noticed what was going on between her daughter and Luc. Before Megan left her mom’s house, Helen had given her upper arm a little squeeze. “I know this is scary. Things have maybe moved a bit fast in the last few days, but it’s going to be alright if you let it happen, Megan. He’s a good man. I can see it. Let him in, honey.”
Megan had looked away from her mom’s gaze, trying to blink back her tears. She nodded at the floor before turning to leave. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, Mom.”
Now as she sat in her car, she needed to figure out what to say to Luc when she got home. Her mind was swirling with everything the week had brought. Her heart ached as she thought of the man at her house. She wished she could just rush home and spend the entire morning in bed with him. How was she going to find the strength to push away the one thing she needed most? Resting her head on her hand, she slumped down in the seat. It all felt too hard to Megan. The need to be the good mom, to be ever-vigilant of her responsibilities, had never fel
t like more of a burden than it did now.
Atlanta, Georgia–—Five and a Half Years Earlier
Megan’s ears took in the horrible cry of her fourteen-month-old Elliott as soon as she opened the front door of her house. It was an early summer evening, and she had been out for a long-overdue and well-needed night out with Harper. She hadn’t been away from the baby or Ian in months, not since Ian’s shoulder injury. She had cared for both of them tirelessly and finally had been able to have a few precious hours of not being responsible for anyone. She and Harper had sat on a restaurant patio, laughing until their faces hurt and lounging in the fading sun while they drank sangrias and ate appetizers for dinner. Megan was still smiling as she stepped out of the cab and practically skipped up the sidewalk to her home. It felt so nice to just be Megan, the fun-loving young woman, for a few hours.
Now, as she closed the door behind her, she realized there was something frantic about the baby’s cry; it was a sound she had never heard from him before, and it made her blood run cold. Flinging off her heels, she ran across the cool tile floor of their expansive living room, her bare feet making a slapping sound with each step. She took the stairs two at a time, knowing something must be very wrong.
Bursting through the door to Elliott’s room, she gasped, seeing him red-faced, sitting up in his crib, covered in vomit. His arms were outstretched, and he took no notice of her as she rushed across the room, shushing him. As she swooped him up into her arms, she gave no thought to her beautiful coral silk dress, which was quickly becoming soaked with urine and vomit.
She pressed her lips to his forehead, now feverish and drenched from crying, as he continued to scream. Her nose was assaulted by the pungent scent of his little body as she rushed to the bathroom to draw him a warm bath.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, Elliott,” she soothed with a quiet, reassuring voice, although she felt no sense of the calm she was trying to convey. Where the fuck was Ian? Why hadn’t he come when Elliott began to cry? Was he okay?
She put Elliott on a towel and stripped off his light sleeper and diaper, depositing both in the Diaper Genie and slamming the lid shut. A second gasp escaped her lips as she cleaned his bottom with a wipe, revealing an angry red rash. He had been sitting in his soiled diaper for what must have been a very long time.
Tears of guilt and pity rolled down Megan’s cheeks as she placed her baby in the water, which she tested first against her wrist. As he sat in the bath, finally registering that his mother’s hands were washing him, his screams finally subsided into the heart-wrenching, shuddering breaths of a child who has been left to cry too long.
Megan sang his favourite song as she continued to bathe him, draining the tub once to rid it of filth and then refilling it with fresh, warm water.
“You are my sunshine. . . .” she sang quietly as she lathered baby shampoo into the wisps of white-blond hair that covered his little head. Her brain was trying to register how this had happened. Had Ian left him here alone? What could possibly have happened?
She finally lifted Elliott out of the tub and pulled the stopper as she bundled him into a fluffy towel on her lap and rocked him back and forth slowly. He must be starving, she thought. Elliott’s little hand touched her cheek and he smiled now. “Mom, mom, mom,” he cooed.
“Come on, little man, let’s get your jammies on and give you a nice bottle. Would you like a bedtime snack?” She whisked him back into his room, where she slathered his bottom with diaper cream in an attempt to combat the violent rash it bore.
Taking him to her bedroom, she quickly slipped her dress off, tossing it onto the floor and pulling on a bathrobe so she wouldn’t transfer everything back to her son now that he was clean. She carried him down to the kitchen, looking for her husband. She saw no sign of him. Where could he be? Hurrying down the stairs to the basement, she finally found Ian passed out in a prone position on the couch in the basement rec room. At first her pulse raced, thinking he might be dead. As she reached him, she could see a line of drool hanging from his mouth, about to land on the floor. One arm hung off the couch, his fingers still touching a half-finished bottle of beer. Five other empties were scattered around the coffee table.
Her relief in finding him alive was fleeting, quickly being replaced by fury as she saw that the baby monitor was turned on and facing the couch. The volume was turned up, meaning he would have heard even the tiniest sound Elliott had made that evening. None of it had registered with him. Drawing a deep breath, she turned with Elliott in her arms, taking him back to the kitchen to feed him. She would deal with Ian later. An hour later, she gently placed her little boy, now with a full belly, into his crib, having changed the sheets when she had brought him back upstairs. His little hand clutched her robe tightly and he whined in protest, burying his face in her chest when he saw that they were back in his room.
“It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s not going anywhere. I’ll stay right here with you.”
She lulled him to sleep in the rocking recliner in his nursery, singing softly and tracing small circles on his temples with her fingertip. As she pressed her lips to his forehead, she could smell that wonderful, clean aroma of lavender baby shampoo. His grip finally loosened when he dropped into a deep sleep, allowing her to put him in his crib and cover him with a light blanket.
Megan sighed as she gingerly picked up the soiled sheets and tippy-toed out of his room, leaving the door open partway. Her heart pounded now with anger as she crossed the house, carrying the disgusting sheets. She tossed them into the washing machine, then washed her hands before going back to downstairs to face her husband.
He had been taking too many painkillers lately for his shoulder injury, enough that she had started to worry about it. Up to that evening, however, she had trusted him completely, believing he would never do anything to put their son in harm’s way. Her pace quickened as she made her way down the stairs. Staring at her husband, her blood boiled with a rage she had never felt before. He had gotten drunk, mixing his pain meds with booze, leaving their baby crying, confused, traumatized and effectively abandoned.
Bending over him she poked him hard on the arm, yelling, “Are you awake? Wake up!”
His response was a low grunt. He slurred “Later” at her and continued to sleep.
In her first and last act of violence, Megan raised her right arm above her head so forcefully that her feet were lifted into the air, then drove her fist into Ian’s back with a viciousness that shocked her. Her fist landed with a loud thump against his flesh, causing the slightest movement from his hand, waving her away.
“You fucking asshole!” she screamed in his ear as loudly as she could before she made her way up the stairs, sobbing furiously.
She spent the night in the Elliott’s room, with a kitchen chair tilted under the doorknob to keep Ian out if he happened to wake up. She had put it there not out of fear, but out of concern for what she might do to him if he tried to talk to her now. She sat reclined in the armchair, watching her son sleep, getting up to pat his back gently when he stirred.
There was no sleep for Megan that night. Not even the briefest moment of rest came to her. She hadn’t realized the extent of the problem Ian had been hiding from her. He should have been off the painkillers three months ago but had still been getting them from his doctor. Megan knew she couldn’t risk Elliott’s safety by staying with Ian. When he woke the next day, she would tell him what he had done. She would tell him that unless he got help immediately, she would take Elliott and leave. The fear of losing them would be enough for him to turn things around. She knew it would.
But then doubt crept over her as she watched Elliott sleep. What if Ian didn’t get clean? She had to be prepared to leave. She had to mean it when she said it the next day, and she would have to follow through no matter how much it tore her or Ian apart. She couldn’t let Elliott live with a drug addict.
As she sat watching her little boy sleep, she vowed to him that she would never again allow him to b
e hurt by his father, or any other man, for that matter. She would remain vigilant and keep him safe, no matter what it took.
Boulder—Present Day
Megan straightened up in her seat, starting her car again and pressing the gas pedal. Propelling herself forward, she knew she had to do whatever was necessary to protect herself and Elliott. She would find the strength to send Luc away. Elliott and her mom needed her now. She wouldn’t let them down for her own selfish desires. She wouldn’t allow herself to become further lost in Luc. She had proven that she couldn’t control herself around him and that she was incapable of having a casual relationship with him, which was all he could offer her. If she let him stay, she would only be allowing another man to abandon her son.
Megan took a deep breath before opening the door that led from the garage to the house, preparing herself for what she was about to do. When she entered the kitchen, Luc, who was sitting at the table, looked up from his computer with a wary expression. They stared at each other for a moment, both reluctant to say anything just yet, knowing this was the end. If they didn’t start talking, they might be able to fool themselves for another moment that things were going to be okay.
Luc watched as Megan slowly took her boots off and hung up her coat. She stepped silently over to the counter and poured herself another coffee.
“So, I guess we should talk about what’s happening here,” Luc said quietly.
Megan leaned against the counter, not wanting to come any closer to Luc. It would make it too hard to push him away. “I guess we have to. This fantasy seems to have crossed over into my real life now in a way that neither of us wanted it to.”
“Yes. I would say we’re at a fork in the road now. One direction takes us into the unknown and the other takes us both back to our old lives.” Luc stood and crossed the room to her. He leaned against the island so he was facing her with no barrier between them. “Why don’t we start by trying to imagine what would happen if we go into the unknown together?”
