by Maggie Wells
Panic welled up inside her. “I think maybe this is all it needs to be.”
Impatience flashed across his face. “Come back to bed.”
He held out a hand, gesturing for her to rejoin him, but she couldn’t. Curling up against him was too risky.
“Let’s talk about this.”
In an instant, the impatience was gone. Something hard and bitter lodged in her throat. This wasn’t fair. He wasn’t playing fair. There was nothing worse than someone trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. Crossing her arms over her chest, Monica hated herself for ever getting drawn in to this whole mess. She should never have gone there. He could have stayed nothing more than a hot guy in a world full of hot guys. She should have taken her niece to the park and delivered her straight home. She should not have passed Go, flirted with a handsome stranger, and walked away letting him think she was something she wasn’t. “I don’t think we need to talk.”
A look of stunned hurt flashed across his face. A deep red flush of fury quickly followed. “I do.”
She needed to end this. Their affair would only get messier. She was ashamed to have let things go this far. She might’ve had a sharply honed killer instinct in business, but she’d never been deceitful. Until she met him, she went straight after what she wanted, no bullshit, no games.
“Listen, we’ve had a good time, but let’s not make more out of this than a fling.” Cold? Maybe, but effective.
“A fling?” he repeated slowly.
“I had a really great time, but neither of us want the complications—”
His jaw locked and suddenly his handsome face looked to be carved out of granite by someone using a jackhammer. “Fine.” Kicking away the sheet, he growled at the wad of hapless cotton when the fabric dared to cling to his foot. “You’re right. Who needs the complications?”
But the edge in his tone said he wasn’t entirely opposed to having complications with her, and the knowledge cut deep because she wouldn’t have minded sharing a few with him.
If only they’d started out on the right foot.
But she couldn’t tell him. Certainly not when he was already pissed off. Hoping to end things on a better note, she grabbed a short robe from her closet and slipped her arms into the sleeves. Knotting the sash at her waist, she turned in time to see him extricating his boxer briefs from the leg of his pants. A wave of nostalgia hit her hard. She’d watched him do the same thing last week. She should have come clean with him. By perpetuating the myth to have one more night, she’d managed to mess up any possibility they might have had for more. She knew she was on thin ice when she’d agreed to meet up with him again, but was more than happy to hide behind the ridiculous terms she’d agreed to without giving him the benefit of full disclosure. The least she could do was make certain he left on better terms than this.
“Colm, wait—”
He shook his head, the very picture of wounded male pride. “No, you’re right. I need to get going. I always pick Aiden up early, anyway, so it’s no big deal.”
“But I’ll go get us coffee.” She opened her hands, hopeful he’d accept this small peace offering. When he shoved one leg into his jeans without bothering to reply, she sweetened the deal. “And I owe you pancakes.”
He visibly tensed. He looked over his shoulder at her, disbelief etched into the lines of his face. “Pancakes? You don’t even have flour. I can’t believe Emma hasn’t wasted away to nothing.”
“I could…We can go out.”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
“Colm, I…” She trailed off, her hands fluttering in helpless futility. “I like you. I do. Probably too much. I don’t want you to leave here thinking this was just…”
“What? Sex?” He stood, pulling his jeans up onto his hips, not bothering to fasten. “But it was. I get it.” He bent to snatch his shirt from the floor and strode from the room.
“Colm, wait,” she called as he flew down the stairs.
“Really. We’re cool.” He checked his pockets for everything he never had time to unload. “I enjoyed it, too. The sex. Thanks.”
But his choppy assertions made his discomfort crystal clear. He wasn’t cool. There was nothing she could do to make things right. They had to end this sooner or later. Might as well be sooner, because if saying goodbye hurt this much now, she didn’t want to even consider later. She tucked her hands into the pockets of the robe as he fiddled with the locks.
“See ya,” he said as he yanked the door open. “Take care.”
A cool blast of early morning air ruffled his hair as he stepped outside. She grabbed the edge of the door and held on, watching his fine ass as he walked away. “I’ll, um…I’ll call you,” she said, desperate to salvage something from the situation.
“Yeah.” He tossed an angry glance over his shoulder and hooked a sharp right on the sidewalk.
If she wasn’t mistaken, Monica thought she heard him say something along the lines of “I’ll hold my breath” as she closed the door.
Monica didn’t bother working up a response. What was the point? He was right. She wasn’t going to call. The very thought of placing the call and having him reject her loomed too large. Trudging up the steps, she realized she’d made a mistake. A big one. She went and let herself develop feelings for a man. She wasn’t scared, she was terrified.
She liked him. Truly liked him as a person, not a plaything. Given half a chance, she might more than like him, but there was no point in going down the path of what-ifs. She’d blown any chance they had from the get-go. There’d be no salvaging anything.
Stepping into her bedroom, the truth of what she was facing struck her full-force. A few short weeks ago, she would have described her bedroom as her sanctuary. Memories of Colm permeated every corner now. The scent of sex hung heavy in the air. She flung herself onto the well-rumpled bed and grabbed the pillow he’d used. Clutching it to her chest like a lovesick girl, she inhaled deeply. His scent surrounded her. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t bother wiping them away.
Too much work.
She’d think about moving on and all that entailed later. She’d have to strip the bed at the very least. Would clean sheets do the trick? She could delete his contact info from her phone. Might keep her from making an even bigger fool of herself. Oh, God. She’d better. What if she had one too many margaritas one night and ended up drunk dialing him? How mortifying would that be? And what would she say if she did? I miss you? Come back? My bed smells like you?
Pathetic.
Panic seized her, making her chest tighten and forcing a sob to rise up into her throat. But she couldn’t let loose. A few tears were one thing, but she couldn’t let go entirely. She didn’t deserve a big, sloppy cry. There was no one to blame but herself for her predicament.
A single simple sentence uttered at the start. “I’m her aunt,” she whispered to the ceiling. Or maybe two sentences. “Oh, Emma is my sister’s kid. We’re having one of our days at the park.” But playing like she took Emma out regularly would have been kind of a lie, too. It made her sound like a doting aunt, rather than the crappy one she’d been so far. At least she had a chance at fixing that bit.
How easily those little lies and bits of spin popped into her head these days. She’d never been one to care overmuch about what other people thought of her. But she cared about what Colm thought. How could she not? Here was a man who’d stepped up and shouldered responsibility. And she, apparently, had become a woman who wallowed around in her sexed-up bed cooking up more lies to feed him.
He deserved better. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t at all what he thought she was, this wasn’t the woman she chose to be. She wanted her pre-Colm life again. The one she knew and understood. Where she was the old Monica. The woman who set goals and charged straight at them. Not this weepy, wussy fool who’d gone and done the unthinkab
le—fallen in love with a man she’d been lying to from the start.
Chapter 8
She called exactly three days later. Colm wasn’t surprised. Not that he thought he was so irresistible, or they left things on such a high note, but because she was stubborn and determined. She was also clearly used to getting her way. And he was weak. He wanted to see her. Desperately. So he let the call slide to voicemail.
Then, there were the text messages. He responded, but with only the briefest answers. He’d put her off for a week, but he was going to have to either man up and end their relationship once and for all, or give in and let her have her way.
And, Lord, did he want to let her have her way. Colm would gladly let her have her way with him all she wanted. He couldn’t let her have her way with them. Because he couldn’t shake the feeling if he left everything up to Monica, they’d meet for a few hot sweaty hours once a week…period.
And he wanted more.
He liked her. Despite her inherent bossiness and the weird, clutter-less life. Or maybe because of those two mind-boggling traits. Hard to say. The reasons for his attraction to her were variable. Depending on the moment. And right this very minute, he was in a mood to be stubborn and a bit bossy himself. Gripping the phone, he cleared his throat and cut right to the chase.
“Listen, I’m in the pickup line and I don’t have a lot of time. What can I do for you, Monica?”
“Oh, the list is long and inventive,” she replied, her tone as husky and playful as his was brisk.
He wasn’t buying. “Sorry, no fun and games this weekend. I don’t have a sitter.”
“Oh.”
Somehow, she managed to infuse a metric ton of disappointment into a single syllable. Colm found himself weakening. What man wouldn’t when a beautiful woman called? Or when he heard and recognized the want in her voice. He’d been living with the same dull ache since he walked out her door. He hated the way they left things. Cringed every time he thought too hard about how he practically stomped out her door, as pissy as a toddler told he couldn’t keep the awesome toy he’d found.
He didn’t want to be that guy any more than he wanted to be her sometime piece of ass. Clearing his throat, he made an attempt at exploring new territory. A real date. The kind without invisible boundaries and topics marked off limits. Not some adults-only fantasy land, but one which incorporated the most essential pieces of their real lives. If there was any chance of them moving forward, one of them had to take the first step.
“I’d like to see you out of bed.”
“Colm, I—”
He waited. And waited.
At last, she sighed, “There are things I need to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
Again, a long pause. “I don’t know how.”
Sighing, he conceded a little ground. “How about the four of us have a play date?”
“What?”
“I can bring Aiden by when you get home from work. We’ll bring pizza, since I suspect poor Emma is smuggling snacks out of aftercare to keep her strength up.”
“Oh, I, uh…”
She paused, and he almost relented. He, more than anyone, understood the risks of getting the kids involved. But he wanted to see her. Wanted to watch how she interacted with Emma, and yes, Aiden, too. And he could be every bit as dictatorial as she could. Without giving her any more time to think through the pros and cons, he closed negotiations.
“The kids can play and we can talk.”
“I don’t know if—”
But a weird self-preservational instinct made him cut her off. “I’ll be by at about six-thirty. Does Emma have any food allergies?”
The question seemed to catch her off-guard. She stammered and stuttered for a moment. “Uh, um…No. Not that I know of.”
“Lucky. There’s a kid in Aiden’s class with a nasty tree nut allergy and another with Celiac disease. Birthday parties are a nightmare.”
“Right. Yes. I mean, no, Emma isn’t allergic,” she said, sounding slightly dazed.
He couldn’t blame her. A woman as undomesticated as Monica would have a hard time adapting to the demands of a specialized diet. Emma probably lived off a combination of truffle mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Poor kid.
“Great. We’ll see you at six-thirty.” He let off the brake to creep forward a couple feet. He wanted to end the call before she could come up with an excuse, so he told a bald-faced lie. Staring at the eight cars ahead of him, he said, “Gotta go, I’m next in line. See ya later.”
He barely gave her time to say goodbye as he ended the call and blew out of a gusty breath. Bringing Aiden into things was a ballsy step, but he had a niggling suspicion that pursuing any kind of real relationship with Monica Rayburn was going to call for drastic measures.
The phone rang a moment later. Her name flashed onto the screen. The temptation to answer was strong. Nearly overwhelming. He didn’t give in, though. She’d had a couple minutes to let the prospect of mingling their worlds sink in. She’d either have to ante up or call it a bad bet. Colm’s gut instinct said she was calling to bet off, and he wasn’t in the mood to make doing so easy for her. She wanted sex; he wanted a date. This was an impasse. She had two choices—leave a voicemail with some lame excuse, or play out the hand he’d dealt.
He wasn’t too worried about getting a message. Backing down was not her style. Monica charged at life like a bull. He eyed the phone he’d tossed into the console tray warily, watching with trepidation for a flicker of life. Waiting for an electronic chime to tell him he’d read her all wrong. None came.
Colm smiled to himself as he inched closer to the pick-up area. He spotted his son in the crowd of students easily. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pack strapped to his back was nearly as big as his boy. Princess Clarissa’s tangled hair gleamed dully in the afternoon sunlight. Aiden danced from one foot to the other, craning his neck to keep the truck in sight. As if he might simply poof himself out of this never-ending line.
With a sigh, he drummed the steering wheel, silently acknowledging his friend Mike may have been right about Aiden being too young for them to start on the Harry Potter series. Even though they talked about each chapter they read, and Colm painstakingly explained which phenomena were real and which were fictional, there were a few concepts Aiden clung to believing. Like the fact that parents weren’t guaranteed to be a permanent fixture in a boy’s life.
He glanced down at the console again. The phone didn’t buzz or chirp to indicate a message. Mouth set in a grim line, Colm gripped the wheel tight and inched forward on the tail of the minivan ahead of him. They’d stop at the library rather than the grocery store tonight. After all, there was pizza on the menu. They could make through the next day without squeezable yogurt.
Minutes later, the door flew open and Aiden scrambled up into the seat, enormous backpack humped over his neck like the turtle shell.
“Shell off, seatbelt on,” Colm ordered, not taking his foot off the brake until he was sure Aiden complied. “How was your day?”
Aiden kicked the seat a few times—revenge for making him remove his shell, no doubt—and made him wait for an answer. “Okay. Billy Morton had a huge booger hanging out of his nose, and Miss Marci didn’t see for the longest time.”
Colm finally had the fatherhood experience to give the appropriate response. “Awesome.”
“She made him blow his nose and all this green stuff came out.”
“Wow.”
“So cool.”
“I bet.” Colm smiled into the rear-view mirror. “Hey, I was thinking we’d run by the library, then pick up a pizza.”
“Cool.” Pleased by the evening’s agenda, he started bopping in his seat and singing, “Pizza, pizza, pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza.”
Colm chuckled. In the past few weeks, Aiden had pared his vocabulary down to a handful of word
s: Cool, ew, nope, okay, why, and a noncommittal uh-nuh seemed to fit multiple occasions. Conversations went a lot faster these days.
“So, uh, you remember that girl Emma we met in the park a few weeks ago? The one who helped find Princess Clarissa?” He might have been enlightened enough to let his boy tote a cartoon princess around with him, but he wasn’t about to refer to her as a doll. He glanced up at the mirror. Aiden was knotting his fingers in the strap of his backpack and staring out the window, his mind a million miles away. “Hey, bud?” he called, tossing a glance over the seat. “You remember?”
“Huh?”
“The girl from the park a couple weeks ago? Emma?”
“Uh-nuh.”
“We’re going to go hang out with her and her mom tonight. Cool, huh?”
He glanced up to find Aiden staring at the mirror. The moment their eyes met, his son scowled at him. “Why?”
Colm saw the intense gleam of suspicion in his kid’s eyes and knew his only recourse under such scrutiny was to deflect and defuse. “Why? Why not?”
Aiden blinked once. “She’s a girl.”
Lips twitching, Colm refocused on the road ahead of them. “Yes. They both are.”
“So why?”
Stifling a sigh, Colm turned on his blinker, hoping they’d reach their branch of the library before Aiden could launch a full interrogation. “They were nice, right?” He shrugged as if he suggested play dates with girls every day. But they both knew he didn’t. “Hey, I’m thinking we need some different books to read. I can’t take any more of the creepy-crawly stuff Harry has to deal with.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I’m having nightmares.”
He glanced up to find Aiden studying him intently. At last, his son let one scrawny shoulder rise and fall. “You can sleep with me.”
Colm smiled, but held it together. At least, on the outside. If anybody ever knew how easily his kid could turn him into mush, he’d not only be forced to relinquish his Man Card, but maybe the equipment, too. And he couldn’t risk that happening. Not now. Not when said equipment was finally proving itself useful again.
