Page 11 of After-Hours Heir

He could not understand that. He did not miss his father. He didn’t miss his mother either. It was possible that he might have missed the void where she once was, as it was that void that had sucked him in, seen him thrown away into that life of hard labor. He just couldn’t remember.

Baby: I know a great many people love their fathers.

Kid: You don’t?

How did he tell her he didn’t love anyone? How did he tell this woman who seemed so lovely, so nice and kind that love was a foreign concept to him?

Baby: No.

That was simpler.

Kid: I’m sorry. He must be a bastard.

He chuckled.

Baby: You have no idea.

Kid: I know. I know I don’t really have an idea of you at all. But I feel like I do.

He wanted her to maintain this distant idea. This fantasy. He wanted her to believe that he was good. That he was a man who could be trusted. A man that she could lean on.

He wanted to be that for her because he knew that it wasn’t true. Because he knew that it wasn’t him.

He did. Truly.

Was this a role-playing fantasy?

He wasn’t used to questioning himself at all. He wasn’t used to examining his motives. He simply did whatever was expedient at the time. But this wasn’t expedient. It made no real sense.

Indulgence.

Maybe that was the problem. He had made it thirty-eight years without an indulgence, and now he couldn’t resist this one that had dropped into his lap. He didn’t believe in fate. He believed that a man made his own fate.

With blood and sweat.

Tears accomplished nothing.

Baby: If you were here, I would kiss you.

He decided to move it into intimate territory. They could talk, and honestly, he enjoyed it as much as he enjoyed their morecharged encounters. But sometimes moving it to sex felt more comfortable, because at least if it was sexual he could categorize it. He could make it about the physical reaction he had to her, and not the emotional one. The truth was, in the months that he had been talking to his mystery woman, he had not slept with anyone.

She had been his all-consuming focus. His night and his day.

She had been…everything.

Everything.

Kid: I wish you were here. I

The text paused for a long moment. And then…

Kid: I want to meet.

Sylvie could barely breathe. She couldn’t believe that she had typed that. She didn’t want to meet him. She was destroyed and crushed after today. She couldn’t tell him all the things that were riding around inside of her, and she wanted to. She had this feeling that this man could be her ultimate fantasy. The port and her storm. She needed someone. So desperately. But as soon as she said it, she regretted it, because the stakes were too high. What if he didn’t like her? What if he didn’t…

His response came slowly, but it was definitive.

Baby: That isn’t a good idea.