Besides, even if he is by some miracle dreaming of chasing me through a meadow and weaving roses into my hair, it is not as if standing here is going to enable me to see it.
I need to go.
Morgan moves again, and an aroma fills the air. I inhale it and savor it on my tongue.
Arousal.
My gaze flicks down to the sheet covering his lower half. Is that my imagination, or is it now tented?
I lick my lips. Is Morgan having a dirty dream about me? If so, this is bloody amazing and the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Suddenly, Morgan gasps and sits up. I drop and hit the deck so fast I swear I would have broken something if I was human.
“Who’s there!” Morgan calls out into the dark.
Fuck. I bite my bottom lip. It’s times like this I’m glad I don’t need to breathe.
I hear him fumbling for the lamp. It clicks and warm light fills the room.
Crap, oh crap. I’m pretty close to the footboard of his bed. I don’t think he will be able to see me. But I’ll slide a little bit under the bed, just to be sure.
Morgan lets out a heavy sigh. There is a slight sound of movement. I think he is running his hands over his face.
“Get it together, Morgan,” he mutters in a delightfully rumbly sleep-thickened voice.
The lamp clicks off and the bed creaks.
Get it together. That is precisely what I need to do. It is very sound, if unintentional, advice from Morgan.
I’m lying on the floor, half under his bed, in the middle of the night. Morgan is not the one who needs to get it together. I am.
Starting right now.
Chapter ten
Morgan
I’ve made it out of the house and to my office at work. It shouldn’t feel like such a huge accomplishment. But it does. The fact that it does is proof that I truly am losing my mind.
Ned stayed the night. He slept under the same roof as me. A mere few steps down the hall. That has got to be enough of Ned to see me through the day. It is going to have to be.
As I settle into my desk, trying to suppress the unease that still lingers, I glance at my calendar. Meetings, deadlines, emails. Business as usual. My staff looked relieved when I walked in earlier, like they’d been holding their collective breath, waiting for my reappearance. An absent boss is bad for morale. I know this. I need to start acting like the responsible adult I’m supposed to be.
Ned said the crazy person harassing him was nothing to worry about. And strangely, I trust him. I can feel it in my very bones that Ned would never, ever put the kids at risk. If there was a problem, a real problem, he would tell me. Right?
I close my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. All in all, everything is fine, I remind myself. Time to put my head down and get some work done. Pining for Ned is ridiculous, and worrying about him and the kids is unnecessary. I force myself to focus on the task at hand. Emails. Phone calls. Budgets. Just the normal, everyday stuff that somehow feels monumental today.
Deep breath. Let everything else go. Focus. I have a business to run.
The familiar hum of the office buzzes in the background, the steady rhythm of clicking keyboards and muffled voices grounding me in a semblance of normalcy. My mind is just beginning to calm when suddenly, the door to my office bursts open. The sound is so abrupt that I jump in my chair, my heart pounding as if I’ve been jolted out of some deep sleep.
I blink, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Ned is standing there, drenched from the rain, striding into my office like he owns the place. Lottie is balanced on his hip, her tiny hands gripping his jacket, and Oscar is holding his other hand, his little face as calm as ever. They’re all soaked, raindrops still clinging to their clothes and hair, they’ve been caught in a downpour.
“I have to go,” Ned says, his voice curt, his expression unreadable. He places Lottie on the table without even waiting for me to respond. “Something’s come up.” His tone is matter-of-fact, as if this is a perfectly normal scenario, dropping the kids off at my office in the middle of a workday, without warning, and turning around to disappear just as fast.
I open my mouth to say something, but he’s already halfway out the door. “Noah has sports club after school,so he doesn’t need picking up until four,” Ned adds, not even turning back to look at me. And then, just like that, he’s gone.
