I stroll into the room, the tension palpable the closer I get to her. My chest tightens with each step, and her breathing picks up. Her eyes dart to mine, and I’m enraptured, just like I was all those years ago.
I hear her sharp inhale as I lean down, murmuring, “I still hate you.”
“Good, cause I hate you too,” she replies.
I chuckle, the breath fanning across her bottom lip. “You know how to talk dirty to me, don’t you?”
“If I recall, it was alwaysyouwho knew how to talk dirty,” she retorts with a smirk.
The banging of a door breaks the moment, and both of us jump back. My chest heaves up and down, her scent still clinging to me, and my dick is harder than granite. I watch as Blake combs a hand through her hair before shoving a few items into her bag and walking out of the library without a backward glance.
Well, shit. Looks like I don’t hate her half as much as I thought.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BLAKE
It’s been a week since our near kiss, and I can’t get Theo off my mind. I hate him, I don’t hate him. I honestly don’t trust my feelings where he’s concerned anymore. He left me. He walked away without a care in the world after professing his love to me. He told me that we’d be together forever, that I was stuck with him, but as always where men are concerned, they were just that—words. And I fell for it.
I’ve never been more confused than I am around him. He’s cold and hard one minute; then an epiphany hits him, and he’s suddenly changed his mind? I just don’t understand. I guess I should be thankful… right?
It’s just hard to stop the old feelings from flooding back in when he’s acting so much like the Theo of old… my Theo. I was at a particularly vulnerable time in my life when he came along. I was fragile, but he acted as a beacon in the shadows, pulling me back from the edge. What followed was the night that broke me and saved me all at once.
“Mom,” my nine-year-old son, Oscar, calls from his bedroom, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I’d been so lost in my head that I hadn’t realized I’d finished washing the dishes, and my hands were soaking in the water. Wiping them on the dishcloth, I shout, “Yeah, baby?”
“Where’s my jacket? I can’t find it.”
“On the back of your bedroom door, where it usually hangs.” I laugh, taking his lunch box from the fridge and placing it in his bag. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
Grabbing my bag and coat from the peg, I wait at the door for him. He finally comes bounding around the corner, jacket half on and toothpaste spilled down his top. Chuckling at the state of my poor child, I take a packet of wipes from the side and start cleaning him up while he straightens his jacket.
“Have you got everything?” I ask when I’m finally done, throwing the used wipes in the trash.
“I think so?” he replies, his face scrunched. “Yeah, I have.”
“Don’t forget, I’m working late again tonight, but I promise I’ll make it up to you this weekend.”
The feeling of being the world’s worst mother is never far from my mind. Getting pregnant at eighteen was never something I’d planned, but there was no way I was giving my baby up, even if it meant sacrificing everything.
“I know, Mom.” His cute little button nose wrinkles. “I’m supposed to be watching the new Marvel film with Mrs. Mitchell tonight. She even said I can dress up as the Hulk.” His face lights up with excitement, and in that moment, he looks so much like his dad that it makes my chest hurt.
I smile down at my son, my heart full to bursting, knowing that he’s my whole world. That I’d never regret anything because it meant I got him.
Ruffling his hair, I laugh. “Okay, bud. Sounds good. Come on, I need to drop you off, or I’ll be late for work.”
“Can’t I come in to work with you today?” he whines, tugging at his sleeves. “I found a guy in your office the other day who had the coolest Transformers collection.”
My heart drops to my stomach, bile rising and my ears ringing. I swallow around the large lump formed in my throat because there’s only one guy with a Transformers collection in his office. “What guy?” I ask, like I don’t already know the answer.
“Theo? He seemed really cool. He sat and talked with me for a bit. Said I could go back and see him anytime.”
Keep it together, Blake. Nobody knows. Your secret is still safe. Breathe.
“Erm, yeah. I work with Theo. Maybe don’t go into his office again though, hmm? He’s a busy man and doesn’t need you distracting him.” I laugh, trying to brush it off.
Mrs. Mitchell was unwell the day I had to take Oscar to work. She’d eaten some rotten fish and was laid up in bed, unable to move. We’d dropped off a care package to her and gone into work. It wasn’t ideal, but I had no other option. With Frank breathing down my neck about my conduct in the office, I couldn’t call in sick. No one knows I have a child, and I’d prefer to keep it that way. I don’t want looks of pity or judgment.
