5

Disappointment sounded in my tone nonetheless when I finally

replied. “Yes. The hotel.”

The car signal clicked rhythmically as we waited at a light to turn

uptown. I sunk back in my seat, letting myself remember, for a

moment, the person I’d been when I’d wed. I’d felt so much older

marrying a woman ten years my senior, but I was really such a child

then, only twenty-five.

My, how I’d grown up since.

And now my thoughts turned back to Audrey, younger than I’d

been when I’d married, but just as enthusiastic and charmed with

love and life as I’d been.

I opened my texts and found where she’d sent herself a

message.

A: A million people in the city, and you and I met. That’s

kismet.

I laughed out loud. My driver was spot on—she was fantastic.

Fantastic and trusting and young and that was enough reason to

delete both her number and the whimsical message from my phone.

But I saved it instead. Not because she’d hooked me, but

because I needed to know it was her when she called. If she called.

She wouldn’t call.

She couldn’t have been more than ten years older than Aaron.

Why would a girl her age have any interest in me? Our encounter

had been one of the moment. It had been dark, and we were alone

and tipsy and aroused by good conversation. Nothing else. It would

be forgotten by tomorrow.

Though if she really could forget that kiss...

I was still thinking about the malleable way her lips fit to mine

when I reached my hotel room on the Upper East Side. I’d forgotten

and left the Do Not Disturb sign on my suite door when I’d left for the

day so the bed was still rumpled and the pot for tea was still sitting

on the desk. Sloppy and cluttered weren’t usually my style. An

embarrassing space to bring a woman back to, not that there was

one with me now. Not that I’d thought about asking Audrey to

accompany me to my room.

If I had, would she have said yes?

She may have, and I would have devoured her. Would have

spent the whole night showing her all the ways a man could please a

woman, ways that she yearned for but couldn’t yet imagine.

Fantasizing about it made my earlier hard-on return. I took off my

suit jacket and hung it on the back of the desk chair before I sat in it

myself, fumbling with my belt, eager to play this daydream out with

my cock in my hand.

But just as I got my zip down, I stopped, a sickening wave of guilt

rolling over me. It felt crass and wrong to beat off to thoughts of this

girl who could be my daughter. Even though she’d never know that

I’d done it, it was degrading and a violation of sorts.

I zipped up my trousers and stood. I loosened my tie and then

moved to the buttons of my shirt, undressing furiously. I needed a

shower. A cold shower, that was what would take care of this.

Just as I dropped my shirt on the desk chair with my jacket, my

mobile rang.

My heart leapt so high, it was practically in my throat as I

scrambled to look at my screen, hoping it was her name that I’d see

lighting up on the caller ID.

The name I saw instead caused me to let out a groan.

With resignation, I clicked the accept button and answered.

“Hello, Ellen.” Ellen Rachel Wallace Starkney Locke. She was just

Ellen Wallace again now, having shed both the name I’d given her

and the one she’d received in her previous marriage. Eight years

had passed now since the paperwork had become final on our

divorce, and still, she made my blood boil every time I had contact

with her.

“I haven’t even spoken yet, and you already have a tone,” she

greeted me, with a tone of her own. So nasty. So like Ellen.

Now there was a boner killer.

“Yes, I think I earned the right, don’t you?” I didn’t need to bring

up her past sins against me. She knew them.

“Honestly, Dylan,” she said, letting out an audible sigh. “Move on.

I have. It’s time you joined me.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. She was a liar. She hadn’t

moved on. She was still stuck underneath the emotional avalanche

that had fallen upon her the day Amanda had died ten years ago.

Instead of facing her pain, Ellen had buried it, becoming rotten and

disconnected as she did.

If she’d really moved on, if she’d let herself heal, would she and I

be apart today?

I couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t even want to anymore. Because I had

moved on—moved on from her and any notion of happily ever after.

She’d proven to me that love always died, and I’d accepted it. She

was the one in denial.

I didn’t want to go there with her, though, not tonight. “Why are

you calling, Ellen? Anything you have to say could have been said to

me tomorrow when I pick up Aaron.”

“That’s what I’m calling about. Aaron won’t be able to see you

until the afternoon. Oh, and then he has Latin lessons at four, so it

will be evening, actually, before you can get him.”

I ran my palm through my hair and clutched a handful tightly in

frustration. “Christ, Ellen. He can’t skip Latin one week while his

father is in town? I flew from another continent to spend this time

with him.”

“Lessons are paid for in advance. There are no makeups. Latin is

a foundational language, and it’s so important these days.”

No. It wasn’t. Not as important as spending time with his father.

But there was no rationalizing with the helicopter tiger mother that

was Ellen Wallace. “And why is it I can’t see him during the day? I

chose this week to visit because he had time off from school.”

“While he doesn’t have school this week officially, tomorrow the

teachers will be in the classrooms available for makeup work and

tutoring. I signed Aaron up for the full day.”

I leaned against the desk, my knuckles curled. Aaron didn’t need

tutoring or makeup. He had a three point four grade point average.

This was Ellen being spiteful and stubborn.

“Cancel it. I can tutor him.”

“On seventh-grade advanced chemistry?” she retorted

patronizingly. “Even if you could understand it, he needs a lab.”

“Why is a thirteen-year-old even taking advanced chemistry?

Aaron doesn’t have a scientific bone in his body. Are you shoving

these classes down his throat?”

“I’m insuring his future,” Ellen said, raising her voice.

“Ensuring that he’s going to hate you one day, if not already.

Cancel the tutoring.”

“It’s too late. He’s signed up. And I’ll not let you get in the way of

his success.”

“His success,” I echoed incredulously. He was still just a boy. Did

she ever give him a chance to just be a kid? I was so angry, I went

low. “I’ll pick him up myself. I’ll sign him out from the school as soon

as you drop him off.”

“It would be kidnapping. They won’t let you take him without my

authorization.” She was just as nasty as I was. Nastier.

“I’m not on the school’s parental records? We’d always agreed it

would be both of us in case there was ever an emergency!”

“I reconsidered. If there was an emergency, you’d be too far

away.” She sounded proud of herself. “I have my sister listed as

emergency now. And Donovan Kincaid is there as a backup to her.”

I had to stop myself from kicking the chair, and only because I

was concerned that I’d break a toe with as hard as I wanted to kick it.