In the daylight, with no one next to me, I woke up in the morning with a soreness between my legs that could only be expected after the night Jonathan and I had had. Belatedly I realized that Jonathan wasn’t next to me and I raised my head up and looked around.

“I’m right here, beautiful,” he said obviously on the phone, as he covered the phone when he acknowledged me, and then quickly continued talking to the person on the other end.

“Yeah, the conference went well. Really, well…” He shot a glance at me over his shoulder and winked at me.

I blushed, knowing what he was referring to and mouthed that I was going to take a shower. He smiled and nodded.

As I slipped into the shower, I felt conflicted. I wasn’t sure how I felt about what had happened with Jonathan. Truth be told, Jonathan was only the second man I had ever slept with in my life and I didn’t really know how to handle whatever this was. Was it a one-night stand? Did he want something long term? More importantly, did I want something long-term? Something more than just sex? I had so many thoughts and ideas rushing through my head that I let out a startled scream when Jonathan poked his head into my shower and gave a low whistle.

I blushed, “Stop peeking!”

“Mind if I join you?” he asked and I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

He climbed in next to me and said, “Are you going to drop Lincoln off tonight?”

“If I get home soon enough.”

“Ok, great, because I have some business to attend to for my parents here at the hotel, so I won’t be able to see you off. If I’ll see you later tonight, maybe we can all do something together? Me, you and Lincoln? Maybe we can all go out and get ice cream or pizza?” Jonathan asked, surprising me.

He turned away from me and started washing his hair and I squeaked out, trying to keep the surprise I felt out of my voice, “That sounds great. I’m sure he would like that.”

“Good,” Jonathan said smiling at me. “Now why don’t you come over here and let me rub your back.”

I eagerly complied and when his fingers started to misbehave in the shower, I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I had encouraged them.

I had arrived back at home in great time and Lincoln was of course extremely happy to see me. I didn’t tell Luz about my rendezvous with Jonathan and pretended that the evening had been good, but pretty uneventful. I did however mention that Jonathan had taken me out on a date. She had responded with lots of clapping and wanted details, so I provided a few leaving out anything involving our sexual escapades.

“It’s about time you started dating again,” she said. “I’m happy for you.”

As I stood that evening looking at Jonathan interacting with the kids around him in the dojo, I realized that I was happy too.

When he caught sight of me, he gave me a big smile, that didn’t go unnoticed by Ronan. I smiled back and maybe even blushed a little, recalling our night together.

As classes were dismissed, I lost sight of Jonathan, but Ronan approached me.

“Let me guess, he took you to his spot on the lake? Seduced you in one of the fancy rooms in his hotel and made you feel special? Well, let me be the first to tell you, Mia. You’re not special. You’re nothing to him. Just another whore who fell for the billionaire fantasy.”

I didn’t know my hand had flown up and smacked her across the face until I saw her whirl back and grab her cheek, her eyes big. Several other parents gasped and I guiltily took a step back and sent Ronan a disgusted look.

“You cunt!” She said and several of the children and parents gasped.

“Get away from me,” I growled at her and she gave me a parting glance full of rage, but something else was there too, amusement. And as Jonathan approached looking angry and confused, I figured I suddenly knew why she was amused.

She had wanted to get me angry. Clearly she had wanted to press my buttons. I bet she had even wanted me to hit her. She was a world class martial arts expert; she could have easily blocked my slap. But no, she wanted me to cross the line for a reason and I bet that reason was so that she could get sympathy from Jonathan.

Beyond angry that Jonathan had gotten me involved and irrationally blaming him for Ronan’s odd behaviour, I walked away from him and quickly found Lincoln in the crowd. Lincoln gave me a concerned look, “What’s wrong mommy? Why’d you hit Ronan?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ll explain later. Let’s go home, Lincoln.”

“What about Sensei Jonathan? I thought we were going for pizza after class,” he said in sad voice and I immediately felt guilty. Resigned I marched to our car and helped Lincoln inside.

“I’ll explain later, Lincoln, I promise. We’ll get pizza tonight, just the two of us, ok buddy?”

He nodded sadly and I felt my heart squeeze. I was disappointing my Lincoln and felt instantly horrible for the situation I had put us both in. Both of us could end up hurt and all because of my inability to control my own sexual desires.

I fought to keep my anger under control in the car and said nothing, gritting my teeth. Lincoln pouted in the back seat of the car and I tried not to feel like the world’s worst mom by slapping another woman in a room full of kids.

Hoping that Ronan wouldn’t press charges, I arrived home and sat down heavily. I looked down at my phone and realized that I had missed several phone calls from Jonathan.

Just as I was thanking God that Jonathan didn’t know where I lived, there was a knock on the door. I quickly brought a finger to my lips motioning for Lincoln to be quiet. He nodded and started playfully tip-toeing around the room in an exaggerated manner.

I went to cautiously look out the peep hole and realized it was Luz.

I opened the door and she stood there looking confused for a second.

“Aren’t you two supposed to be off somewhere with your new beau, Jonathan?” she said looking around as if hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

“Change of plans… and what are you doing here?”

“Oh, just being nosey since I saw your car in the driveway.” She plopped herself down on the couch.

“Mommy punched Ronan in the face,” Lincoln said without preamble to Luz and then started shadow boxing an invisible opponent with the moves he learnt in class.

“What?”

I groaned and put my head in my hands. I rubbed my eyes wearily and then looked back up at Luz who wore an expression of concern.

“You didn’t hit someone, really? Right? Oh goodness, you did.” Luz said as I’m pretty sure the sheepish look on my face was definitely an indication of the truth.

“Hey, Lincoln, why don’t you go upstairs to play in your room? I’ll call you down in a minute, ok buddy?”

He nodded and ran up the stairs, kicking and karate chopping his invisible foe. I leaned back against the chair and sighed deeply before launching in to the story of Ronan’s verbal attack and then my own terrible response to her.

“Well, I would have slapped her too.”

“Luz, you’re not helping me. My behaviour was shameful and not to mention a crime.”

“Whatever, you can hit people when you’re in a karate studio, those are the rules. Legal hitting. And if she does decide to press charges you can just say that, ‘Your honour, I was practicing karate and her face got in the way.’

I giggled and shook my head, knowing Luz could put a humorous spin on anything if it meant helping me to feel better, “You’re too much.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. He keeps calling me, but part of me is like what if this is another one of my rash decisions? You know? Dating Jonathan? Just like marrying Lincoln’s father was an impulsive move on my part?”

Luz shook her head at me and leaned forward towards me, “You know, Mia, there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. They make us who we are.”

“I know that. I just don’t want to make the same mistake more than once. Then it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a hobby.”

“You really can’t compare the way you feel about Jonathan with how you felt about Lincoln’s dad. You married Lincoln’s dad just because you were going through a rough patch and you wanted security and you didn’t want to go through life alone. That’s understandable after abruptly losing your mom. But now, with Jonathan that’s different. I mean, obviously you have very strong emotions for him or you wouldn’t have socked someone in the face just because she implied that you were one of many.”

Luz was right and as she went to check on Lincoln, I heard a knock on my door. It didn’t take much brainpower to figure out who that would be.

I looked through the peephole, saw Jonathan standing there waiting patiently and opened the door. He didn’t smile when he saw me and didn’t try to come in. I knew it was because he didn’t want Lincoln to hear our conversation.

I stepped on the porch and closed the door. He spoke first, apologizing for Ronan’s behaviour. “I fired her. I thought she was harmless, just catty, you know? But apparently not.”

I nodded my head, “I can’t say that I’m sorry for her. You can’t work with someone who’s jealous of every female who walks through the door.”

“Actually, she’s never behaved this way with anyone else. Apparently she knew from the beginning that I thought you were special.”

I swallowed hard and he said, “Listen, what she said back there isn’t true. She knows about my family’s hotel and our cabin on the lake because we grew up together, obviously. And I did mention spending time with you when she called me the other day when we together in your room.” Oh, so that was the person he had been talking to, I thought to myself finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“But I don’t take a steady flow of women to my family’s property and seduce them as she made it seem.”

“Hmmm….so instead of a steady stream, it’s more like one or two a week?” I said jokingly, knowing Ronan’s words hadn’t been the heart of the issue.

He smiled when he realized that I was being facetious and said. “So are we okay? Is all forgiven?”

I wrapped my arms around him and shrugged, “There was nothing to forgive actually. I’m the one who slugged your assistant in the face.”

“Yeah, I’m sure everyone who saw it will be talking about it for years to come. Maybe I should make you an instructor,” he said pulling me close and burying his head in my hair, inhaling the scent of me and he hugged me tightly to him.

“No thanks, I’ll stick to grant writing, much more my speed.”

He laughed and continued to hold me close to him and I enjoyed the feel of his hard chest under my cheek and took a deep breath, glad to have met Jonathan, glad to have a second chance.