Damn, it was always hard getting back to work after a break. Especially one that had been as eventful as the days I’d shared with Morgan.

It was strange, being back in the real world after all of that. It felt as though I had been on the set of a movie or something, living out some life that could, in no way, actually be mine. I was too normal for that, too average. When I was with him, I was something special. And that was hard to let go of.

I mean, I would find a way through it, I knew that. Because it was over now, and I had to get back to what remained of my real life. The kids had been so happy to see me when I had gotten back, and I had been all teary at getting to hug them again. Clara had smiled as she’d watched us reunite, a big pile of cuddles and love.

"You have a good time?” she asked me after the kids were in bed and she was helping unpack my bags and put everything back where it belonged. She pulled out some of the new clothes and raised her eyebrows at me.

"He took you shopping?” She giggled, twisting the ski pants this way and that. I knew I would have no reason to keep them after this, but I didn’t care. They were to be a reminder of one of the best trips of my life, and I wasn’t letting them go anywhere. I took them from Kari and tucked them away in the back of my wardrobe.

"Yeah, I had a great time," I replied. She squeezed my hand.

"Well, that’s the main thing." I smiled at her. I was so lucky to have a friend like her around, I really was.

"Thank you so much for taking care of the kids while I was away, Clara," I blurted out, giving her a quick hug in thanks.

"Well, as soon as you’ve caught up on your sleep, you know I’m going to want to hear every detail," she replied, grinning as she pulled back from me.

"And you will," I promised her. "I just need to rest up first, alright?”

"I’ll allow it," she waved me in the direction of my bed, and I was grateful that I wouldn’t have to delve any further into what had happened over the course of the few days Morgan and I had spent together.

Because if I was being honest, I had no idea what to make of any of it. It had all been so damn much – from the sex to the food to the adventures, to him pulling over on the side of the road to spill his guts to tell me something he had never told anyone before. I could still remember how it had felt to have him open up to me in that way. It had felt so raw, so rough, so uncontrolled – but I had needed to hear it. Now that I knew that about him, I could put together some of the pieces that had been missing until then.

But now the weekend was over, and all of this information was just buzzing around in my brain with nowhere to go and nothing to do about it. I didn’t know where to take it from here. What should I do? Call him up and tell him that I was far from done with him? We were in different parts of the country; it wasn’t like I could just ask him out again.

Sitting here at work, it was hard to stay focused on the screen in front of me. I just didn’t give a damn about anything but him. And taking care of him. And having him take care of me.

"Afternoon."

A voice drew me from my stupor, and I looked up to find Adam’s girlfriend sliding by the open door to my office. She was dressed in a flawless black sheath dress, her hair tumbling down over her shoulders in a golden wave. She was carrying a bag with his lunch in it and eyeing me from the corridor.

"Afternoon," I replied curtly. I didn’t have time to sit about and gossip with this girl – I had things to do, stuff to take care of. She swept her gaze up and down me – normally, I would have been thrown off by the comparison between the two of us, but right then, I didn’t give a shit. I knew she was just trying to unsettle me, remind me that she was the one on top and that she was the one who had managed to sneak my husband right out from under me. Frankly, she could have him. As soon as she gained more than five pounds, he would be out the door and looking for the next desperate model to roll into his bed and bring him his lunch of an afternoon.

Besides, if that woman had any idea where I’d been the last few days, she would be singing a different tune. I hadn’t exactly publicized it, but it was a sweet little thrill I got to carry around with me all the time. Morgan, the movie star, had swept me off on an incredible sex-filled jaunt that I knew I was never going to forget. How many women working in an office on a Monday morning could say that and mean it?

I got to my feet and closed the door, letting her know that I wasn’t going to be rising to the occasion this time around. Normally, I would have let her hard looks and gorgeous figure sting me, but today, I had other things on my mind. Bigger things. Things that extended way past the walls of this office.

I sank back into my seat and stared at the emails in front of me. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do today. I had thought it would be easy, sliding back into work like I had never left, but everything had changed since the last time I’d sat in this seat.

I closed my eyes, leaned back in my chair, and let my mind run through the memories of everything that had happened while I was with Morgan. I knew that I was only making things harder for myself, but I just couldn’t resist. He was tantalizing – everything we had shared had been so intense, more than anything I could ever have imagined he could give me. I was falling for him, tumbling head-over-heels for him, and it was far too late for me to stop it.

But that was dangerous. How many women had he been through in the last six months alone? I could look up the numbers, check out every event he’d attended with a different lady on his arm. That wouldn’t have been encouraging. As soon as he got tired of me, I would be out on my rear end, and that would be it for us. He was probably only interested in me because I offered something different, a break from the Hollywood grind. When the next pretty girl glanced in his direction, he would be dropping me faster than I could say “ankle injury.” And all I would have left to show for it would be some fancy ski-wear that I knew I would never have any reason to put on again in my life.

I had tried to tell myself, as we’d traveled back together, that the only reason I felt as strongly for him as I did was because it had been so long since I had really felt a connection to anyone. I had denied myself real feelings, real affection, because the thought of letting that back into my life after I had been hurt so badly by it was too painful to consider. Now, I was just getting a little drunk on it, getting tipsy on the feeling of being wanted again – especially by a man who was as utterly desirable as Morgan. I would get over it soon enough and see that he was obviously wrong for me, and then I would be able to move on with my life.

I hoped.

I hadn’t heard from him beyond a text he’d sent to ask if I had returned back to the house alright. He had offered to drive me right to my front door, but I had turned him down. I knew I wasn’t ready for him to meet the kids yet. Besides, it was obvious that he’d needed some time to process everything that he had told me when we had been pulled over on the side of the road. I knew these things took time and space to work through, and he was going to need a hell of a lot of it to process what he was dealing with.

Which was a bummer for me because I wanted to see him again. Ugh, I couldn’t stop going around and around in my head. I felt as though my brain was about to burst out of my skull; it contained too many thoughts to bother keeping in any longer. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose – and that’s right when my phone buzzed.

I reached down to check on who was texting me, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was Morgan.

"Hey, didn’t hear anything from you last night," he had written. "Assuming you got home safely?”

"You assumed correctly," I replied. "Sorry I didn’t message you. I was so tired after I got in that I guess I forgot."

"Glad to hear I exhausted you," he texted back a moment later, putting an instant smile on my face.

"Don’t go patting yourself on the back quite yet," I replied. "I’ve got two kids; I’m always tired."

"Fair point," he agreed. "You feel like another break?”

"What do you mean?”

"Dinner, tonight," he suggested. "Just the two of us."

"I’ll have to check in with Clara, but I’ll let you know," I replied, biting my lip. He wanted to see me again. He really wanted to see me again. That was something, right? That was more than something. That was a whole lot of a thing.

I hurried to text Clara and let her know about our latest date – I hoped she wouldn’t mind covering for me too much. A moment after I sent the message, she fired one back, practically insisting that I go out while she take the kids for a while. I grinned broadly. This was happening. This was totally happening.

I felt a little guilty about leaving the kids for another night, but it had been so long since I had actually taken some time for myself – I needed this. They said you needed to have time just to yourself to be the best person that you could be, right? That was what I would tell myself, anyway. I knew that guilt was normal – as a mother, you never stopped feeling it, not really. But for now, I would put it on the back burner and focus on having a good night out with Morgan.

I wasn’t exactly dressed for an evening on the town – I had a black pencil skirt with a silk shirt tucked into it, with a pair of flats so that I could navigate easily around the office when I had to run from room to room. There were a pair of heels stashed in one of the cupboards around here that would fit me, and my bag was full of makeup that I had tossed in it with the hopes of actually slapping some on before I got to work this morning. I could come up with something that passed for date night, couldn’t I? Yeah, I could make this work. One way or another.

As the time rolled around for our date, I started getting a little fluttery. How was he going to feel now that we were out of the little haven of his place up in Colorado? Maybe he would want to just head back to his place and hook up again, and I would have to break it to him that I could hardly stay overnight anywhere now that I was back in town. My kids would figure out that something was going on, and I had no intention of exposing them to this. At least, not quite so soon. He was a movie star, and I had a feeling that dropping them into the middle of whatever was happening between me and Morgan was only going to confuse them – and me. Besides, it didn’t strike me that Morgan much liked children, even though he had gamely played along with fixing up the toys while he had been with me.

I let Morgan know that I was up for an evening with him, and he told me he would pick me up at six at work. It was funny. As soon as I knew that I would be seeing him again, some of the stress lifted from my shoulders, and I was able to focus on work for a bit.

At half past five, I pulled out the stack of makeup that I had stashed in my purse and started doing my face. I’ve never been great at putting on a full face, but I managed to figure something out – a subtle smoky eye and a neutral lip that flattered my skin tone. I even brushed through my eyebrows and put a little product in them to keep them in place, though I’d never been able to figure out why that was important. Did your eyebrow hairs do a lot of wiggling around when you weren’t looking? Man, I was almost delirious with excitement – my brain was bounding off on thrilled little side notes, trying to distract me from everything that this night might have in store.

Just before it rolled around to six, I got up from my desk, slid into the pair of heels that I had managed to come up with, and headed to the front of the building to meet my date for the evening. I thought I looked pretty good, actually. Maybe not red-carpet ready, but fancy dinner prepped, at least. But just as I reached the door, I heard a voice call out from behind me, and my heart sank.

"Kari?”

I turned around to find Adam standing there, his hands on his hips, eyeing me with incredulity from where he stood just outside his office. His hair looked a little messy, and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at the notion that his girlfriend had slid in there and fooled around with him when he was supposed to be working. They always made such a show of their public displays of affection; I was surprised he hadn’t asked her to put lipstick directly on his collar to complete the cliché.

"Is everything alright?" I asked, praying that he wasn’t about to call me back in to pick up some work that I didn’t realize I had missed. I needed this tonight. I needed to indulge in my addiction to Morgan, needed to see him, needed to see if he felt the same way about me.

"I don’t know, you tell me," he replied, tracing his eyes up and down my outfit. I felt instantly aware of every lump, every bump, and every clinging bit of fabric. I didn’t know how he could still have this kind of effect on me, but he did. I had been so used to bearing the brunt of his full commentary on my body for so long that seeing him even looking at me this hard made me uncomfortable.

"Where are you going?” he demanded curtly. There was jealousy in his voice. Not jealousy that someone else was taking me out – no doubt, jealousy that I was going out at all.

"I’m going out on a date," I replied stiffly, glancing toward the door. Morgan would be waiting for me outside by now. I should—

"And this date of yours," Adam continued, in no rush to let me get anywhere. "Does he know?”

"Does he know what?" I asked, uncomfortable.

"Does he know that you didn’t exactly always look like this?” he asked. My heart dropped. I hated that he knew so much about me. Adam understood exactly which buttons to press to get me riled up, and it was working.

"Yes, he does, as a matter of fact," I snapped back. "And he said it doesn’t matter to him—"

Adam snorted, cutting me off.

"Yeah, trust me, he might be saying that, but he doesn’t mean it," he replied coolly. His tone was confident, as though he knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Adam—"

"If he’d really seen you when you were at your worst, he’d understand," he shook his head, sounding regretful, as though he didn’t want to have to be the one to break this to me. I clenched my fists at my sides. I wanted to shove him away from me, but that would have only proved his point.

"You might be able to play the dateable type for a while, but we both know you’re not going to be able to maintain this for long," he continued, waving his hand over my body as though it was a product in a store he didn’t care to shop at.

"Adam, please…"

"And as soon as this guy figures that out, he’s going to drop you and move on to the next thing," he sneered. "Or I don’t know, maybe he’ll stick around for a while and give you time to put on all of that weight again.”

I was speechless. I had no words for him. He knew exactly what to say to hurt me – and now, I hurt. But before I could open my mouth to muster up some kind of response, I heard a voice from behind me.

"What did you say to her?”

I turned to find Morgan standing just behind a pillar next to the door – I wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there, but judging by the look on his face, he had heard everything. My eyes widened as he stepped toward Adam, and I watched as my ex-husband seemed to shrink to about half of his natural size.

"I asked you a question," Morgan demanded, glaring down at him. Adam sputtered a couple of times, looking to me as though for support, but he wasn’t getting any of that. Morgan put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, drawing his attention back around to him. Adam turned to look at him, and there was actual fear in his eyes – I know I shouldn’t have been pleased to see it there, but I was. He deserved this.

"Just like I thought, you don’t have an answer for me," Morgan continued, his voice almost calm as he stared down at Adam. "Guys like you never do, do you? You just suck up to the most powerful person in the room and hope that you can ride their coattails to get what you want."

Adam shook his head and started to speak, but Morgan wasn’t interested in hearing whatever it was Adam had to say.

"You want to suck up to me, buddy? Make sure I never catch you talking to Kari like that, ever again. If I get so much of a hint that you’ve been anything other than sweetness and light to her, there’s going to be trouble, alright?"

"Al-alright," Adam finally managed to sputter out after a long pause. Morgan removed his hand from his shoulder, his eyes still burning with rage. I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from letting out a giggle at the look on Adam’s face. I managed to keep it in, just in time for Morgan to turn his attention back to me. As soon as he laid eyes on me, his face cleared, and a smile spread across his lips, reaching his eyes.

"Hey, Kari," he greeted me, striding toward me and planting a big kiss on my cheek.

"Hey, Morgan," I replied, not bothering to look at Adam for a reaction.

"You ready to go?” Morgan asked, and I nodded.

"Well, I have a car waiting outside," he replied. "Let’s get out of here."

And with that, I followed him out of the building and into the parking lot beyond. I tucked my arm through his, and as the cool evening air hit me, I couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, I knew that our encounter with Adam could land us in some trouble in the future – what if he tried to sabotage the project to make sure that Morgan didn’t get one over on him? What if he pushed me to work more to keep me away from him? There was so much that he could do, but I was honestly past caring about it. Morgan had stood up for me. Morgan had defended me against Adam. Morgan had made it clear that he wanted me and that he didn’t care who knew it.

"You alright?" he asked as we reached the car. I nodded. Adam’s words should have been ringing in my ears, but instead, Morgan’s defense of me was running around my head.

"Yeah, I am," I assured him as I slipped into the seat next to his. "Let’s get out of here."