Mae

I knew I shouldn’t be following him blindly out of the office and goodness knew where. I was technically his employee now, and while he had referred to me as Ms. Gomez more than once, there was no denying the heat I saw in his eyes or that I reciprocated. I asked him multiple times along the way, where we were going and each time he gave me a non-answer. The only thing I knew for sure at this point was that if I’d been listening to him during the meeting, my brain would be filled with more knowledge and less questions.

If only he knew how distracting he was. Or maybe he did and that was why he was tormenting me so. I needed to tell him about the baby. But how? “Thanks for an awesome night and for knocking me up?” or “It seems to me you need to read the condom package directions better next time?” or “Remember that time I ran out on you after you had me seeing stars? Yeah, I kinda didn’t leave alone…?”

There was going to be no easy way to do this. I had to rip it off like a band-aid. But not here, in a car going who knew where. Truthfully, I didn’t care where we were going. Being with him had me feeling settled for the first time since I got here, since even before I took the test. It was selfish of me to want to hold onto that feeling for longer, especially when doing so meant postponing telling him. What kind of a jerk had I become? No, not a jerk. A lonely woman, in a new town, facing an uncertain future after taking a detour of mammoth proportions.

We pulled off to the side of the road, in front of a huge hotel. Surely he didn’t think…? Who was I kidding, even if he did I wasn’t going to turn him down. I had somehow become that pathetic.

“A hotel?” And by hotel, I meant a ritzy place I couldn’t afford to walk into.

“Lunch.” He smirked. Oh, he loved where my brain had gone. Had his gone there too? Did he think about our night together? A man like him could have any woman he wanted. My lack of experience paired with my poor attire that evening and my excessive curviness couldn’t have possibly lived up to the caliber of women he normally had. The thought of that pissed me off. Not that I wasn’t good enough, but that there were others. What was wrong with me?

“In a hotel?” I clarified because I needed something to say and my brain was producing no coherent words. How had I gone from work to a date? Or was this a date? I didn’t even know.

“In the hotel.” The smirk was back and this time paired with a wink. If he weren’t so sexy, I’d probably be mad.

“Just making sure,” I sighed as I went for the door, but his hand on my knee stopping me in my tracks.

“You sound disappointed.” Was that hope I heard in his voice? Not that I wasn’t going to squash it the moment I confessed the end result of our first encounter.

“I’m all sorts of things right now,” I mumbled as I popped open the door and climbed out.

I swore I heard him whisper, “Me too,” just as I shut the door a little too loudly.

The restaurant was the kind with zero prices letting me know I was beyond underdressed. Not one person gave me a weird look as Matt walked in and pretty much told them we would be having a private table. I was happy for the table and hearing him getting all bossy like that did things to me it shouldn’t. He had that same quality in the bedroom. But that wasn’t something I should be allowing my mind to wander to. Not here, in public, or semi-private as the case might be, and not after only having spent most of one night with him.

Matt held my chair out for me like a true gentleman, and as he pushed me in, his breath caressed my neck as he exhaled, “Beautiful.” I was a goner to be sure.

When the orders were taken and the staff no longer in ear shot, Matt finally asked his first question, the one I was dreading, but knew was coming.

“Why were you gone when I woke up?”

There was no good answer to his question. I spent far too many sleepless nights thinking about just that. I had connected with him. I liked him more than just because of his sexiness. Something about him touched my heart in a way no one else had. Maybe it was the hurt he wore on his face as they talked about Ms. Gracie. Maybe it was the way he took what he wanted, knowing it was what I wanted too. Maybe it was his intelligence. Whatever it was hadn’t dissipated, as today reaffirmed. It wasn’t a memory morphed into something better than it was, which I had tried to convince myself numerous times.

“I panicked.” And that was the reality of it. I freaked out and ran.

“Because you don’t do things like that.”

How did he see me? Really see me, when no one else, not even my sister, did. He reached his hand across the table allowing his fingers to connect with mine, stopping short of holding hands. None of the anger I had expected appeared.

“No I don’t.” I flipped my hand over, encouraging him to increase our contact. For a moment, I thought he was going to move his hand further away, but he met my eyes and seemed to change his mind, placing his palm on mine. “I plan my life. Always have. And then boom, you walk in and all of a sudden I want to, no, need to take a chance. If it makes you feel better, I asked about you to see if I could find you, but I didn’t get far.”

“You did?” That seemed to genuinely shock him. Did he not know the things he did to me?

“I did. I wanted to thank you. Because of you I took the right chances and got a good job.” Brilliant, I made it look like a polite gesture when it was so much more than that. I needed to kick my own arse later.

“The one I had already offered you.”

“Which I only figured out today.” Because that is how my life works. “What would’ve been different if I had stayed?”

“I would’ve spent the morning with you in my arms.”

And then we would have an awkward good-bye, I added silently in my head. “So basically, nothing but more naked time?” I teased, fearing the moment was getting too far into territory we should stay away from.

“It felt like it could be more to me.” He laced his fingers with mine, giving them a slight squeeze.

“Me too.”