The pain and the anger doesn’t go away for a few days.

I let her into my home. I let her play with my daughter. I opened up to her, fucked her, took her virginity. We were growing so close and things felt so goddamn good with her, and suddenly it’s all fucking gone.

Totally destroyed. I’m devastated when I get home from that dinner, but I manage to pick myself up the next day and start looking for a new nanny. The woman I find is in her fifties, nice enough, but Lacey doesn’t take to her like she did to Erin.

I have to just keep going forward. The fucking Fisher deal seems so disgusting now, and I don’t even know if I want to go forward with it. I keep finding myself reading about the deal, and then thinking about Erin, and only after a few minutes do I realize that I’ve been daydreaming about taking her back.

I don’t know what the fuck to do. I can’t get her out of my head, but I feel like she’s betrayed me so completely and utterly.

Still, she did say something odd. She said that she was protecting me and Lacey. I don’t know how that could be the case, since she was spying, but she said something about her father wanting to bug my apartment.

I can’t believe this crazy shit. I knew her father was a notorious asshole and a bastard, but I had no clue he was actually insane and willing to stoop so fucking low.

I try to research Erin, but there’s not much out there. Everything I read basically confirms her story. I didn’t recognize her from the start because every picture I’ve seen is from before she went overseas, when she was much younger. She’s blossomed a lot since then, really grown beautiful, but that’s not the point. I was fucking tricked and fooled and I let my guard down.

But something keeps nagging at me. I can’t say exactly what it is, but it’s something important. I know I should be seeing it, but as the days pass, I can’t stop thinking about Erin. Slowly the hate and the betrayal fades, replaced only with a surprising ache for her. I don’t really understand it. I should hate her, want her gone from my life forever, and yet I find myself thinking about her fondly before I remember what she did.

Lacey asks about Erin every day. That breaks my heart more than anything. I don’t know what to do. The new nanny is fine, she’s capable and came highly recommended by a nanny service, but then again, Erin came highly recommended as well.

It’s right there… I can almost see it. But whenever I get close to the thing I should remember, I just see Erin and her body, feel the way she kissed me, the way she made me smile and laugh. I hate myself for missing her, but a week passes, and the need for her doesn’t go away.

It just gets stronger. I fucking want her badly, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Sunday comes around and I find myself playing with Lacey, trying not to think about Erin. I try so hard not to think about her, which only makes me think about her even more, of course. It’s a catch-22 situation, damned if I do and even more damned if I don’t. I wish I could turn off these fucking feelings, but they’re there, lodged deep inside of me.

This is why I don’t get close to anyone. This exact fucking reason. If I don’t get close, I can never get hurt. I never felt this way about a woman before Erin, and maybe I never will again. Maybe if I never let myself fall again, I’ll never have to hit the fucking concrete like an asshole.

That’s when it clicks. That thing I should be thinking about, the thing I should realize. It hits me like a fucking ton of bricks and I have to get up and walk away from Lacey for a second.

Without thinking, I call Erin. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m practically reeling. She answers on the third ring.

“Griffin?” she asks.

“It’s me,” I grunt. “Can we meet?”

She pauses. “I thought you hated me.”

“I still might. Can we meet?”

“When and where?”

“Soon. Now. I don’t know where. Can you come to the park near my place?”

“Yeah, okay. I can get there in twenty.”

“Fine.” I hang up the phone, feeling dizzy, and turn to Lacey. “Come on, Lacey girl. Want to go to the park and see Erin?”

“Yes!” she squeals. I busy myself getting her ready, trying not to think about this horrible realization I just came to. I hope it isn’t true. I need it to be wrong. And the only person I know that can confirm it is Erin, the last person I really want to see right now.

Actually, she’s the only person I want to see right now, which is what makes this whole thing so dangerous.

I head over to the park. When we get there, I walk with Lacey over to the playground area and I help her play, keeping a close eye on her. Ten minutes later, I spot Erin walking quickly over toward me.

I have to suppress a smile. Something in my chest blooms and I want to grab her by the waist and kiss her. I should hate her so much, but my first reaction isn’t hate.

It’s pure desire. And maybe that’s worse.

She comes up to me, a little unsure of herself. “Hey, Griffin,” she says.

“Hey.”

“Erin!” Lacey runs over to her, and Erin smiles big.

“Hey there, little girl.” Erin scoops her up in a big hug. “How’s it going?”

“Play!” she says.

“Yeah, we’ll play, of course.” She looks at me and I shake my head once.

“We need to talk,” I say.

She nods and looks back at Lacey. “Can you go over to those big blocks and show me how good at counting you are?”

Lacey nods vigorously and Erin puts her down. Lacey walks a few feet away to these large yellow blocks with numbers painted on them that she can spin around in circles. She mostly just hits them and spins them, but it distracts her enough for now.

“What did you want to talk about?” Erin asks.

“It’s about… your job,” I say.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says quickly. “Seriously, Griffin, I hate myself for doing that, and I really was keeping my father away from you. I hate him for this, you know, and I’m trying to get away—“

“Stop,” I say quickly, interrupting her. “I can’t hear that right now. I just need to know something.”

She stops and nods, taking a deep breath. “Anything,” she says.

“My friend, James.”

Her face falls. “Oh god,” she says.

“Was he involved?”

She hesitates then nods once. “I’m so sorry, Griffin,” she says. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. I don’t know how or why, but my father got him to introduce me to you.”

That hurts even more than her betrayal. At least she didn’t know me when she agreed to get involved with this insane plan. But the fact that James betrayed me is even fucking worse.

I feel like my whole fucking world is a lie. James has been my closest friend for years, but clearly I was wrong about that. If he can do something like this to me, I don’t think we ever had a real friendship. I can’t imagine what Fisher offered him in exchange for betraying me.

More money, maybe, but he’s already rich. I can’t even guess at his motives, and I don’t want to.

At least I know now. That’s what I realized and should have seen from the start, that’s what was nagging at me. My friendship with James blinded me to the fact that Erin only came into my life through him.

“So you never worked for him?” I ask her.

“Never,” she says. “He was in on it. My father was bragging about it when we first put this together.”

“That fucking bastard.” I clench my fists.

“I don’t know why he did it,” she says quickly.

“I’m going to kill him.” I turn my back on her, raging on the insane. “I’m going to fire that fucking snake.”

“Wait,” she says. “Hold on.” She steps up next to me. “Isn’t he more useful if you keep him around?”

I glance at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Look, I don’t want to tell you what to do. I’m sure you hate me and you have every right to. But now you know that he’s a cheat and a liar. You can feed him bad information or even figure out what my father’s going to do through him.”

I listen to what she’s saying, and although the only thing I want to do right now is to drive over to James’s place and punch him in the smug fucking mouth, I know she’s right. He’s more useful if I keep him around, but the thought makes me ill.

Still, that’s the world I’m a part of now. Apparently friendship means nothing. I want to destroy James, not just fire him, and keeping him close will help me come up with the perfect way to get that done.

I watch her for a second before taking a deep breath.

“How did you protect me?” I ask her.

She looks a little surprised. “I told my father that you were having your bathroom remodeled.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, so that he couldn’t come into your apartment with a team of guys to bug the place. I wanted him to think that I was still on his side, even if I wasn’t.”

“Smart,” I say. “How else?”

“I kept things from him,” she continues. “Things I shouldn’t have seen because I shouldn’t have snooped. Like those letters in your closet from… that woman.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You saw those?”

“Yes, and I don’t know what she wrote to you, and I don’t care.”

I smile a little bit. “They weren’t to me.”

She pauses. “Oh. Really?”

“You didn’t read them?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I put them back as soon as I found them and saw the return address. They’re from Lacey’s mother, aren’t they?”

“That’s right,” I say, sighing. “They’re actually to her. She’s been writing at least once a month since Lacey was born, usually a couple times a week. I’m going to give them to her when she’s older and she can understand.”

Erin blinks at me. “That’s really sweet of you.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t know many people that would actually keep those letters, let alone pass them on. Didn’t she dump Lacey on you and run?”

“More or less,” I say. “But that’s not Lacey’s fault. She deserves to know her mother, even if her mother is a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, well. I’m impressed.”

“Good.” I watch her for a second. “So what did you tell him?”

“I made some stuff up,” she admits. “Mostly bullshit. Nothing consequential.”

“Like what color my underwear is?”

She grins. “You only wear black.”

“Of course you know that.” But I can’t help but smile a little bit.

Lacey makes a noise and we both quickly look over at her. She’s waving, trying to get Erin’s attention. Erin waves back and looks at me.

“Can I?” she asks. “I understand if you want me to leave. I’ll go if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. Lacey misses you.”

She pauses. “I miss her too.” She looks at me for a second then walks quickly over to Lacey.

I watch the two of them playing, trying to process everything.

My best friend betrayed me. So that’s two big betrayals in a single week, although I think James’s is much worse than Erin’s. She was doing what her father wanted her to do, but James knows me and did this all on his own. He’s going down, no matter what.

But Erin… I don’t know what to think. I have to sit down on a bench as Erin plays with Lacey. The two of them get along so well, it’s really good to watch, but it’s also really hard.

She’s practically glowing. I know I should be repulsed, and yet… it’s impossible to hate her. The realization hits me like a hammer. Watching her with my daughter, I know I’ll never despise Erin. Lacey likes her too much and she makes Lacey way too happy.

And she makes me happy. I hate to fucking admit it, even after all of this, but she does. I can’t help but smile around her. She has this amazing energy and way about her that makes Lacey so happy and makes me grin like an idiot.

Plus, she’s just as fucking gorgeous as she was the day I first met her. I’m still just as attracted as I was, or maybe even more so. I got one taste of her perfect tight little pussy, and now I want even more of it.

I’m so angry with her for what she did to me, but I have to admit, I can understand. She was doing what her father told her to do, and it isn’t her fault that her father is a fucking psycho. She clearly regrets getting involved, and she did help protect us. I believe her when she says that, because I haven’t seen any negative consequences of her working for me. Her father hasn’t tried anything at all. In fact, her defense of me and Lacey actually might explain why Fisher has been stalling the deal so hard lately. He’s waiting to get something he can use from his daughter, or at least he was, and that clearly failed. I can’t help but wonder what new scheme he’s cooked up.

But that’s more proof of what Erin’s telling me. There’s a large voice in my mind that tells me to run away from her, not to get involved anymore. I can’t trust her, she’s the daughter of my enemy right now, and that in itself should be reason enough to back away.

And yet… watching her play with Lacey, I just have this urge. I can’t really describe it. It’s an urge to have her. Maybe it’s fucking insane but she looks so fucking sexy right now, and I believe her, I really do. I believe her when she says that she tried to protect us, that she actually cares about us. I believe her and I want her and fuck, it’s so fucked up and wrong, but I want her.

No, I fucking need her. Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe this is a mistake. But I take out my phone and call my babysitter anyway. She agrees to watch Lacey for the rest of the afternoon.

When I hang up the phone, I call Erin over. She sits down next to me on the bench while Lacey blissfully digs through some wood chips a few feet away.

“I want something from you,” I say to her softly.

“What’s that?”

“Your word. That you never betrayed me.”

She hesitates. “I never betrayed you,” she says. “I promise. I was going to, but then I met you and Lacey and…” She trails off and looks at me, her eyes a little wide, and I believe her.

“Come with me somewhere,” I say to her. “I called a babysitter for Lacey.”

She looks surprised. “Where?”

“A hotel I own.”

“You own a hotel?”

“Well, I own the majority share in a hotel.” I cock my head at her. “Are you interested?”

“What do you want to do there?” she asks me softly.

“I want to make you work for your forgiveness.”

She stares at me for a second then slowly nods her head. I can feel pure desire and need ringing through my body.

I’m going to forgive her. I know that I am. But first, I’m going to make her earn it, and she’s going to like it.