I used to look forward to Mondays.

This one sucked.

With legs feeling like they were encased in cement, I dragged myself home and tried not to think about the papers I had to grade, or the assignment plan I hadn’t completed.

A week passed since Mac left.

I hadn’t seen or heard from him. After asking him to leave, I didn’t expect him to reach out, but I hoped tough love would shake him into making the right decision. I thought he’d at least check in on Bump.

A huge part of me wanted to text him, call him, do something, beg him to come back so we could talk this out. But that was the weak part of me. I had a baby on the way. I needed to be strong for Bump.

And I was in the right. Deep in my gut, I knew that.

That was what made all of this so much harder. 

This part sucked. The part where I slowly came to grips with the fact that I’d fallen in love with a guy I never stopped to truly get to know. Because everything about him felt right, I went with it. Everything about him was like coming home, so I talked myself out of going deeper.

But Bump didn’t need a mother who’d settle.

She needed me to be strong. To protect her. To give her a childhood that she could look back on and smile about. To fill her days with wonder and her nights with vivid dreams about how great life could be.

I wasn’t going to settle. I guess I was too damn spoiled for that. Sniffling, I fought back the urge to cry as I dug my key out of my purse. I’d get inside, sit down, and get off my feet for a little while. After I did that, things wouldn’t seem so bad. But I knew they’d feel a lot worse before they’d start to feel better. As long as Mac wasn’t around, I could heal.

The door swung inward before my key touched the lockset.

But I knew I’d locked it this morning.

Nerves jittered, then began to sing.

“Hello?” I called out.

Wise move, announce to the robber that you’re here, I thought.

“Hi Angel.”

Shit. Again?

His voice made my heart lurch, then it started to race out of control.

“Mac.”

As he stepped forward out of the shadows, the strength sapped out of my body and I sagged against the doorjamb. “What are you doing here? Why can’t you use the damned phone? Or wait outside like a normal person?”

Never mind that a few minutes ago I’d been thinking about how I’d probably never see him again.

Right now, I sort of dreaded whatever…this…was.

It was feeling like a repeat of last Sunday night.

I wasn’t sure my heart could handle an encore.

“I came to see you,” he said softly, stepping aside. “Are you coming in?”

With the panic now diffusing from my body, I pushed past him. “I really love how you just sort of break into my home, Mac. It’s so like a magician to—” 

The rest of the sentence died on my lips as I caught sight of my home. It had been transformed. Candles flickered and gleamed on every flat surface. My simple, utilitarian table had been covered with a tablecloth. A vase filled with pure white roses sat on top, the crystal reflecting the soft glow of candlelight.

“What’s this?” I asked thickly.

“A lot of things,” Mac said from behind me. “Have a seat.”

I wasn’t so certain I wanted to but the ache I’d been carrying around all week was an anchor. 

Huge, heavy and suffocating.

I took a step toward the table. 

“Not there,” he murmured, catching my hand. “Not yet. We…I have some things I need to tell you. It’s complicated.”

Frowning, I looked over at him.

He wasn’t looking at me.

He was staring at the couch. More specifically, his eyes were locked onto a spot on the coffee table in front of the couch. Glancing at it, I wondered why. I looked more closely and saw several pieces of paper spread out on the table. One or two looked like newspaper clippings. Really old ones.

I let him guide me to the couch and we sat down together.

“I knew the first time I saw you that you came from money,” he said softly. “When you grow up with it, you kind of learn to recognize it.”

“That’s a really strange opening to the conversation I was expecting.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I had no idea where he could be going with this.

His mouth twisted in an effort to smile, but didn’t quite make it. “This won’t be like any conversation you’ve ever had, Angel.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“My legal name is Devin Xavier MacKenzie Knight. My father’s family owns Knight’s Chemical Industries.”

I stared at him as I made the connection between Mac and the huge, billion-dollar conglomerate that was a household name for most people in the western world. I was more than a little surprised, but tried to hide my reaction.

“I can tell that you’ve heard of it.”

“Um. Yes,” I answered. “Everyone’s heard of Knight’s Chemical. Also, my father had a chance to do business with them just before I left for college. I remember because the company was all over the news, which made its way to our dinner table. Dad backed out of the deal because of ...well, you know how the media can be. I don’t know much about the subtleties of why, but—”

“If anything, it was my father. Douglass Knight is an ass and a reprobate. Yours isn’t, and I can’t see him working side by side with an outright degenerate if he could avoid it.”

“What’s this about, Mac?”

“A lot of things. My family…father. He’s a manipulative, controlling bastard, and he did everything he could to control me, my brothers, my sister…”

Mac looked away. A strange, stilted sound escaped him. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought it was a sobbing noise, but there were no tears in his eyes.

“I had a younger brother once. And a baby sister. Micah and Colleen. Now all I have is an older brother. His name is Danny, but I don’t acknowledge him.”

“Why not?”

His eyes finally returned to mine. The miserable hell I saw there made me want to retract the question. I’d regret asking…I knew I would.

“Because when I was seven, I watched him kill my baby brother—and when I told my father, the mean son of a bitch didn’t do shit about it. He’s also responsible for my sister’s death. But fuck it all, my father wasn’t going to do shit about that, either. He didn’t want to tarnish the family name, so he paid off whoever he had to. In the public eye, my sibling’s deaths were labeled accidents.”

“I…” I stood up, quickly moving away from him as my head started to spin. “I need a drink of water.”