Turned out, the kids were in the bedroom dressing up in princess dresses, complete with tiaras and wands. Murray would be so proud. We had a quick photo shoot and texted the pictures to him.

Audrey was out of surgery and recovering. Groggy and in pain, she still managed to give her husband a run for his money. The boys did surprisingly well when we told them that Mommy was fine and would be home tomorrow, but they would stay one more night at Jack’s.

I offered to take them back home to give him a break, but all he said was, “No way. You’re staying here.”

While the kids continued their princess dance-a-thon, I stole the boys’ clothes, did some stain removal—that took forever—and then threw them into Jack’s washer. After I closed the machine and set it, I spun around and yelled, “Oh my God, you scared the crap outta me.” Clutching my chest, I attempted to breathe deeply and restart my heart.

Jack stood leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed. He spouted off a ten-digit phone number and stared at me. “What are you doing? I have no idea whose number that is,” I said, still confused.

He recited the number again, stepped into the laundry room, and closed the door behind him. I huffed and crossed my arms. “Now you’re starting to piss me off. What’s your problem?”

“Lover boy. Do I need to give him a call and let him know you’re taken?” Ah, okay. He was talking about Joe.

“How in the world did you even remember that number? Sheesh.” I scoffed at him for taking the time to memorize such a stupid thing.

“He wrote it on my woman’s body. It’s burned into my brain.” Oh, good grief.

“Chill, caveman. Nothing happened. Honest. Riley invited me out, and as I got up to leave, one of the guys at our table decided to write his number on my arm. Completely unwanted.”

“But he still put his hands on you. Did he touch you anywhere else?”

What was he getting at? “No. Oh, well, he did put his hand on my leg.” That just sort of plopped out. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Another big sigh from him before he said, “Come here, Harper.” His voice was bossy and, honestly, it turned me on in a big way. If anyone else had issued that kind of command, I’d have to tell them where to stick it.

I warily moseyed over to him, trying my best to assess his mood. “Did you do anything with him?” he asked, eyebrows up, arms around my waist holding me captive. A willing captive, but still.

“Oh my God, there’s been nobody but you. I swear.” He exhaled into my neck, gently swaying with me. Caressing his shoulders and back, I reiterated, “You broke my heart. I could barely get myself to work. I wasn’t exactly out partying all night, every night. Riley felt sorry for me, so she asked me to go out. But I only went to be with her.”

“Just thinking of you with—” he started, but I cut him off.

“Nobody. I was at home, on my couch. Alone. Missing you. Wishing like hell you were there to hold me while we read together on my crappy couch, in my crappy apartment.”

I could feel his body shake under mine. “Your apartment isn’t crappy. It’s small, but I like it,” he whispered into my ear, his warm breath giving me goose bumps.

Now it was my turn to laugh. “Uh-huh. My place is great, especially compared to yours,” I said sarcastically.

“My place is nice. And cold. And lonely. It doesn’t have you in it,” he said, grabbing my ass and squeezing. “We haven’t known each other for very long, but we definitely know each other well. I want to be wherever you are.” Then he found my lips and crushed his to mine. This man. God, he tasted good. His tongue invaded my mouth in a forceful assault, like he was again trying to show me exactly how much he missed me. Message received. My heart was beating quickly, and his hands on my ass pulled me even closer to his rock-hard erection.

After a few moments, I pushed away. “Who wouldn’t want to live in a huge penthouse apartment?” I asked, wondering why he didn’t like his home.

He sighed, and his hands wandered up my back. “It’s so sterile. There’s no personality. When I come home after a hard day, I want to feel warm and comfortable. My place is the exact opposite of that.”

The man spoke the truth. It was all hard lines and contrast, but it also was a far cry better than where I lived.

“So, you would rather cook in my kitchen than in your chef’s dream kitchen? I doubt it,” I said, giggling just thinking about how awful my minuscule kitchen was compared to his.

“If you’re there? No contest,” he said, leaning forward and kissing me gently. “Look, this place is nothing like the apartment I lived in when I was going to school and working my way up.” Hmm, that surprised me. I always kind of assumed Jack came from money.

There was plenty I wanted to ask him about his life, but we had more pressing matters at hand. “We should get back out there. It’s quiet again.” I nodded toward the door, imagining what those three must be doing now.

“I made popcorn and put on a show. They’re good,” he said against my lips before turning us and pushing my back against the door. I shrieked at his move and then laughed. His dimples emerged as he smiled at me. I missed those. My fingers traced the indents in his handsome face.

“I love these,” I said, and that made him smirk even wider. “I bet they work well on the ladies.” I knew firsthand the effect they had on the female species.

“Only one I care about is standing right in front of me.” And then he groaned into my open mouth as he took complete control of our embrace. His fingers roamed down and lifted my skirt. It didn’t take much. My skirt was pretty short. Then his hot hands found my ass again.

“I don’t even want to think about why you’re wearing a thong because I’m just so fucking thankful you are,” he muttered before lifting me right off the floor. I reached down and palmed his hardness through the thin material of his shorts. He moaned even louder, and then…knock, knock, knock.

“Daddy? We wanna watcha different show.”

Needless to say, kids tended to put a bit of a damper on your love life. After I put on a different show, the kids settled in with their popcorn and drinks. A few minutes later, the house phone rang, and I bounded up to answer it.

“Thanks, Ed. That would be fantastic,” I said to the best doorman that ever lived, then headed toward the elevator. A moment later, the metal doors swooshed open, and we did our exchange.

“Follow me,” I whispered to Harper, touching her arm as I strode past the couch. All right, maybe I stared at her legs, too. Fuck me. Those legs…

She carefully moved one kid off her lap and put a pillow behind another one’s head. Seeing her interact with the kids, with my kid especially, nearly made my heart explode. I couldn’t help but get my hopes up. The woman hadn’t left. Yet. Her amazing, heart-shaped ass was still in my apartment, even after meeting my daughter.

Part of me expected her to bolt when she showed up and saw the unholy mess the place was in. But instead, she took it all in stride and hunkered down to help.

And she forgave me. I’d wanted to go out on the balcony and shout it to the fabulous people of Santa Lena, but I restrained myself.

My cock jumped when I felt her behind me. She tapped my shoulder and said, “What’s in there? It smells delicious.” You know what smelled delicious? Her. Her hair, her skin, her… “Jack? What’s in the bag?” she repeated because all I could think about right now was how much I needed to carry her up to my room, throw her onto my bed, and do nasty, nasty things to her all night long. Instead, I’ve got the Cock-blocking Gang in my living room watching a movie about cartoon fish in space. Fuck.

“I asked the restaurant to send over some food for us,” I said, unpacking the goods onto the counter.

“Why? We have perfectly good chicken strips and fries,” she said as she tipped the pan, making the cold, dried-out lumps of mass production slide around.

“Very funny.” I glared at the extremely sexy smartass in my kitchen. “For your information, those boys refused to eat anything I gave them. Nothing. Zero.” It wasn’t funny at the time, but watching Harper’s face light up and giggle made me see the brighter side. “Oh, and the manager at my neighborhood grocery store strongly encouraged us to find somewhere else to shop next time.” That got me a head toss and a huge roaring laugh.

“What did they do?” she asked, eyes wide open in anticipation.

“You don’t want to know, but Audrey should enroll them in rock climbing classes. Natural talent and all.” I unpacked the takeout boxes one at a time.

“No,” she said, mouth open, waiting. Wonderful. Now my fucking cock was hard. I snagged some cutlery and talked him down.

“Actually, they could probably teach the classes,” I said blankly. Harper shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Luckily, we got out of there with some food they would actually eat, so it wasn’t a total loss. However, I’m not looking forward to driving ten extra minutes every time I need groceries.”

“You can come with me to Pat’s,” she tumbled out. From the look on her face, she was just as surprised as I was.

“I love going to Pat’s with you. Let’s just never bring the boys with us.” I smiled and raked the scallops onto our plates. Wes did a great job on these—even the grill marks were spot-on.

“Deal,” she said and grinned at me. “Those two are a handful, I’ll give you that. And taking them out anywhere deserves some kind of medal or Nobel Prize.”

“Sit.” I pulled out a chair and then sat beside her.

“Ohhh, yeahhh,” she mumbled over the steaming scallop in her mouth. Thank God I was sitting because hearing her say that brought back a lot of memories. A lot of really, really good memories of her lying on her back, spread eagle while I...

“Better than cold chicken fingers and fries?” I asked, trying my best to get my mind off her moaning.

“Much. I still can’t believe you allowed processed food in this house. The man who threw my container of margarine away,” she said and shook her head. “And all of my frozen toaster foods.”

“The toaster is to toast with…”

“Not to cook in, yeah, yeah. I remember,” she repeated my mantra that I had tried my best to teach her. The woman loved her toaster.

“You know I missed you,” I said, staring directly into her eyes. She nodded and gave me a sad smile. “I missed you, and I missed this.” I motioned with my fork between us. “Our conversations, our back and forth. You making the shittiest days seem worth it, just because I got to come back home to you. Even if all I had the energy to do was crawl into bed and hold you for a few hours until it was time to start a whole new day.”

Her eyes got watery, and I knew I struck a chord. “I missed us, too,” she said, her voice quivering at the end. I leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on those luscious lips of hers. She really was beautiful, and her neckline and hemline were giving me dirty thoughts that were difficult to control.

“So…Ava,” she said. Hmm, she finally brought up the subject of my daughter.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I know. It’s kind of pretentious, right? Wasn’t exactly my first choice, but it grows on you.”

She giggled. “No, her name is pretty. I was talking about Ava the human being. But why did you let your wife name her that if you didn’t like it?”

“You’re assuming that, A: I was there for Ava’s delivery, and B: I had one fucking say in anything to do with her.”

“Why weren’t you there?” she asked warily. Probably wondering what kind of dickhead wouldn’t show for his child’s birth.

“Because Brooke is a raging bitch. We’d had a fight that morning, and she paid me back by not telling me she was in labor.”

“What did you fight about?”

I laughed a mirthless laugh and snapped up my beer. “She wanted me to buy this penthouse. I told her it was no place to raise a family. Kids need fresh air, freedom, dirt, and butterflies. Not a hyper-modern, lifeless, bullshit penthouse.”

“But she won.”

“She won. That woman knows how to get her way.” The look of pity on Harper’s face was difficult to stomach. “Look, she and I fought like cats and dogs. We never got along for more than five minutes at a time after we were married. And our marriage lasted about twenty minutes. That was about how long it took her to dig her claws into my friend. My extremely well-off friend.”

“She cheated on you?” she said like she was amazed anyone would even consider it. I had to admit that even I was surprised Brooke had cheated. But that was years ago. A marriage that never should have happened in the first place.

“Uh-huh.”

“With your friend?” she asked and wiped her face with a napkin.

“Yep. Well, I thought he was a friend. In a sick way, the guy really did me a huge favor. I was stuck in a horrible marriage with no way out. They gave me an out.”

“That’s how I feel, too. My cousin is a complete A-S-S, but catching her and Gabe in the act lit a fire under my A-S-S to finally get out. I think I’ll still hate her until my dying day, but in the grand scheme of things, the woman helped me out. Stupid, right? That we should feel gratitude for the people who hurt us?”

“I’m grateful for every second of pain and misery I had to go through to find a way to you,” I said and twisted my body so my knees were on the outside of hers. I grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “No joke, no B.S. I need you in my life so much I can barely function if you’re not here.”

She reached her hand up and stroked the side of my face. Her skin was like silk on my rough, two-day old beard. “You watch too many rom-coms,” she said, smirking her full pouty mouth at me. Clutching her hand, I turned it over and kissed her palm.

“I haven’t watched one since you left.”

“You must have the DTs.”

I missed this beautiful little smartass. The things I wanted to do to that funny little mouth of hers.

“I have the DTs over a few things,” I said, putting my hands on her thighs and squeezing. She inhaled sharply, and I chuckled.