Beautiful Mistakes

"Hm?" he murmured, kissing her neck, her ears.

"Do you love her?" she asked, feeling like she needed to know, even at the risk of killing the mood.

He paused just long enough to look into her eyes. "No."

Julie met his eyes and quickly searched his gaze, just to make sure he was telling her the truth, that she hadn't read the situation wrong.

Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded, giving him her consent to keep going.

---

Julie didn't allow herself to think about what had

happened between them or what it might mean; she just went to sleep in Matt's arms right there on the couch.

She slept well until all of a sudden she awoke to a large hand caressing her breast, Matt's mouth on her neck, and his knee pushing between her legs.

She smiled with her eyes still closed and opened her legs for him, gasping when she felt the length of him slide inside of her.

"Good morning," he said, running his hand down her thigh and pushing himself more deeply inside of her.

Gasping and wrapping her arms around his neck, she managed, "Good morning."

After a quick but satisfying round, Matt kissed her and told her he had to go get ready for work. Julie rolled over to the best of her ability on the sofa and went back to sleep until Matt came down with Anna and sat her down on the couch with Julie.

"Nana!" Anna said, hugging Julie around the neck.

Julie smiled and opened her eyes. "Hey, munchkin. Are you up already?"

"I have to be going, but I will see you girls at about 6:30," he said, leaning in and giving Anna a kiss on the forehead, and giving Julie's shoulder a little stroke. "Any requests for dinner? I could bring take-out."

"You don't have to buy dinner," she said. "You did last night."

"We could go out," he suggested. "Have you been to the Cheesecake Factory?"

"No, and we're not going there. If anything, bring me home some Chinese. Sweet and sour chicken is always a hit."

"Chinese it is," he said, offering her a smile.

She smiled back, wishing she could give him a kiss, but not wanting to in front of Anna. Instead she settled for an intimate smile and a little wave before he walked out the door.

Unfortunately, with Matt gone, the love nest was empty, leaving only Julie to think about what she had done.

What would come of it? She had planted herself right in the center of a very bad situation. Not only had she slept with her employer, but she slept with her married employer. Sure, right now he was bringing home dinner, offering to take her to the Cheesecake Factory and waking her up with the birds for a quickie before work, but what would happen once Emma came home? When she returned from New York, what would Matt do?

He could stop sleeping with Julie and act like it never happened. He could leave Emma. He could try to persuade Julie to just be his mistress for a time, to wait and see.

Would she want to do that? She had just cheated on Jack twice in about 8 hours, and she was sure he had probably done the same thing to her the night he hadn't called her or returned to the apartment. Even as she thought about it, he was probably assuming she had stayed out all night just to get back at him, and she was sure he would never guess what she had actually done.

Her conscience told her she should probably feel pretty bad about what had happened between them, it being adultery and everything, but all she had to do was think about his crooked smile or the way his lips felt on hers, and she just broke into a helpless smile. Emma was a pretty hideous human being anyway, and she hadn't called home once while Julie was there to check on Matt or Anna.

Not that that made it okay….

What would she do now? She was probably going to have to leave Jack, because she certainly wasn't going to go on sleeping with them both.

But would Matt stop sleeping with Emma? That was an uncomfortable thought, and she was sure that there was no delicate way of broaching the subject… Honestly, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

But she wasn't going to have a place to live if she left Jack. She only had about $280 in her bank account, because she spent all the money she had on books and tuition, then that $57 she spent to buy a few new shirts for the school year. She was virtually broke. She would have money once she got paid for that weekend, but would she even get paid now? If Emma found out, she wasn't likely to pay the nanny for being her husband's whore in her absence.