“How have you been?” he asked.
“Good,” I said briskly, now determined to get him out of my life. “What can I get you?” I handed him the menu.
He opened it and stared at it for the longest time as if he couldn’t decide what he wanted to eat.
“How about the day’s special?”
“Sure. That would be good.”
I took the menu and as I did so, our fingers brushed and sparks leaped from his hand to mine. I snatched my hand away and hurriedly left. I gave my order to Hannah who passed it onto the Chef.
I served a couple and two other people, all the while keeping an eye on Alex. Though I couldn’t see him clearly, I could see that he had not moved from his position. Panic filled me as I thought about Kayden. Alex didn’t know that he was a dad.
Kayden was a year and three months old and he was a carbon copy of his father. Same sandy colored hair that was a dead giveaway. His dad’s cobalt blue eyes and traits that reminded me of Alex all the time.
Even at fifteen months he had a sense of humor. Kayden was an easy child and for that I was grateful. It was easy to make him laugh and when he was sad or he cried, it was never for long.
When Alex’s dinner was ready, I carried it to him. I prayed and held my breath that after he ate, like any other out of town customers, he would eat his food and leave.
“Thank you,” he said, when I placed his dinner in front of him.
I was relieved when he didn’t say anything else. I walked away and continued working. When he was finished with his food, I hurriedly cleared his table. He paid for his dinner and then looked up at me.
“Charlotte, can we talk?”
I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I’d been sure that he would leave my life as quickly as he had appeared. That he would accept that we had both moved on with our lives.
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about,” I mumbled.
His eyes flashed as he narrowed them. “You don’t think we have something to talk about after you signed divorce papers and left me without a warning?”
I glanced around us and noticed that his loud, harsh voice had attracted attention. I realized that hoping that Alex would disappear after his dinner was wishful thinking. I considered running away, as I had that first time.
But this time I was not alone. I had Kayden and leaving would require planning. I couldn’t just take off with a fifteen-month baby. I closed my eyes for a few seconds. As far as he knew, there was someone in my life. If I gave him a few minutes of my time, he would leave.
“Fine, I finish my shift in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you outside.”
Thankfully, Lulu came back and I returned to the safety of the kitchen. When my shift was up, I changed into my street clothes and left through the delivery door at the back. I fought the urge to flee but that would be counterproductive.
Alex would possibly just come back the following day. I sucked in a breath and went around to the front of the diner. It was easy to spot the rented sedan with the driver seated in the front.
I went to the passenger seat, opened the door and got in. Alex didn’t turn to look at me. He kept his gaze trained somewhere ahead.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
Charlotte
Panic seized me by the throat. Did he know about Kayden? All along I’d assumed that Alex showing up was a coincidence. What if it wasn’t and he’d had an investigator following me? Nausea rose up my throat.
“Who?”
He turned to look at me. I was taken aback by the anger in his face. “The guy you left me for.”
Relief flooded me. I scrambled for a name. “Kayden.” I cursed under my breath as soon as I said my son’s name.
He looked at me quizzically. “That’s sick.”
I didn’t understand what he meant at first, and then I remembered. He and I had always said that we would name our child Kayden, if it was a boy and Mia, if it was a girl. So now he thought that I had a boyfriend with the same name.
If the matter was not so grave, I’d have laughed. Instead, I stared out the window.
“When did you start seeing him?” he grated out.
God. I hadn’t worked out the details of my indiscretion, after all, Alex and I were not supposed to meet again. My anger had dissipated and to be honest a part of me was happy to see him.
It saddened me that he didn’t look happy. Whoever he had hooked up with clearly hadn’t made him happy. If they had, he would not have been interested in my life.