Emotional Turmoil

“That’s good. I know you wanted to preserve the acquisition,” she said.

“Don’t you?”

“What I want isn’t at issue here.”

“Are you mad? Because I’m getting the sense that you’re mad even though I ordered you bacon.”

“I’m not mad. My personal feelings aren’t relevant.”

“Your feelings about the Smith Gibbons acquisition, or your feelings about me.”

“Both.”

“Well, if you insist. We can skip the morning sex. I’ll check us out, and we can be on our merry way.”

She gaped at him, and he gave a half smile, “You thought I was going to demand to know your reservations about the business deal and your complicated feelings about me. The thing is, I don’t need to know either. The deal is going through, partly thanks to your efforts, and you’re being paid to help facilitate that deal. As for our personal relationship, I’m not sure where we stand. We fight. We have sex. We both claim to love each other. But we never take the next step. Maybe we’re too toxic for each other.”

“Toxic? Is that what you’re labeling our love?”

“I love you, but…”

“Maybe this was a mistake,” he said cutting her off.

“You got scared. I comforted you. We both had a good time. Now we’re going back to work.”

“I know relationships can be tricky, but love shouldn’t hurt this bad. If this love is toxic, then maybe it’s time I break free.”

With that, he picked up his jacket and left her sitting with a strip of bacon halfway to her mouth and nothing to say.

Chapter 10

Harvey had completely shut her down. She’d been ready to tell him that going ahead with the deal was insensitive to the Smiths’ situation and that they should back off. And that she wasn’t even going to bother saying she shouldn’t have slept with him because that’s what she always said, and she always did it again anyway. So she was going to tell him that it was the last time.

They say heartache requires recovery time, but Bella didn’t believe that. It’d been years, and she never got over Harvey. She loved him, but they never seemed to work out. He saw her worth and wanted her…but he just wasn’t ready to settle down just yet. Maybe things were never meant to work between them.

She cursed fate.

So from now on, they had to act like adults and not horny teenagers. That they had to hammer out some kind of agreement about visitation with the children and they would have to keep their hormones in check to do so. Now she was sitting by herself with a breakfast tray and no one to flirt with. It was disconcerting.

Bella dressed and packed, messaged with Maria about the twins. They’d eaten their breakfast well and gone to school with minimal whining. She missed them, just thinking of the way Corinne had to decorate her toaster pastry with perfect swirls of icing before she’d eat it, the way Caden would stare off into space and forget he was holding a spoonful of cereal he was supposed to be eating. She sighed. She’d see them after work. Maybe she’d skip out and pick them up from school so she could be with them sooner. She missed them so much.

Every day they grew and changed. She felt a pang of fear that she would have to give them up for days at a time when Harvey got visitation rights. She might miss their first loose tooth, the first time they wrote their full names. He might even make her change their names to Carlson instead of James. He probably would want to do that legally. She cringed at the confusion that her babies would feel, suddenly a stranger is their father, suddenly they have new names, new schedules, new relatives. It hurt her heart that this was happening.

She was somber and quiet on the flight home. He worked on his tablet; she stared out the window. Despite what they’d shared last night, they were no closer. No more together, no more in accord about the children or the future. She turned to him just before arrival.

“Harvey, we need to discuss the kids. Find a time for you to meet them and discuss how we’re going to do this.”

“Today is good.”

“Do you have a time we could discuss this?”

“I mean to meet them officially. It’s past time for a discussion. I’ve been patient, and you haven’t offered a time or a place. So do it today. After school. What time do they get out?”

“They get out at three, but Caden has soccer practice from three-thirty until five…”

“He can miss it.”

“What? No! He loves soccer practice and the cleats I had to special order in his size finally came in so this week is his first chance to wear them.”