by Marni Mann
I wouldn’t have a problem with staying up to wait for that call.
Sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon.
Not when the thought of Samantha and her little girl was running through my head like a fucking song on repeat.
When I got inside my suite, I stripped out of my suit and hung it across one of the chairs. I climbed into bed, staring at my phone.
Brett had told me not to call her. He’d told me not to bring up the kid until I got back to Miami.
It was good advice.
Especially because I was in no condition to have that conversation right now. Not after how much scotch I’d shot back at the bar.
Still, Samantha knew I was in Nashville, she knew I was meeting with her brother today, and she knew I was going to mention something to him. It would be fucked up if I didn’t at least reach out.
So, I opened her last text, and I began to type.
Me: I’m in bed.
Samantha: Me, too.
Me: Long day?
Samantha: It was a busy one. You?
Me: Yeah, you could say that.
Samantha: Is everything all right?
Me: Scotch. Lots of it. I’m about to fall asleep.
Samantha: Good night, Jack.
My thumbs hovered over the screen as I stared at her words.
I touched a letter on my keyboard and a second one.
But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t say anything.
I had to listen to Brett.
I deleted what I had typed and put my phone on the nightstand, replacing it with the remote, my thumb tapping the button that changed the channel.
That button was safer.
That button I wouldn’t regret pushing in the morning.
16
Samantha
The ringing of my cell woke me up, so I reached across my nightstand, feeling all around the wood until my fingers hit my phone. Gripping it in my hand, I checked the screen to see who was calling and brought it up to my ear. “Shawn, is everything okay?”
“Sam,” he said as music blasted in the background, several other voices shouting nearby.
I took a quick glance at the screen again to see what time it was. It was just after one in the morning. He must be at a bar.
“I have to tell you something,” he said in a voice that told me he was drunk.
“What’s wrong?”
“I told him.”
I shot up in bed, my back pushing against the headboard as I tried to work through the grogginess. “Who? And what did you tell?”
As he sighed, the music and the voices turned softer, which meant he was moving into a different room. “I only wanted to give a warning, you know? ’Cause I love you and Lucy, and I want to protect you.”
I flipped on the lamp that was beside my bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin, tucking my knees against my chest. “Shawn, what are you saying?”
“Jack and I met up, and we talked about you.”
“I know; he told me he was going to say something to you. Did something happen?”
Although part of me had found it adorable that Jack wanted to have a chat with Shawn, I was terrified at the same time. The last thing I wanted was for Shawn to tell Jack about my daughter. I’d considered telling Shawn not to say anything about her. But asking him to hide her was almost like asking him to lie. I couldn’t do that to Shawn. More importantly, I couldn’t do that to my daughter.
“Fuck, Sam.” He paused. Even through his buzz, I could hear his emotions, and they made me more nervous. “I told him that, if he hurt you or Lucy, he’d have to answer to me.”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
I almost dropped the phone; my heart was thumping so hard.
My biggest fear had come true because I was positive Jack had then asked who Lucy was.
This was my fault, not Shawn’s.
I couldn’t even be mad at my brother.
I’d put him in this situation.
I’d put all of us in this situation.
But, still, it should have been me who told Jack.
It should have been me who slowly broke the news, not thrown it on him in a roundabout way that probably confused and angered and shocked him to death.
“Jack’s reaction told me he didn’t know anything about her.” He let out a huge breath. “Christ, Sam, I had no idea he didn’t know.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t.
And I didn’t know if it would be, but I couldn’t make Shawn feel bad about this.
“It took balls for him to come to me, so he must like you, and you must like him. So, why were you keeping Lucy a secret?”
“I don’t know.” That wasn’t the truth. “I was waiting for the right time to tell him, I guess.”
There was no right time.
I would have waited until I had no other choice.
Until I couldn’t put it off a second longer.
Because I was worried about what he would think.
I was worried he wouldn’t be interested in me anymore.
My worries didn’t even end there.
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“It’s okay. But I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I didn’t say good-bye, nor did I wait for him to say it before I hung up and put the phone on my lap.
I couldn’t call Jack right now.
It certainly didn’t feel right to text him.
I’d just have to wait until he returned to Miami, which wouldn’t be for another night, and then I’d explain it all to him then.
Remembering our text exchange from earlier, I clicked on the Messages app and opened our conversation, reading everything he had typed.
Something had felt off. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it.
But, now, I knew why.
17
Jack
It had been a long few days in Nashville. After spending the first night in my hotel room alone, I’d decided to go out with Shawn the following evening, and we partied until three that morning. Five hours later, I’d hopped on our company jet and flown back to Miami where I spent the rest of the day working on the contracts Shawn had chosen. I changed the terms of every agreement, and I asked for more money than had originally been offered. Now, I was just waiting to hear if they accepted or if they wanted to keep negotiating.
I was fucking exhausted by the time I closed the last folder and cleared off my desk.
Knowing I had to meet Samantha for dinner in less than an hour, I pulled out my phone and began to type her a text.
Me: Would you mind eating at my place instead of going out?
Samantha: That’s fine.
Me: I’ll get something delivered.
Samantha: No, don’t worry about it. I’ll bring the food.
Me: I live in The Towers. It’s four buildings down from yours, same side of the street, toward the causeway. I’m in the penthouse. See you at 7.
I left the office and went straight to my place, grabbing a beer from the fridge before I made my way into my bedroom. Once inside, I stripped out of my suit and brought the beer into the shower, setting it on the shampoo shelf. I turned the temperature as hot as I could stand it, put my arms above my head, and pressed my palms against the tiles. Streams of scalding water shot out of the ceiling and two of the walls, hitting me at every angle.
As my skin became drenched, I thought about Samantha.
Before I had known she had a kid, I had no problem visualizing my life with her. Now that I knew she was responsible for someone else, someone who would always come first, that changed things.
She should have fucking told me.
In fact, it should have been one of the first things she said, so I knew what I was getting involved in.
Whether I liked it or not, I was in neck deep with a girl who was already a mother, and that was a heavier situation than I’d ever been in.
I took the beer off the shelf and guzzled half
of it. It tasted good. It felt even better, the freezing brew drizzling down my throat, the only part of my body that wasn’t being pounded with something that was scorching.
But it did nothing to help the thoughts, to give me any clarity, to justify Samantha’s actions.
I set the beer back, and I squirted some soap into my hands, rubbing my fingers over me, working up a thick lather. When my flesh was covered in suds, I shampooed my hair and beard. Then, I put my hands back on the wall, and I let the water wash it all away.
Once I finished, I grabbed the bottle, wrapped a towel around my waist, and moved over to the sink. I quickly rolled on some deodorant, sprayed cologne on my neck, and dressed in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.
By the time I walked out of my room, a ringing sound was coming through the tablet by the elevator, alerting me that the front desk was trying to reach me. I went over to the tablet and pressed the screen.
A picture of the doorman came into view. “Mr. Hunt, Samantha Cole is here to see you. Her identification has been checked, and she’s been processed into our system.”
“Send her up.”
Moving back into the kitchen, I grabbed another beer from the fridge, twisted off the cap, and tossed the metal into the trash. I was holding the bottle up to my lips when I heard the sound of the elevator opening directly into my condo. Footsteps followed. And, within a few seconds, Samantha was rounding the corner, holding two large bags from the sushi restaurant down the block.
“Since we were going for sushi, I figured you must like it. I just didn’t know what kinds you preferred, so I ordered a little bit of everything.” She set the bags on the island and came over to me, her hands falling against the tops of my shoulders. “Hi.”
I softly kissed her. “Thanks for bringing the food.”
She nodded.
I felt a change.
A distance.
That told me she’d had a conversation with Shawn. She knew that I knew about her daughter. Therefore, she knew, tonight, we were going to talk.
With her hands still on me, she took a quick look around the kitchen. “I like your taste. Whoever decorated did a wonderful job.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“I figured.”
She stood on her toes to reach my cheek, which she gently kissed, and I did the same to hers. And then she went to the island and reached into one of the bags.
From where I stood, I was able to see all of her, and I held the beer to my mouth and swallowed as my eyes drifted down her body. She was casual tonight in a pair of tight jeans and a tank top that she’d tied in the middle, so it now showed a sliver of her stomach. The pants she had on outlined those perfect hips and the gap between those toned thighs.
I wanted to fucking growl as I took her in.
But a conversation needed to be had first, and I didn’t know what that was going to do to us.
She took out the multiple containers that each held a different roll, and she opened them and spread them over the counter. As she finished, she put a pair of chopsticks, a large bowl of soy sauce, and chunks of wasabi and ginger in front of me.
She hadn’t forgotten anything.
The same way a mother wouldn’t.
Fuck.
“Do you want anything to drink?” I asked.
She nodded toward my beer. “I’ll have the same.”
When I returned from the fridge, she’d put a barstool across from hers, so we could face each other on opposite sides of the island. She’d also placed two small plates in each spot, moving the chopsticks right next to them.
More motherly shit.
I took a seat and opened the wooden sticks, looking at all the rolls. The first one I picked was covered in avocado. I dipped it in soy sauce before I popped it into my mouth. It was good as hell. So were the next two and the lump of ginger I took in.
“Jack…”
I looked up from my plate, and that was when I realized she hadn’t even opened her chopsticks. “Yeah?”
I knew what was coming.
I just needed a little food in me first because I’d been too busy to eat all day.
“I know my brother told you about Lucy. I can’t sit here for another second and wait for you to bring it up. I need to talk to you about it before I explode.”
I freed my hands and rested my elbows on the counter, using my palms to hold my chin. “Go ahead and talk. I’m listening.”
“Are you angry with me?”
It took me a second to answer. “I’m not angry that you have a child. I’m angry you didn’t tell me about her and that you weren’t comfortable enough to share something like that with me.” There was so much emotion in her face, in the way she was breathing, how she had her arms wrapped around her, and I knew this conversation wasn’t easy for her to have. “We went through an entire dinner where we talked about what’d been happening in our lives, and you said nothing about her.” I sighed, shaking my head. “And then I went on to apologize for how I’d treated you, I told you I wanted you back, and you still said nothing. I’m having a hard time understanding why you hid her from me.”
“It was wrong; I should have told you. I…” Shawn had said that Samantha’s daughter was her whole world. Now that the topic was on her, I could see that in her eyes. “I had no idea what was happening between us. You came into my life so quickly, and suddenly, I was seeing you and thinking about you and spending time with you. You have to understand, I’m extremely protective of her. I know it wasn’t right, but until I knew what was really happening between us, I didn’t want to bring her into it.”
“But she’s a part of you. I can’t decide to be with one without knowing about the other.”
“I know.” Her voice was so quiet. “It was wrong of me. That’s all I can say.”
“I went to your goddamn brother to talk to him about you, so you had to know I was serious.”
When her arms tightened around her, they pushed her tits closer together. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had any feelings for someone, and the last few days have been a lot to process.” She started to rock a little over the stool. “I didn’t expect this. I wasn’t prepared. And I didn’t handle it in the best way. I’m sorry, Jack. I really am.” Her eyes dropped to the plate in front of me. “I’m just trying to do the best I can.”
“She obviously changes things.”
Her eyes shot back up. “How?”
I almost laughed. “How? I can’t just come to your place whenever I want. I can’t steal you away for a weekend. I can’t get you to stay here for nights at a time. Our evenings together will have to be scheduled, so you can find someone to watch her.” I took a drink of my beer. “You’re a single mother; your daughter will always come first. I don’t want to be the dick who asks you to make me a priority, especially because it sounds like it’s just the two of you and her dad isn’t in the picture.”
Her eyes widened, and she paused for several seconds. I could tell she was fighting with her emotions. I could tell that even more when she got up from the island and threw something in the trash like she just needed a break from our conversation.
“He’s not,” she finally said when she turned back toward me, returning to her stool, her chest rising and falling so fucking fast. “But none of that changes how I feel about you. Can you say the same?”
I’d thought about that question from the moment I left the restaurant with Shawn.
Her daughter didn’t change my feelings, but she changed things between Samantha and me. Our relationship would be different than what I’d expected it to be.
Knowing I couldn’t spend as much time with her as I wanted was disappointing.
Knowing I wouldn’t come first was, too, and that was something I’d have to get used to.
“No,” I finally said. “It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
She set her hands on the counter, and I saw how white they were from how tightly she’d been squeezing them around her. “I want us t
o have a chance.”
“Have you really thought about that? What it would look like?”
She nodded, following that with, “Yes.”
She’d apologized.
She cared about me.
And something told me she’d try to find a balance.
“You want this?” My feet pushed against the ground, my elbows driving into the countertop. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Jack. You’re what I want. There isn’t a question in my mind.”
I stood and walked over to her. When she didn’t look at me right away, I put my fingers under her chin and tilted her head back until our eyes met. “I need to know you’re not going to hide things from me. That when we’re faced with something tough, you’re going to be willing to talk through it.”
She took a breath. “Jack…”
“Because if this is what you want, if I’m what you want, then we’ll find a way to make this work.”
“I do.” She chewed the corner of her lip, her eyes pleading with mine. “I really do.”
“Listen, I’ve never dated anyone who has a child. I don’t know the rules or the boundaries, but I’ll learn, and we’ll figure it out together.”
“That’s all I want.”
She seemed to be relieved, but I could still see so much turmoil in her. The only way I knew how to make her feel better was to wrap my arms around her waist and pull her against my chest. So, I did, and I kissed the top of her head. I breathed her in until her face moved out of my T-shirt, and she gazed up at me. Her lips looked so soft and smooth. I leaned down and rubbed my bottom lip over them.
The scent of cinnamon had made it all the way into her mouth, tasting so good, I wanted to lick it off her. But, before I did that, I needed to know she was okay with the conversation we’d just had. And the only way I could do that was by making her come to me.