Emerging Temptation: A BWWM Romance Limited Edition Collection

by Peyton Banks

  Max just shrugged again, his green/brown eyes twinkling with a combination of laughter and concern.

  “What is wrong with you? Are you ill?” His brows meet in the middle of his forehead in concern.

  No, I can’t let myself soften to him. Sable resisted the urge to smooth his brow. She needed to stay strong for her baby. Not give into her desire to touch him. To lean on him for strength. She had to remember that on the night she was ready to confess her undying love for him he dropped her faster than the football player dropped the nerdy girl when the head cheerleader got drunk on prom night. She had to remember that she was strong. She didn’t need him.

  “Do you need to see a physician? Do I need to take you to the doctor?” He followed her out of the Women’s Restroom and back towards the conference room. He grabbed ahold of her arm stopping her. “The Mayor concluded the meeting. The rest of the agenda we will cover next meeting.”

  “I still need to get my stuff.” She shrugged off his hold.

  Max turned slightly so that she was able to see her pack on his far shoulder where it had been hidden by his body. She held out her hand for it. Silently he gave it to her.

  Sable started to walk away from Max. She needed to get far away from him. Before she broke down and begged him to give her another chance. She had too much pride to beg a man who dumped her.

  She had known things were moving too fast between them. That a man, like Max, wouldn’t be willing to admit that he had feelings for someone. After all, he had spent his whole adult life flitting from relationship to relationship. Never settling into anything serious. Whenever things got serious in a relationship, he ended it quickly and moved on to someone different. Avoiding commitment.

  Hell, she should have realized that he would run as fast as he could when he realized they were no longer hanging out, but were in a relationship. She was stupid for thinking that what they had was enough to change his MO. She shouldn’t have allowed the hope in her heart to overwhelm her common sense.

  She shouldn’t have believed that the feelings between the two of them was enough to build a future on with a man who showed loyalty to his job and his family, but never to a woman who he had the potential to build a future with. She should have known that Max wouldn’t give up his bachelorhood easily. She had been prepared to wait for him. To nurture their relationship until he was ready to take the next step, but instead of working with her. He copped out like a big ass wuss that he was. Running from commitment like a scared little boy.

  Well she couldn’t afford to let him back into her life. Now she had another being counting on her. And she couldn’t afford to make the mistake of letting him back in to be part of the baby’s life only for Max to run out on the baby like he did his or her mother. Eventually she knew that he would find out about the baby. As soon as she told Onyx, Onyx would tell Zachariah and then it would-be all over Max’s family. But that would be something she would deal with at a later date. Right now, she needed to get some lunch and then head over to True Heart Charter School. Those students deserved her at her best and that was what she was going to give them. She would decide what to do about Maximilian Papadakis later. Much later.

  “Thank you,” she walked away from him.

  “Where are you going?” Max followed behind her as she headed for the door.

  “I’m going to get something to eat and then go to my next meeting.”

  “Don’t you think you should go home and rest? You just fainted and then you threw up. Those are a sign of a concussion.”

  “I don’t have a concussion.” She walked out into the crisp cool air of the Winter day. She should have grabbed her coat like her mother warned her. Damn, she hated when that woman was right.

  Suddenly she was engulfed by the scent of Max as he placed his coat around her. “Thank you.” She stuck her arms into the sleeves of his police jacket. She inhaled deeply. It smelled of Max, a combination of the bodywash and cologne that he used. It was a scent that was uniquely him. A scent that she loved.

  She gave herself a mental shake. She couldn’t get caught up in him again. She continued towards her car.

  Max grabbed her arm stopping her as she headed towards her car. “How do you know you don’t have a concussion? Have you hit your head recently? Where you injured? I think you should be cleared by a doctor before you get behind the wheel of a car.”

  “Well then it is a good thing that I’m grown and don’t answer to you.” She unlocked her car and slid behind the wheel.

  Max grabbed ahold of the door, stopping her from closing it. “I’m just looking out for your well-being.”

  “I appreciate that, but honestly when you broke things off with me weeks ago you gave up the right to be concerned about my health.”

  “Just because we aren’t dating anymore doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”

  “Well thank you for the offer, but I have enough friends. Hell, I have enough sisters to not need any friends. What I needed and wanted was a lover. Someone who I could build a family with. Someone I could grow old with. I thought that someone would have been you, but you decided that wasn’t something you wanted, so that leaves us with nothing but a professional relationship and that is how I want to keep it.”

  Sable took off Max’s coat and handed it back to him. As he reached for the coat she yanked her door out of Max’s hand and slammed it shut before backing out of her parking space. As she drove away she saw Max still standing there in her rear view mirror. It was a view she was going to have to get used to no matter how much it broke her heart.

  6

  Several hours passed since Sable left Max standing in the parking lot as she drove away. He stared off into space as his thoughts swirled round and around in his head. He didn’t even attempt to get any work done as he sat at his desk thinking.

  Watching Sable drive away intensified the feelings that he made the biggest mistake of his life in breaking things off with her. The empty hole in his heart grew to engulf that whole organ.

  Max sat at his desk twirling a pen between his fingers as thoughts and feelings swirled around him. He admitted that the last few weeks without Sable had felt hallow. That he hadn’t really been living just going through the motion. If he was truly honest with himself, he would admit that he hadn’t felt the same since the night he broke things off with her.

  The feeling of a piece of himself missing had grown a little bit every day until he finally admitted that he missed her like he has never missed another woman before.

  The fear he felt when he saw Sable laying on the conference room floor unconscious had almost ended him. He could no longer deny the feelings he had for her was more than infatuation. That the reason he broke things off was from fear. Fear of losing his bachelorhood. Fear of having someone depend on him and he not measuring up.

  Fear made him break things off with Sable. It was time for him to face his fears. To grow beyond it and move on with his life. The first thing he needed to do was make things up with Sable. To beg her forgiveness and become a part of her life again.

  His cell phone ranged with the alert for an Emergency Management Crisis. He immediately looked at the alert that came through his phone.

  Hostage situation at local elementary school.

  SWAT on scene.

  No Emergency Management Coordinator on site as of this message.

  Max grabbed his gear. He wondered where Sable was? Something was really wrong if she was on shift and not at the emergency coordinating things. He knew she was fantastic at her job and nothing would keep her from performing it at the best of her ability.

  As he climbed into his vehicle, he typed the address of the crisis into his GPS as he placed a call to Sable’s office.

  “Department of Emergency Management, this is Aisha, how may I direct your call?”

  “Aisha this is Commander Papadakis the Police Liaison Officer. Where is Battleson?”

  “Hey Max, Sable was giving a presentation on the Emergency Managem
ent Department at True Heart Charter School.”

  “Oh my God.” His heart dropped as the GPS gave direction to the crisis. True Heart Charter School. “She is in the middle of what is going on.”

  “What? What is going on?” Aisha cried through the phone.

  “There is a hostage situation at True Heart Charter School. It came through the switchboard and was routed to the phones.”

  “Sable doesn’t have her phone. She turns it off during presentation.”

  “So hopefully she is already coordinating things on site and just hasn’t alerted us.” Relief infused him at the most likely scenario.

  He drove at a high speed, but with control to the True Heart Charter School. He approached the police officer already on duty. Even though police officer out ranked him, his position in the Emergency Management Department made him the Incident Commander. So he was now the officer in charge.

  “Report.” He barked to the officer, asserting his authority with that one word. He didn’t have time for a pissing contest. He made sure his purple badge showed with his position and rank. It was the first thing that Sable implemented when she took over the position. Making it easy to identify people at a busy scene and the department that they belonged to with the specific colored badges for specific department. The purple of the Emergency Management Department was easily distinguished.

  “The school went on lockdown when there was reports of a parent in the building with a firearm. It was determined that a white male, approximately early thirties in age came to the school to visit his daughter’s classroom. When the school denied him entry due to request of the custodial parent and a court order, he pulled out a gun and took the office staff hostage. Before he was able to subdue the office staff, they were able to place the school on lockdown. At this point he shot the two women who ran the office and the principal and made his way to his daughter’s classroom. We have been able to evacuate the outer classrooms. Those rooms with doors that lead to the outside. The inner classroom we have established contact with all of them except for one. His daughter’s.”

  “Ah Fuck,” Max murmured as he thought about the situation. Custodial matters were the worst kind of situation. Parents were unpredictable. Out of their minds. In their desire to hurt the other parent the noncustodial parent often went after the children to satisfy their need for revenge.

  “We have a complete count of people in the classroom. According to the principal they were attending a presentation. There is twenty-five children and five adults.”

  “Five adults?”

  “Yes, two teachers, one classroom aide, one SPED aide and the presenter.”

  “Sable Battleson.” Max knew it was Sable being held hostage. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He knew she would do everything in her power to keep the people in that classroom safe. He had to trust her to do her job. That meant she needed him to do his job. The job that she was intimately familiar with. He had let her down in their personal relationship, he had to prove that she could count on him in their professional one.

  With that thought in mind he started giving direction to the team around him.

  “Okay, listen up people. One of our own is in that building. She is counting on us to perform our duties the way that she has trained us. Lives count on our actions and our ability.” He met the eyes of each of the people around him letting them know just how much he was counting on them. He took the transmitter being held out to him and placed it in his ear.

  “Now let’s get to work.”

  7

  Sable looked around at the shining faces looking back at her as she finished her presentation. Boys and girls whispered to each other in excitement. In a few short months she would have one of these ankle biters.

  An alarm sounded.

  “Lock down. This is not a drill. Lock down.” A voice announced over the intercom system. Shots ranged out before the intercom went silent. Screaming could be heard from different classrooms. The children in this classroom froze in shock. They looked like a bunch of deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle.

  Sable watched as the teachers in the room sprung into action. One rushed to the door of the classroom they were in locking it quickly. The other teacher rushed through the connecting doors to the other classroom. A few seconds later she returned to close the connecting door. The teacher’s aide made their way around the room ushering the students into a corners out of the line of the doorway. Sable stood out of the way, waiting for directions from one of the teachers.

  “Ms. Battleson,” the lead teacher, Mrs. Sherman spoke to her, “I realize you are a guess in our classrooms, but would you mind watching over this group of students please.” She indicated a group of six students huddled together next to another group of six students.

  Sable looked around the room to see two other groups of six students out of the line of the doorway huddled together.

  There was no way she could refuse the request as she looked at the scared, innocent faces. “No problem.” She kneeled down, gathering two of the students close into her arm. The other four huddled around her.

  Sable regretted her habit of leaving her cell phone in her bag when she went to schools to perform these types of presentation. Right now, she wanted to contact Max and get information from him. Usually when an elementary school, such as this one, went on lockdown it was because of a police presence in the neighborhood. She wanted to know what was going on. What kind of danger her students were in. Was the shooting taking place inside the school or out. That was the thing about shots fired. Unless you saw them with your own eyes you could never quite tell where the shots were coming from by sound alone.

  “Damn,” she mumbled under her breath. She turned her wrist over to look at the face of her smart watch.

  Her smart watch which had its very own cellular phone line. She quickly twirled the bevel until Max’s picture appeared. She pressed the picture on the watch face and waited until the phone started dialing.

  “Sable.” Max’s voice sounded strange. It still caused her body to started tingling, but there was something more in it. Something she had never heard before. It went beyond simple relief at hearing her voice. There was real emotion in his voice. Hope flared in her heart. Maybe Max had finally came to his senses and realized that they belonged together.

  Of course it would be just like him to have this epiphany in the middle of a crisis. Timing was not always Max’s thing.

  “Hey,” was all she managed to get out when suddenly, there was banging on the classroom door. The children, jumped and cried out.

  “Shhhh,” the other teachers shushed the children. Whispering words of encouragement to them.

  Sable took her cue from them. “Its going to be alright.” She looked each of the children in the eyes. “You guys are so brave. I would be proud to have you on my Emergency Management Team.” She quickly turned down the volume on her watch, but left the microphone active so that Max could hear everything that was going on.

  Bright smiles appeared on their faces at her words.

  The banging continued. “Melody I know you are in there. This is your father. Open the door and let me in.”

  A little girl snuggled close to Sable cried out at the voice. Burying her face in Sable’s chest. Sable petted the bright blonde curls that surrounded the little girl like a cloud.

  “It’s okay sweetie. Miss Sable has your back. I will protect you.”

  “Daddy always hurt me and Mommy.” The little girl whispered as she peeked up at Sable with big blue eyes.

  “Well he won’t be able to hurt you right now. Miss Sable will protect you.”

  “Open this fucking door before I start shooting.” The demand came through the door.

  Sable caught the attention of Mrs. Sherman. “We should move the children into the other classroom.” She whispered to her.

  Mrs. Sherman nodded in agreement and gestured to the other teachers. She silently pointed to the connecting doorway.
The other teacher motioned for the SPED aide to move the student confined to his wheelchair through the doorway into the other classroom.

  Next went the group of six students being watched over by the Teacher’s Aide. The banging on the door continued as the students quietly moved into the next classroom. Sable released Melody “Go with your teacher.” She whispered quietly pushing Melody in the direction of the door.

  Sable’s heart broke when Melody whimpered and clung to her. “No. Don’t let Daddy get me.”

  “The teachers will keep you safe. You don’t need to be afraid.” Sable hugged the little girl close, hoping to reassure her. That was a mistake. She clung to her like a limpet. The children continue to quietly move into the other room as she reassured the little girl. They both jumped when the door burst open and a wild eye man charged into the room.

  “Go. Lock the door.” She shouted to Mrs. Sherman who had stopped as the door was broken in.

  She stood straight and tall, pushing Melody behind her. The situation had just taken a turn for the worst. She was glad that most of the students had made it out of the classroom. She took a subtle look around. Her shoulders relaxed a tiny bit with relief when she saw that Melody and her were the only ones left in the classroom when Melody’s father broke down the door.

  His clothes were disheveled and dirty. His gaze zeroed in on Melody immediately even though she was mostly hidden behind Sable. A huge smile came to his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “There is my baby girl. Come to Daddy. It is time to go home.”

  Melody whimpered at the sight and sound of her father squeezing her little body tighter behind Sable.

  This pissed her father off as a frown darkened his smiling face. “Come on baby girl, you know I don’t like it when you disobey me. You don’t want to make me punish you the same way I had to punish your Mother.”