Page 39 of Chasing his Ex

“Are you awake?” His voice behind me as I push my eyelids tight shut once more. Normally I can sleep, I slept with him the night we had sex ... but now ... it’s as though him being so close is disturbing every nerve in my body, twitching ... twisting ... nothing is helping.

The landing light that slivers underneath the doorway turns off. “Yes, you okay?”

“Mm,” he says suddenly, sitting up. “Why did you give her my name?”

“Are you annoyed with me?”

“God, no. But you said you didn’t know she was mine.”

“I lied.”

He sighs. “And you didn’t think to tell me.”

“I deleted your number after we split up. By the time I realized I was pregnant, I had no way of contacting you.”

“Through my father?”

“I did. I tried to speak to you at your father’s company. They said you didn’t work there. I asked to speak to your father but never received a call back, and I really didn’t want to blurt out I was pregnant with his grandchild.”

“And then you gave up,” he says, anger lacing his tone.

“Yes,” I say quickly and quietly. “Everything changed when I lost my mom, and I wasn’t going to risk losing my daughter if you became unreasonable. You never explained yourself. I still thought you betrayed me, and I didn’t trust you enough to not betray me again.”

Silence stretches between us long enough for me not to take it back. I can’t see his face, not only because it’s dark, but I still have my back to him.

“Thank you for giving me a chance to be a father.” There’s torture in his words, and my heart sinks to my toes. "But I know you, Ava, You're not telling me something."

“I want to be more. This is about you and me. There’s something here, it’s always been there. This love we have goes deeper than sexual attraction.”

“Deeper than hate?”

I wake completely tangled in Finn. He’s laid flat on his back, and I’m curled into him with my hand over his shoulder and my head on his chest, while his hand circles my waist. But it’s when I look down and see my leg entwined between his that I realize we’ve somehow merged our bodies as one.

I slowly lift my arm and leg, shift enough and turn myself so my back is facing him.

He doesn’t wake. I grab my mobile from the bedside table: 6:10 am, but it seems so dark outside. I roll myself out of bed to not disturb Finn and walk to the window, peeping behind the closed curtains. Gray clouds darken the sky, rain lightly pelts the ground.

I creep back to the bed to see Finn looking peaceful as he sleeps, then continue walking to the door that separates the two bedrooms. Emmy sleeps as peacefully as Finn.

I close my eyes; it’s been a perfect weekend, and soon it will be over. Something I need, because there’s a sexual charge between Finn and me, which makes it hard to breathe when I’m so close.

Soon we’ll have the distance again.

Everything will be easier.

I take my underwear and clothes and go to the bathroom, shower, and dress in the quickest time ever, hoping Emmy hasn’t woken.

Chapter 19

Ava

The next day, I push the suitcase into the hallway as Emmy gives a final goodbye to Finn. Stella appears from the kitchen and holds her arms out, taking Emmy.

Finn pulls the door shut, locking the two of us outside. He turns to me with a considerate stare. He doesn’t say anything but gives a sigh, and the gravity of the situation roars to me.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, touching my face. “And if I don’t at least say something that doesn’t take us to arguing about the past, we’ll never get through it.”

He rubs his temple with a sigh, fingers laced through his soft blond hair. His gray eyes look silver as he frowns.

---