Page 3 of Monochrome Without You
I need to go.
I clear my throat. “Uh… I’m pretty sure I have a… meeting this morning.” I snap my fingers, like I just remembered some very important, absolutely real obligation. “Yes! A meeting.”
Corbin rolls his eyes. “It can wait ten minutes, Jules.”
Before I can protest, Tate’s big blue eyes widen. He clasps his hands under his chin, pure six-year-old desperation on his face. “Please stay, Mommy. Please.”
My heart squeezes. I exhale slowly. Cave. “Okay.”
“Bud,” Corbin says to our six-year-old son, “why don’t you go upstairs and finish getting ready?”
“Alright!” Tate nods his head. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch my son race up the stairs before turning to his infuriating father. “I should go.”
He shakes his dark head. “No, you should stay.”
“Last night,” I whisper as I move closer. His cologne floats through the air—musky and expensive and clean—and I momentarily forget that I’m annoyed with him for suggesting I stay for breakfast.
“Last night what?” He flashes his dark eyebrows at me as he whisks eggs in a white ceramic bowl. Why is everything he owns white?
“It can’t happen again,” I warn. “I… I didn’t mean to…”
He was working late on the couch when I rang the doorbell. He’d just opened a new bottle of wine. I’d joined him. We started talking. I leaned in…
I can’t remember every second of last night, but I know I wasn’t out of control. I know I wanted him. I still do. And even if I’d had more wine than I should have, Corbin would never have let things happen if I wasn’t fully there with him.
I swallow. “Stay the night,” I finally answer.
Corbin peers over his shoulder, the expression on his face indecipherable. “Stay the night or sleep with me?”
My stomach dips. I hate that he always reads between the lines.
“Both,” I say firmly. “This was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again.”
His lips curve. “Four-time thing, you mean?”
I choke on air. “F-four?”
Corbin lifts an amused brow. “Five, if you count what happened on the couch first.”
Heat floods my face and my fingers curl into my palm as I drag a hand over my eyes. “I should go.”
“You should stay,” he counters, unbothered. “Did you see how happy Tate was when you said you’d have breakfast with us?”
I glance at the staircase, making sure our son is out of earshot before turning to my ex-husband.
“Corbin.” It comes out raw and scratchy. “We can’t do this to him.”
“Do what?” His fingers find my curls, twisting one around his knuckle.
A shudder rolls through me. I didn’t realize how much I missed this. The closeness. The weight of someone else in my space.
But it can’t be him.
“We can’t give him false hope,” I say, barely above a whisper.
Corbin’s thumb drifts along the nape of my neck, sending a shiver all the way down my spine.
