Page 48 of Then Came You

I sigh, eyeing her agitated state. “Tink, we had to cancel today anyway because you didn’t get here on time.” She blinks her mascara-sodden eyes, leaving black tracks down her blotchy cheeks. The tips are clumped at the end, making her look like a lost baby panda. My heart is cracking.

“She’s going to die,” she sniffles, slumping her shoulders and wiping at her face, a slug of snot taking up residence on her long-sleeve shirt. I hold back my grimace, having dealt with far worse over the years being a father.

I don’t want to make false promises to her.

“Tink, we don’t know that. Let’s just take it one day at a time. Tell me what you need.” Her amber eyes look at me longingly, and I already know what’s on her mind. The same thing that has been on my mind. To get lost in each other to the point the whole world falls away.

“I don’t know how to do this alone anymore.” Her confession makes me take two giant steps until my arms wrap around her frail little body. It was a bad move. The worst on my part. I nuzzle my nose into her silky neck, feeling like I’m one step closer to home.

I don’t know when it happened, but I irrevocably fell for this beauty hook, line, and sinker.

My life felt fulfilled before but not full.

I turn my head slightly and brush a soft kiss to the side of her neck. Her silky skin under my lips feels like heaven, but not as much as my fingers tracing the contours of her back. I can feel each one of her vertebrae and the two soft dimples at the base of her spine. When she arches into me, I can vividly picture how she’s curved and writhed for me in much different circumstances.

I’m ashamed to say my dick is painfully blunt against the teeth of my zipper.

“You’ll never be alone, baby girl.” I whisper, trailing my hands back up her spine.

“I don’t know how to do this anymore.”

Pulling back, I cup her jaw in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “Tink, you’ve got me…but we can’t do this.” Sweeping my thumbs under her eyes to wipe away her tears, I try to tear myself away, for the sake of my son. Zee needs to come first, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to cross every line with Row, which proves just what a terrible dad I am.

As I pull away, Row leans in and fastens her mouth to mine. It’s urgent, sloppy, magnetic, and the best damn feeling in the world, but it's also wrong.

With that depressing realisation, I fly apart from her like I’ve been zapped by lightning.

“What the fuck, Row?” I yell. I yell at her because I’m mad, but I’m not mad at her; I'm mad that we can’t be together even though that’s all I want. “Get out!” I’m like a raging bull, nostrils flaring. I tear at my hair, knowing my guilt and anger are misguided, but not even the pain of pulling the strands alleviates what I’m feeling. The boom of my voice startles her, making her stumble on shaky legs. Bolting out the door on wobbly legs, I see her phone slip from her torn jean pocket.

Great.

As I wonder how the hell I’m going to get it back to her, an angered fist strikes my partially open door three times.

Alex is standing there flummoxed, with his mouth gaping open like one of those clowns at a fair. There’s no way he didn’t see Row fleeing from my office like it was on fire.

My heart palpitates, and I’m still heaving heavily, waiting for my breath to return to normal.

Five, four, three, two, one.

“Spill it.” My perplexed brother stares at me as if I’ve grown two heads.

Where do I even fucking begin?

“She’s the girl,” I mutter.

“The who?” He’s more confused now than he was two seconds ago.

“The one I was telling you about.” I plonk back down on the seat, making myself comfortable because I know I’m going to be here a while as he tries to unpack just how fucked I am.

“Mate, what the fuck?” He eyes me with pity. “You do know that’s your son’s best friend, right?” The first blow lands on me, and I go down like a lead balloon, that is until his mind remembers my failed attempt at phone sex. “Dude, she calls you daddy. She’s the one with her nipple pierced. How, and I mean this in the nicest way but how the fuck did you get yourself in this situation?”

His mind is spinning, like my whole world fucking has since I met her.

I tell him everything, ending with how I’m incapable of staying away, so I offered her a contract just to be close to her.

“You really fucking fell for her, didn’t ya?” He whistles, leaning back on his own chair, crossing a foot across his knee.

That’s the understatement of the century.

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