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“So. What did you want to talk about?” Quentin asked her.
Kate stood, pin-straight, and clasped her hands together.
“Is it about Morgan?” Quentin asked then, suddenly alarmed. “She went to the doctor last week. Did anything—“
“No, no,” Kate answered firmly. “Morgan is healthy as ever. She could use a cold to put her in her place.” She grimaced. “Sorry. Of course, I don’t mean that.”
“You can joke time and again, if you want,” Quentin said, flashing a smile. “It suits you.”
“Ah, well. Joking’s never been my strength. You know that.” She smiled, showing how beautiful she was. Her eyes twinkled. “The truth is, I met someone. Someone who might become very, very serious. Someone I’m considering introducing to Morgan, and even having move in after a while. And I wanted you to know.”
“Wow,” Quentin breathed, unsure how to feel. His mind raced with a million different responses, none of them completely sincere. “Well, congratulations, I suppose.”
“Right. Thank you,” Kate answered, her voice prim. “I think I’ll introduce him to Morgan in the next few days, if it’s all the same to you. He’s a Wall Street guy, but a big lover of kids. A bit older than me. Forty-five.”
“Even more mature than myself, then,” Quentin said lightly, laughing.
“Ha. Says the man who missed his own daughter’s birth,” Kate said, choosing the first thing she could think of and trying to make a joke of it.
Quentin hesitated. Anger didn’t fuel him, now. Just sadness. Just an ache of loneliness, perhaps.
“I’m sorry. You’ve more than made up for it since then,” Kate said softly, rubbing her cheeks. “I think I’m just nervous, telling you this. I don’t know why. Our love died just about the time it started. But I want this to be different. This time. I might even want more kids. I’m not sure. And that will affect you, and it will affect Morgan, and I just want to be really proper about how I do this. That’s all.”
Quentin stood evenly on his socked feet, remembering what Morgan had said about Charlotte. Pretty, like Mom used to be. But Kate was still quite gorgeous. And she was still trying, out there in the world. She was fighting for love and emotion and experiences.
Why wasn’t he?
“Thank you for telling me,” Quentin answered finally, bowing his head. “It means the world. And you already know that Morgan will take to him, whoever he is. She loves everyone. She’s open to everything.”
“You’re right,” Kate answered. “I know you are. I don’t know why I’m so anxious. But really—” She paused, giving him a meaningful look. “Really, I was wondering about you. You’re on your feet, now. Mature. An editor-in-chief, for god’s sake. The best father Morgan could ask for. And I wanted to know when you were thinking about moving on.”
“On? As if I’m still pent up about you?” Quentin asked her, his voice teasing.
“No, of course not,” Kate said, hesitantly. “I just mean, have a meaningful relationship for once. Actually take it beyond the one-night stand, if you even do that anymore. I sense a loneliness about you.”
Quentin stood abruptly, his heart revving with sudden anger. How dare his ex-wife come into his apartment and tell him he “seemed lonely”? He pointed toward the door, trying to force words. “I think we should get back to Morgan. Enough about me. And enough about what’s-his-name, the prince from Wall Street. Need I remind you, my business isn’t yours unless it affects Morgan.”
Kate’s face grew gray. She recognized she’d crossed a line. Her heels clicked across the large bedroom and back into the hallway. Quentin’s anger receded; he forced himself to take long, easy breaths. He placed his hand across his daughter’s head, alerting her it was time to go. She snapped the television off and joined them at the door, feeling the tension in the air.
“Good night, Daddy,” she murmured, yanking him down to her and kissing him on the cheek with tight lips. “I love you.”
Quentin snapped the door closed behind them, frustration brimming within him. He hadn’t been alone in at least four days, always with Morgan pattering around the apartment or tinkling the keys. Now, the place felt cathedral-like, far too large for one man. He bounded toward the piano, a place at which he sought solace, and began to ram out his frustration, feeling a new song begin to coil from his fingers.
And as he played, as he tinkered, as his creativity grew, he saw a single face in his mind’s eye.
Charlotte.
God, kissing her in his kitchen earlier had tugged at his cock, pressing the ridge hard against his jeans and giving him flashbacks to being inside her tight, almost virginal pussy. Its pink walls had crushed into his pulsing, veiny, rock-hard member before accepting it in a flurry of wetness.
