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We’d never know, but either way, here we were…
Two months later from the night I fucked him against the window, taking it day by day. Even hour by hour.
In that time, we kept moving forward. We had stumbled a few times, but so far, we hadn’t fallen backwards.
It might have been touch and go in the beginning, but progress had clearly been made. Not only with me, but with Tate, too.
He groaned and stretched next to me. “I’m going to go shower.”
Once he rolled out of bed, I watched him move across my bedroom toward the en suite bathroom naked.
His body trim but with muscle definition from almost daily swimming and me making him eat healthier than the cheap junk food he’d been trying to sustain himself on. His blue eyes were now brighter and no longer had dark circles under them. His face looked like he’d shed five hard years from it. He occasionally went to the gym I owned to lift weights with me like we did back at Duquesne, but it wasn’t as often as I went.
He paused in the doorway, posing in a way he knew would tempt me. “You coming?” He tipped his head toward the bathroom behind him and the corners of his eyes were crinkled because he knew the way he stood, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
Honestly, he didn’t have to work very hard for me to join him in the shower. “Yeah. In a minute.”
“I’ll get it nice and hot for you.” The way he said it indicated he was talking about more than the water.
With an arched eyebrow and a sly smile, he disappeared.
“Alfred, shower on!” I called out the command, even though my smart home system now recognized Tate’s voice. Alfred obediently repeated it in his monotone AI voice and I heard the multiple shower heads turn on.
I also installed the smart lock app on Tate’s phone so he could come and go as he pleased from my place and the roof. He also had access to the basement where he kept his car parked next to my Range Rover.
While I wasn’t giving him money directly, I did what I could in the background to help him financially recover.
Even though we had promised not to keep secrets from each other, I was keeping a small one. I had set up a small investment account for him with my stockbroker. He could use whatever it earned when it came time for his children to go to college, if he wanted. I’d tell Tate about it later since we were only two months in and while things seemed to be going well, that didn’t mean it would continue.
No matter what, he was more put together now than when I first saw him checking his mail in the vestibule. Back then, he had been a total mess.
His job was going well and he had bought a cheap, but newer, Toyota. Little by little, he was piecing his life back together after being financially crippled from the divorce. He was still paying off his lawyer, and would be for a while yet, as well as paying alimony and child support, and a lot of other expenses he didn’t have to, solely out of guilt.
I hoped once Dahlia found another “catch” to allow her to continue her desired lifestyle, she’d quickly get a ring on her finger and everything but the child support would end.
Dahlia had sunk her claws into Tate because she thought he’d been a “catch.” Her scheme backfired when Tate ended up being far from that.
However, that backfire caused a lot of damage for all involved.
I didn’t want to dwell on it because it tended to raise my blood pressure and I reminded myself that he ended up where he should have in the first place.
With me.
He just had to take a long and bumpy detour to get here.
He spent more time in my penthouse than he did in his sublet, except for when his kids came to stay with him. When they did, I stayed out of it. We weren’t ready to tell them about us. We also weren’t ready for Dahlia to know, either.
Especially since we were still working on that “us.” The ground beneath our feet needed to be more solid first.
I tried not to think about how keeping our relationship from his ex and his kids reminded me of our college days, when Tate didn’t want anyone to know and we kept “us” under wraps as best as we could. Because of that, I still worried about stepping on a rug that could easily be pulled out from under me.
By Tate. Or even worse, by Dahlia.
Those doubts still lingered, no matter how hard I tried to get past them. It was difficult to completely let them go.
But I shared that concern with Tate. So, he knew where I stood every step of the way. I told him it would not work between us if we weren’t open and honest with each other one hundred percent. No matter what it was about.
