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“Don’t know.” The little boy lay down, rubbed his eyes with his fists, then grabbed hold of his alligator again.
“Well, don’t be scared,” Griffin told him, smoothing the boy’s hair and speaking quietly. “I’ll be right here, okay?”
“’Kay.” Connor sighed and gave him a winsome smile that turned Griffin’s insides to jelly. “You a good daddy.”
While the little boy drifted back to sleep, Griffin sat there in the dimly lit darkness, stunned to his soul. A daddy? No. He looked at the child sleeping so innocently and took a huge mental leap backward. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk this. He already felt too much for Connor and for Nicole. He couldn’t let the boy believe that he was staying. That he would always be around to chase away the nightmares.
This whole thing had spiraled way out of control.
Time now to snap it back into line.
He walked back to his bedroom and stopped in the doorway. Nicole was sitting up in bed, watching him. Her blond hair was rumpled, and her lips were still puffy from his kiss. She looked, he thought, edible. His brain shouted out a clear warning even as other parts of him leaped to life.
“Is Connor okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, he went back to sleep.” Griffin scrubbed both hands over his face and told himself to just say it. Get it out into the open. Get it over with.
“I heard what he said to you,” Nicole told him softly and waved one hand toward the baby monitor on the bedside table.
He took a deep breath, nodded and said, “Good. Then I won’t have to explain.”
“Griffin...”
“Look, it’s not fair to put Connor through this,” he said, stalking toward the dresser and yanking open the drawers. As he tugged on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he looked over his shoulder at her and had to fight the urge to strip and get back in bed with her. More warning signs, when he was actually considering allowing his body to rule his mind. Wasn’t going to happen.
“You’re right.” Nicole pulled the sheet and quilt up over her breasts, then let her hands fall into her lap. Swinging her hair out of her face, she gave him a smile that he didn’t deserve. “We shouldn’t have let it go on this long, Griffin.”
“No, it’s not that—” It was exactly that, but he didn’t like hearing her say it. He tried to read her eyes, but the moonlight wasn’t sharp enough to define the shadows he saw in those blue depths. Maybe that was for the best, he thought. Maybe he didn’t want to know how she really felt, because then, leaving would be even harder.
“Connor’s a little boy who wants a daddy,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug. “He’s had fun with you. It’s only natural he’d start to think of you in that way.”
Didn’t seem to be bothering her as much as it was bothering him, Griffin thought.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I know that, Griffin.” She lifted one hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Just like I know you don’t have to stage an escape from the house in the middle of the night. There’s no reason for you to feel guilty.”
He stopped what he was doing and realized she was right. An escape was exactly what he’d been trying for. And as much as he’d like to deny it, the only explanation was that he’d panicked, pure and simple. He’d wanted to go fast, to avoid hurting Nicole and Connor any more than he already had.
Hell, he’d wanted to avoid racking up more pain himself.
But there was no easy out here, he thought, gaze locked with Nicole’s.
“Relax, Griffin,” she said, a small, sad smile curving her mouth. “I’m not going to weep and wail and beg you not to go.”
Why the hell not?
“We had our fling, and now it’s over, right?”
He rested one hand on his chest and rubbed a throbbing ache there. It didn’t help.
“Get some sleep, Griffin,” she said. “We’ll take care of the rest in the morning.”
Ten
In the morning, he was gone.
Nicole found the note on top of a pillow and blanket Griffin had left stacked on the end of the couch where he’d slept after walking out of the room they had been sharing. The note was short and somewhat less than sweet.
