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AllKatewantedtodo was get back home and relax but life kept getting in the way. The flight was delayed while they were waiting on the runway, making Kate’s legs jitter as she sat in her seat trying to wait patiently.
Once they finally got up into the air, the flight had been painfully long. She hadn’t remembered it being so long on the way over, but on the way back it was almost intolerable. She just couldn’t handle it—she was done with this vacation already, she just wanted it all to be behind her.
As she sat in her seat, twisting her fingers around each other as her legs shook beneath her, she thought about everything she’d done wrong on the vacation. Not only had she made the stupid mistake of sleeping with idiots, but she’d somehow managed to make two men fall head-over-heels in love with her.
That wasn’t something that she needed, and it wasn’t something she was looking for. All she wanted to do was just go back to her daughter and live her normal life.
Kate frowned.Do I, though?
The longer she thought about it, the more she realized that she didn’t want to go back to her normal life. In fact, she wanted things to drastically change. Not only did she want to show the men at work that she was capable and didn’t want to take their crap anymore, but she also wanted to show the same to her daughter.
Claire had been living her own life since she was fifteen years old. It wasn’t right for Kate to take such a backseat in parenting her, but she’d always written it off.
She’d tell herself that Claire was a good kid, that she got good grades, and she would never come home pregnant. As if that was enough to warrant her hands-off parenting style.
Kate knew it was wrong to take that kind of approach, even if it had given her an easy life for the past three years. That needed to end—now. As soon as she got home, she was going to tell Claire exactly what needed to be said.
The journey home from the airport was long and arduous. Despite the fact that it was early in the morning, the traffic was horrific. It felt like Kate was stuck in the car at a standstill for the entire journey, edging along the road a couple of feet at a time.
By the time she got into the house, her bags dropped on the floor just behind the door, Kate let out a heavy sigh and stood in the middle of the entrance hall, her eyes closed as she breathed steadily.
When she was ready to open her eyes and look around, she saw that the house was just as she’d left it. Everything was in its right place. There was no mess, no trash, nothing broken. It was clear Claire hadn’t had any parties here, or if she had, she’d cleaned up well.
By the lack of sounds coming from the house, it was clear that Claire wasn’t home. Kate picked up her bags and brought them upstairs, ready to start unpacking and doing laundry. It wasn’t the most fun chore in the world, but it needed to get done.
Once everything had been removed from her bags and put into the laundry basket, Kate pulled her laptop out of its carrier case and plugged it into the wall. She perched on the edge of her bed and waited for it to boot up.
It had been a while since she’d even bothered to look at it. She wondered how many emails had gone unread, unanswered, and ignored. Kate was a little worried about it. For all she knew, she’d been fired while she was on vacation.
Hundreds of emails were waiting for her. Kate groaned as she scrolled through the long list. She caught a couple of the titles. Most of them were innocuous enough, just updates and reports on how her team was doing.
A couple of emails stood out to her—conversations from her colleagues that she’d been added into that made it seem like they weren’t missing her at all. Nasty comments about her vacation, her work ethic, how she’d thrown them under the bus by leaving so suddenly.
Kate could only grit her teeth as she skimmed through them, shaking her head slowly. They knew they had included her in the conversation, so why did they think it was okay to talk about her like this? Was she really that much of a pushover at work? Did they really behave like this all the time?
As she tried to remember what it was like working at her company before she’d gone on vacation, she heard the front door slam shut. Her eyes ripped from the laptop and focused on her bedroom door. For a moment, she listened intently as her daughter came into the house, kicking off her shoes and sighing as she moved through to the kitchen.
This was it. Kate’s time to shine. She needed to step up and be a parent now, even if it fell on deaf ears. Claire couldn’t continue seeing her married man. It was wrong and she needed to hear it.
Kate darted out of her bedroom and barreled down the stairs, just in time to see Claire walk into the living room. It took a second for her to register her mother’s footsteps. She looked up at her, like a deer in headlights.
“Mom,” she said slowly. “You’re home?”
“Yes,” Kate replied, stepping down the stairs as fast as she could, her eyes locked with Claire’s. “And we need to talk.”
“Now?” Claire asked, lifting her upper lip as she grimaced. “Can it not wait till, like, later?”
It was then that Kate realized there was someone else in the room with them.
Kate’s eyes drifted over to the center of the living room, where she saw Claire’s lover rising from the couch. His black hair was speckled with gray and his forehead was covered in deep grooves in his skin.
Kate pressed her lips together as she stared at the man. He had a strong jaw paired with oddly thin lips. Pale skin and freckles covered his face and his light blue eyes darted between them.
What could she say? It was blatantly obvious why they were both here, to enjoy the house while Kate was gone. But being faced with the older man who was preying on her young daughter stirred something inside Kate.
It had been just barely okay when it was an abstract thought, something she could think about without actually having to see, but now it was standing in her living room, a fire burned through her veins. And not the good kind.
“Is this him?” Kate asked, staring him up and down.
