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I’m still holding onto her arm, for fear that she is going to jump into her car and bolt, and her words resonate within me as the biggest truth ever spoken. Webothknow that walking away from each other is a mistake. I’m certain of that now and I think that she is too.
Without thinking, I pull her close to me and kiss her. If this is the only way to get her to stop ranting and calm down to listen to me for a minute, then I will kiss her until my lips are numb, and I will enjoy every precious minute of it.
And as the raw emotions rush over me, I break.
“Tabitha,” I say as I pull away just enough to speak the truth for the first time—a truth that I should have said years ago. “Ilove you. This woman isn’t my nanny, she’s just some delusional woman that was at my company gala that got the wrong idea from me. I am so in love with you that I can’t think about anything other than being with you, and Teddie, and our unborn baby. I have been so wrong about all of this and I’m sorry. But you’ve been wrong about me too. You don’t know what I want—I wantyou. I want to be with you and to take care of you and our child, and Teddie misses you too. I want you to come back, and I promise—I swear on my life, that I will never leave you again. It’s the single most thing that I regret in my life. And now I want another chance to set things right and to be with you.”
Her chest heaves against mine and for a minute I worry that she is going to pass out again because she feels wobbly on her feet. I brace my arm against her back and hold her closely to me.
“You should check on Teddie,” she says. “He’s probably freaked out by all of this.”
She’s not wrong, but I’m not leaving her alone out here by her car.
“We can both go check on him together,” I say. “Please. He’s missed you too. He really cares about you. Then we can talk afterward, and if you still want to leave then you can leave. But you came all this way to talk to me, so let’s not make the same mistake over and over again. Let’s give ourselves a minute to work this out.”
After a moment of thinking it over, Tabitha nods.
I take her hand in mine and we both walk inside the house to check on Teddie.
Chapter Thirteen
Tabitha
I am so overwhelmed that I honestly don’t know what to believe.
Iwantto believe that Hunter is telling me the truth, but how can I ever trust him again after he broke my heart so terribly before. How can someone who has left you once promise that it won’t happen again?
Our worlds aresodifferent.
He’s a wealthy, elite billionaire with an image to maintain, and I’m a pregnant high school literature teacher with currently barely ten bucks to my name. We might have grown up in the same town and hung out in the same house and gone to the same school, but he went on to lead an entirely different life than me. I don’t even know how to sit on the level he is on, and I don’t know if he can even climb down from it.
I don’t want his money, and I also don’t want to keep feeling like I am jealous of all the women that seem to throw themselves at him. What Ireallydon’t want is to get hurt again. But it seems like that just keeps happening anyways. Maybe it’s because I’m fighting against it all too much, or maybe Hunter and I are just meant to always orbit each other without ever getting too close or risk exploding.
But deep in my heart, I know that I still love him. I want nothing more than a fairytale ending together—the same fairytale ending that I have let myself hope for all these years even though I know it’s a ridiculous pipe dream.
So, when he kisses me and asks me to come inside, I once again can’t say no. And after we both talk with Teddie and leave him playing happily in his room again, Hunter once again pleads with me to stay.
“Just come back,” he says as we sit on the couch together, gazing at the familiar fireplace which, this time, has no fire blazing in it. “Move back in and be with us again. You can go back to being Teddie’s nanny. He misses you.”
“I can’t. I have a new job now. I’m teaching a literature class at the high school.”
“You can still do that if it’s what you want then,” he offers. “You can return to being a nanny part time when you’re not teaching and then you can see how things go. I’ll hire another nanny to help on during the times that you’re teaching.”
My face contorts in disgust when I think about the half-naked woman that was just on his couch.
“Anelderlynanny,” he says to clarify. “Maybe an old grandma type that can just be here to help out. I’ll help you with all of your expenses and your pregnancy, and we can just spend some time together under the same roof again and see how things fall and where they lead. What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” I shake my head.
“What is there to lose? We both are worried that walking away from this is a huge mistake. I love you, Tabitha, and I know that you once loved me too. We owe it to ourselves to give this a shot. We owe it to ourbaby.”
When he puts it like that, I can’t refuse. Hunter sure knows how to seal the deal. And to be honest, the thought of leaving him again and leaving this house and Teddie pains me. So, I agree to move back in and be a part-time nanny for now.
The very first night after I have moved back in, Hunter comes to my bedroom to talk. It’s cozy and comfortable and we talk about things like how we are both feeling and how happy Teddie is now, and what kind of baby names are trending. It all feels so good, sonormaland natural. And I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or the insatiable desire that I have for Hunter any time that I am close to him, but something pulls at the last thread of my self-restraint, and I reach out to touch his chest with my hand.
I lean forward and kiss him, and within seconds, we are right back in the same moment that caused my pregnancy to begin with. This time, Hunter makes love to me on the plush rug in front of the fireplace, and I feel a bit like I am lost in an enchanted story—being seduced by the man of my dreams in the place of my dreams and never wanting to wake up.
He is gentle, every bit as passionate as before, but tender as he slides inside of me and runs his hands over my body. This time, instead of the hot and heavy sex that spiraled out of control, there is a loving intimacy that makes me writhe in pleasure to an almost cataclysmic climax.
