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He studies my face, then bends his head and kisses me. I close my eyes and let him, enjoying the way he kisses softly from one corner of my mouth to the other before returning to the center. I open my mouth to him, lifting my arms around his neck, and we deepen the kiss for a while before I finally draw back, pressing my lips together.
“I’ll see you later,” I tell him.
He nods. “Can I call you?”
I smile. “Yes, Hux, you can call me.”
He hesitates, and I wonder whether he’s going to ask me what happens next. But in the end he just smiles back.
I collect my bag, clip Nymph’s lead onto her collar, give him one last look, then leave, letting the door close behind me.
He needs time to be with his daughter, to talk about what happened and make sure she’s okay. And I need time to think about what I discovered here today, and what it means going forward.
I love Joanna with all my heart, but if I had my time again…The last thing I’d want is for him to wish he hadn’t had his daughter. His implication that he half-wishes he’d chosen me makes me both unbearably happy, and unutterably sad.
As Nymph and I go down in the elevator, I rest my hand on my tummy. I don’t want whether I’m pregnant or not to influence my decision. That wouldn’t be fair on Huxley or the baby, if there were to be one. They’re two separate things. I still have another week before I can take a test. Before next weekend, I need to decide what I’m going to do about England. And what I’m going to do about the man who brought bolt cutters to the padlock around my heart, and stole it from right under my nose.
*
Monday
Huxley
Around midday, I’m inspecting one of the boardrooms in the club with Victoria, trying to decide whether it’s worth getting a new set of chairs, when she glances over at the doorway and says, “Oh, hey.”
I turn and see Mack leaning against the door jamb, hands in his pockets, watching us.
“Hello,” I say. “You’re back.” He and Sidnie have been in Fiji for their honeymoon. Sidnie told him she didn’t expect him to take time off to go away with her, but he insisted. I thought he might only make a few days before he flew back, but he lasted the whole week, and now he looks tanned and relaxed. “Have a good time?”
“Fabulous,” he says, and smiles.
“Lots of sex?” Victoria asks.
“Hardly got out of bed the whole time. Sidnie said she’s walking like John Wayne when he gets off his horse.” He chuckles, and we both laugh.
He pushes off the post and comes into the room. “I’ve just spoken to Elizabeth.”
I meet his eyes and my lips curve up slowly. “Ah.”
He shakes his head slowly. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Victoria asks. She looks from Mack to me, and says, “Oh… You told her you’re not Joanna’s birth father.”
“Guy turned up at his apartment,” Mack says. “Brandy, Joanna, and Elizabeth were all there.”
“Fuck,” Victoria says.
“Yeah,” I reply. “It wasn’t the easiest morning I’ve ever had.”
“Guy twigged it?” she asks, gesturing for us to sit at the table.
We all pull out chairs and sit as I continue, “He put two and two together, yeah. But it turns out Brandy had already told Joanna. I didn’t know.”
Her brow creases. “Aw, that’s tough.”
I sigh. “Maybe it was better that she had told her. It would have been tougher if she hadn’t, and then she’d met Guy.”
“How was Joanna about it?”
