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Carla sat up straighter. “Understood.”
“Good. You can go back to work now.”
Carla stared at me for a while longer before she rose to her feet and strode towards the door. She wrenched the door open, heels clicking steadily against the floor. Once the door slammed shut behind her, I glanced up and frowned.
Carla was definitely up to something.
And I didn’t like that she was in contact with my father.
The last thing I wanted was the two of them sneaking around and making plans behind my back. Separately, the two of them were difficult enough to handle. Together, it would be almost impossible. Unfortunately, now that I knew they were plotting together, I had to keep an eye on them.
Before things got out of hand.
And I need to make things right with Rachel.
I’d been so blinded by the stress and complications at work that I hadn’t been able to see what was right in front of me. While it was too late for me to change that, I hoped there was still a chance for me to win her back and show her how serious I was about the two of us.
Starting with Carla.
With an exhale, I picked up my phone and dialed Rachel’s number. On the last ring, it went to voicemail, and I hung up after leaving her a message. A few hours later, I called her again in between meetings, but she still wasn’t picking up. By the time the end of the day rolled around, and the sun was dipping below the horizon, I was anxious and frustrated.
Rachel couldn’t avoid me forever.
Not when we had a son together.
In the car on the way back home, I thought about what I wanted to say. I turned it over and over in my head until I felt better about my speech. Unfortunately, when I got out of the elevator and came to a stop in front of her apartment, there was no answer. I pressed my ears to the door and listened, but I couldn’t hear a thing.
She was out again.
Since our fight, Rachel alternated between attending dinner with us and going to dinner with Taylor. Sometimes, she took Ron with her, but most of the time, she left him behind with me, knowing how important it was for the two of us to bond. While I worried that Ron was picking up on the tension between us, he hadn’t mentioned it at all.
Knowing he was spared from the drama gave me a small amount of comfort.
But it didn’t last because the next day, when Jonathan and I went to pick Rachel up from the apartment, she was standing outside with a tall, dark-haired man who was paying close attention to her. Once the car pulled up and I saw her laughing, my stomach dipped and tightened into knots.
Her expression went blank as soon as she clapped her eyes on me.
I glared daggers at the man as he helped her into the car with a smile.
He avoided my gaze the entire time.
In the car, I sat back with my hands folded in my lap and a strange thrumming in the back of my head. By the time we pulled up outside Ron’s school a short while later, my heart was pounding, and the bad taste in my mouth had gotten worse. A few times, I glanced over at Rachel, a protest on the tip of my tongue, only to swallow it back.
Why couldn’t I figure out what to tell her?
Why was it so hard to bridge the distance between us?
Ron was his usual ball of energy when he got into the car and wedged himself between us. He spent the ride back to the apartment talking to us and sharing jokes with Jonathan, who was all too happy to oblige. I dropped them off at the apartment with an ache in the middle of my chest and a heaviness in my step.
When I went back to the office, I checked in on Carla on my way past.
She was definitely up to something.
And the only way I knew how to make things right was to get to the bottom of it.
It was better than sitting around and waiting for inspiration to strike.
For the rest of the day, I found excuses to keep an eye on Carla, and I called her into my office a few times. A few times, I saw a strange glint in her eyes and a hardness around her mouth, but she said nothing. In the afternoon, I gave my dad a call and listened for anything unusual in his voice.
