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“Can I get anyone anything?” Delaney now asks, breaking the silence.
I shake my head, scrubbing a hand across my jaw. “I’m good. Thanks though, Delaney,” I say as I turn to face Jeff, Pam and Max. “I’m sure you guys have a million questions for me,” I start, knowing it’s better we get this all out in the open now. “If you want to—”
“How long?” Max says quickly, cutting me off.
“Max!” Pam scolds, her hand on her son’s arm.
“What?” he asks. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question.”
Exhaling, I rub my hand around the back of my neck, gripping it tightly. “Weeks, months I guess,” I explain. “Since we were in Seattle, although to be honest there was…” I trail off, not sure how to explain it to them.
“There was what?” Max asks, apparently not giving me an inch here.
Sucking in a deep breath, I look across at him, our gazes locked. “There was something there long before that. For both of us,” I say. “It just never crossed the line until we were in Seattle.”
“Did you two know about this?” Max now asks, turning to Alex and Delaney.
“Nope, not a thing,” Alex answers, shaking his head. “Did we, babe?” he adds, turning to Delaney, who shakes her head even as a look flashes across her face that tells me she might not have known, but she possibly suspected. “We never even knew she was sneaking out at night. I mean yeah, she was working long hours and stuff, but…”
“She was working on a new project at work, the expansion,” Delaney says quietly, offering me an apologetic smile. “But I didn’t know about…” she pauses, waving a hand in my direction.
I give her a nod, not caring that Zoey told her about the expansion plans. “She was,” I confirm. “The long hours were legitimate work. Zoey is an incredible employee and manager and well, there’s a reason I hired her in the first place.”
“Oh, so not because you have the hots for her?” Max cuts in.
“Max!” Jeff shouts, glaring at his son.
“What?” Max spits back.
“Is this really necessary?” Jeff continues. “I certainly don’t think it’s helping.”
“What, so you don’t care about the fact that Zoey was hooking up with her boss or how that might have looked or—”
“We weren’t hooking up,” I snap, cutting him off. “It wasn’t like that. This wasn’t just some hook up and how it might have looked for Zoey is exactly the reason we kept it quiet in the first place,” I say, my heart beating harder now, my chest heaving as the blood pounds in my veins. “You think I don’t know how this all looks? You think I didn’t want to do everything I could to protect her? I love her, Max and I will doanythingfor her. Anything.”
The room falls silent again, the tension still lingering as Max and I face off with each other. As much as his accusations piss me off, I do get why he’s reacting this way. I know how this all looks, it’s why we kept things quiet, why we wanted to let people know about us when we were ready for it.
“Ethan,” Pam says, her voice quiet as she steps toward me.
“Yeah,” I reply, exhaling hard, suddenly exhausted.
She smiles, reaching out as she takes one of my hands in both of hers. There’s no denying she’s Zoey’s mom, the resemblance is strong and as she stands in front of me, staring up at me, all I can think is how much I miss her daughter. How my heart aches for her and what she’s going through right now.
I can’t even imagine how scared she must be, how she might be hurt, or worse still.
Fuck, I can’t even go there. Can’t even begin to imagine a world where Zoey doesn’t exist.
All I can do is hope the fucking cops do their job and bring her back to me. Unharmed.
“I knew something was different with her,” she says, smiling up at me. “At first I thought it was the new job and how she was finally proving herself to be something more than what I know she thought most people viewed her as.”
I nod, not sure where she’s going with this, but not trusting myself to say anything either.
“Zoey has always been happy and confident,” she continues, and I nod again, because even though I know she worried she wouldn’t be able to manage this expansion project, I never had any doubts and that has nothing to do with the fact I am sleeping with her. “But this was something more,” she says, her smile widening a little. “Something that I now know is to do with you.”
I swallow hard, my words trapped in my throat.
“I believe you when you say you only want the best for my daughter—”
