Page 46 of Number 10 Affair

I poured myself a glass of scotch and sat in the dark living room, thinking about Maja’s mother. This was a bad idea, but I had these issues because Samantha had betrayed me. She’d vanished from our lives so unexpectedly, leaving me with a small child in the middle of the night. For days, I was unable to process the shock of the fact that she was gone. Maja didn’t remember her mother, so we just hadn’t talked about her after her initial attempts, which was wrong because my daughter deserved to know the truth.

It was foolish of me; I had fallen for someone who cared only for her own benefit and not for those around her. We hadn’t been that young when the pregnancy occurred, unexpectedly. Samantha had never wanted children, but eventually after talking about this for a long time, we both decided that she would keep the baby. Unfortunately after Maja’s birth, Sam didn’t bond with her and left us eleven days after without a trace, and we hadn’t seen her since. This completely shattered me, because in one moment I had a loving girlfriend and the next moment all that remained was a tiny baby who required constant care and attention. I had doubted myself, my insistence she have this baby. But I’d loved Maja long before she was born.

After this experience, I promised myself I wouldn’t allow love to cause me such destruction again, so I’d steered clear of relationships ever since.

My mother had to step in, and I had to keep going and give Maja the best life she could have.

At the time, I was just beginning my political career, so it wasn’t possible for me to hire a private investigator to look for Samantha. I’d changed forever, I had to grieve alone. On the plus side, love had altered me in positive ways, too, and I became devoted to raising my daughter as a single father. For some months, I’d held on to the hope that Samantha would return, because what mother could abandon her own child even though Maja wasn’t planned? But she never had. Eventually, I’d stopped searching for her, and three years later, I’d started sleeping around to satisfy my needs, yet keep my distance from anything more.

I despised most women, I only used them for sex to fulfil my desires. Maja, my mother, and now Laura were the only females in my life I truly cared for and adored unconditionally—the others, I convinced myself, weren’t worth my effort. Luckily, since Mum was retired, she was around a lot. She helped me when I returned to work, and when Maja finally started going to school, I hired a full-time nanny to relieve Mum a little, because she had her own life, too.

On Tuesday morning, I still felt bad that I hadn’t apologised to Laura. I stole her pair of black lacy knickers after I got home on Friday night. It was a mistake and at some point I knew she would eventually notice. Also, for now, I was willing to ignore the fact that it ruined me because her scent was permanently ingrained in my brain.

Jeremy called just as Laura walked through the door on Tuesday morning, so I had to leave without talking to her. After the weekend, she normally came in early on Mondays because she had to get Maja up for school. I felt bad that I had to leave. I was determined to have a long and honest talk with her about Friday night. Just not right now.

I got on with my day as usual, with back-to-back meetings. I never complained about that because this was what I’d signed up for when I’d acquired this role. In the past few months, I had been away a lot on diplomatic engagements, and these kinds of trips were always tough on Maja who didn’t like it when I was absent from home for longer than a few days.

This summer, things had slowed down a bit. However, Laura understood that this was part of the reason why I’d asked her to move in at Number 10, so she could be with Maja when an unexpected trip occurred. Around one in the afternoon, I headed back to my private bedroom because I’d spilled some coffee on my shirt and needed to change.

I sprinted upstairs, Laura still on my mind, as she’d been every minute of the morning. How could I make her stay? I hoped she hadn’t made any decisions yet because I really needed her and I didn’t want to break Maja’s heart. Maja didn’t do well with change, especially with my demanding schedule.

When I came downstairs, I bumped straight into Laura in the kitchen. She didn’t even look where she was going. She seemed so distracted.

“Whoa, be careful. I would have crushed you,” I said, nearly taking her down with me.

“I’m sorry, I was just heading out, but what are you doing here? I thought you were working,” she asked, a worried expression on her pretty face.

Over the past few weeks, I had learnt how to read her, and I sensed if something was wrong.

“I had to change. I spilled coffee on my shirt,” I said. “What’s the matter? You look a little stressed.”

She bit her bottom lip and finally met my gaze. I was fucking done, especially when she gave me that innocent and slightly anxious glance. I thought I had been doing so well lately, not walking around all the time with a raging hard-on.

“Nothing, it’s nothing. I'll deal with it. I just had a call from Maja’s school. Apparently, she punched some boy and they want to suspend her,” Laura explained.

I was instantly on alert.

I frowned. “What do you mean, they want to suspend her? Did you ask why she punched a boy? Besides, she's only nine, so that sounds a bit extreme,” I said, angry that the school hadn’t informed me first. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be disturbed by any small matters that happened in Maja’s school, but this sounded serious, so they should have called me.

“Spencer, I know it sounds bad, but I’ll handle it. I don’t know what happened yet. I just had a phone call and I’m heading to the school now, so please excuse me,” Laura said.

I grabbed her arm as she tried to move past me.

“No can do, love. I’m coming with you and I’ll deal with it. Wait for me outside. I just have to make a quick call,” I said, suddenly losing my focus because she was way too close.

Right then, I needed to handle this incident with the school and not entertain fantasies about what I wanted to do to my nanny.

“What? You don’t need to do that. I’ve got this, Spencer, and I promise you I'll deal with it the best I can. I won’t let them suspend her,” she protested when I let go of her arm.

I shook my head and pulled out my work phone.

“Stop arguing with me for once,” I snapped, dialling Jeremy’s number.

He picked up right away, so I asked him to deal with whatever other meetings we had today as I had a personal matter to attend to.

“Well, that wasn’t so difficult, right?” I said to Laura.

“No, but this isn't what I meant when I said not to go. I think it will be less stressful for Maja if I'm the one to go, since you’re the PM, you know, security needs and whatnot, and everyone in school knows you,” Laura explained, giving me a small smile.

---