Page 111 of The Perfect Mistake

“I know,” I say roughly. “It’s irrational. But that’s what I’ve become, apparently, since the day you stepped into my apartment and flipped my mind inside out.”

“Alec,” she says again, and I hate that I love the sound of my name on her lips that much. That I’ve come to crave it, her voice whispering it in my ear or moaning against my chest. “I was talking about you.”

My eyes narrow. “What?”

“The good man who’s caring and protective?” She digs her teeth into her lower lip, and there’s a shy glint in her eyes. “I was talking about you. You are that good man.”

Oh.

Oh… and oh fuck.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, pushing down the joy at her words. The way they make my chest swell. “That’s so much worse.”

There’s complete silence from the woman in my arms, and I realize what I just said. I shake my head and meet her confused gaze with my own.“Sweetheart, I’m not that man. I’m barely enough the way I am now, torn in every direction.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” I mutter. I know that far too well. The call I received that day flashes through my mind; the news of Victoria’s sudden aneurysm. The missed warnings and the accusation from her mother. If you hadn’t worked so much, you would have seen the signs. And the shattering emptiness afterward, the bleak apartment, and her voice gone forever.

I couldn’t handle it if… I can’t.

Never again.

“Sweetheart…” I continue and slide my hand over her cheek. There’s quiet devastation in her eyes, and I hate it, too. I hate that I’ve put it there. “I’m fifteen years too old for you. I’ve got kids, a job that keeps me too busy, and nothing else to offer. You’ve got everything in front of you. An entire beautiful future.”

“So do you,” she says. There’s a furrow between her brows, the stubborn refusal that I’ve come to learn is one of her defining traits. It’s restrained, but it’s there, her spine made of steel.

“No, I don’t. You just said you want kids. I’ve already had mine. I’ve done all the things you still want to experience.”

Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

There’s no protest against that undeniable fact.

“I shouldn’t have touched you that first time.” I trace down her slim neck, over her warm smooth skin that I’ve come to adore. “But I’m a selfish man, a greedy one, and I did. You’ll probably hate me for it by the end, but so help me, I can’t find it in myself to be sorry.”

Her lips tip down into a frown. “So, what does this mean?”

“It means the same thing it’s always meant.”

“Just sex?” she whispers.

The words sound like defeat. I hear it, too, and I feel it. I want to be more than just the man who gives her orgasms. More than the man she may recall sometimes, long after she leaves me, more than a memory or a party anecdote.

More than a cliché. The boss and the nanny.

“Just sex,” I agree.

Because I know I can’t be that man for her, no matter how much I want to.

Isabel

Mac weaves through the streets of New York toward the huge condo Gabriel and Connie share. He drives as calmly as always, but the ride feels bumpy regardless, and it’s all due to the man sitting next to me.

Alec is looking out his window, and I’m looking out of mine.

He’s in a tailored suit. It’s far from the first time I’ve seen him in one, but it is the first time I felt an itch to run my fingers over his chest and into his hair, to muss up the pristine neatness.

I don’t do any of those things.

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