Page 50 of My Forbidden Boss

The train rumbles to a stop at close to midnight. I disembark, ignore the frigid air and find my way out of the train station pointing my feet toward home. After the Samantha debacle, I made my excuses at the restaurant and left. Caught the first train to Moss Creek and didn’t look back.

It didn’t take a genius to work out that David didn’t need me there listening to Samantha’s desperate grab to be in his life.

The desperate grab that is my undoing, because it’s not really desperate. She has a genuine reason and that reason is pretty damn compelling.

Samantha is more David’s type. She’s stunning. A woman of the world. She has the hair, make-up, clothes and allure of a new baby. His own flesh and blood.

I can’t compete with that.

I’m not even in the running.

I’m back at the starting line, face-planting asphalt while Samantha’s leaping the finishing line in her six-inch stilettos. This isn’t a race. It’s an obliteration. A game I should never have played.

This is the second time I’ve run out on David. I shouldn’t have needed the reminder after the first time, but you can’t help naive and stupid.

He didn’t want me to go. Tried to keep me there, but I saw the smug smile play on Samantha’s glossy red lips. She crossed her arms over her chest, stepped back, and waited for me to leave. An expectation I fulfilled because, unlike David, I understand the look she sent me intimately. I saw it on faces every day at school. At Bob’s. In the street. The look of knowing that whatever I am and wherever I stand, I can never hide what I am. People like Samantha will always see the truth.

I’m surprised David hasn’t seen it already, but ours isn’t a traditional relationship. I’m sure the forbidden nature of it is the only interest he has in me, because for the life of me, I can’t understand what else it would be.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to hide at Moss Creek. Not from David. Nor from Max, but at least I can seek familiar shelter here. Regroup and reaffirm my reasons for going to New York in the first place.

I wasn’t thinking straight when I left the restaurant, and headed straight for the train station instead of the apartment and the USB I could have handed straight over to Max. This mess could have ended tonight. I could stay safe in Moss Creek, however dubious it is, but now I’ll have to go back to work on Monday. Watch Samantha manipulate herself into David’s life.

At least I’ll have the weekend and Mom’s comfort before I have to go back. I’ll need it to keep me strong because I know what’ll happen. David will ask me into his office on Monday, and not in the fun way he’s done to me all week. This time, it will be to put me in my rightful place. I’ll be an employee at worst. A good-time fling at best, and David will get on with his life.

If he doesn’t, I’ll have to decide for him.

There can be no other way. A baby will take priority because that’s the way David’s built, and Samantha is the mother of his child. A precedence.

In the end, I’m a liability.

I’ll affect his relationship with his daughter, his business associates, his new baby and not in a good way.

It takes me another half hour of walking and mentally chastising myself for not stopping to get my walking shoes before I ran to the train when I reach our apartment. I try the handle, but the door is locked. I expected that. Never leave a door unlocked around here. “Mom! It’s me. Are you in?”

Silly question, because I know she is.

“Adeline?” her voice sounds muffled behind the paper-thin walls.

“It’s me, Mom,” I say and wait the minutes she takes to get to the door.

The door opens and someone slaps an invisible band around my chest and squeezes because it’s hard to breathe when I see Mom’s happy, confused smile. I blink back tears and end up hiding them when I bury my nose in her shoulder and breathe in her familiar scent.

“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon. What a lovely surprise,” she says.

I cling to her and in this instant I’m five years old again. “Sorry I’ve been away so long.”

Mom peels off me and holds me out, her bony fingers on my biceps. Her gaze runs across my work clothes and I inwardly wince. “What are you wearing? You can’t be sightseeing in those clothes?”

“I…got a job. Unexpectedly. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass.” Mom always knows when I’m lying, so I settle on part of the truth.

She smiles at me as if I’m something special, but I know differently.

She holds my hand, squeezing my fingers. “Come in, sweetheart. Tell me all about it. You’re freezing cold. Have you had dinner?”

She won’t have any leftovers and I won’t take food she would have eaten for breakfast. I ignore my hollow stomach. Samantha turned up before lunch and I didn’t stop for dinner, but it’s nothing I haven’t been through before. “I ate on the train, Mom. Guess what, I’ve been paid, so how about I take you out for breakfast tomorrow?”

Her face lights up like it’s damned Christmas and I hate that I can’t do this all the time. “I’d love that.”

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