Page 11 of The Best of Us

“Well, a mom has to try, right?” I attempted an easygoing smile, hoping to keep my son out of jail.

He glanced off to the side and at the floors that needed refinishing. “And you’re certain we haven’t met before?”

There’s just no way it’s you. So, I suppose we haven’t met.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I battled memories from my past. I drew a picture ofthehim I’d held on to for so long in my mind. An image that was now blurry after so many years had gone by.

“Are you going to press charges?” I asked instead of answering because he’d think I was nuts if I questioned whether or not he wasthehim from my past.

“I got what I came for.” He removed his hands from his pockets and rubbed his jawline. “Got a little more than I planned on, too.”

“I’m sorry about that. He’s a bit protective of me.”

“As a son should be of his mother.” His hand fell to his side, and he expelled a breath that was so deep, it was as if he’d sighed on my behalf, too.

As he studied me like I was a mirage, memories continued to tug and pull, but they didn’t fully form into anything tangible.

Maybe I reminded him of someone in his past as he was doing for me? But it couldn’t possibly bethehim.

“I really am sorry. I’ll do my best to ensure he never does something like this again.” That was the best I could come up with. And the most honest answer I could give anyone.

He nodded, then sidestepped me to leave. He stopped in the doorway, resting a hand on the frame while peering at me over his shoulder. “Juliette?”

“Yeah?” I pretty much breathed that word out.

“My name, it’s with a C. First and last.” He gave me another nod, brows drawing together, and then took off.

The second he was gone, my body broke out with goose bumps, and I couldn’t stop the trembling from happening.

I looked over at the chair he’d sat in, tears welling in my eyes.

You can’t be him. Not after all this time.I couldn’t get my hopes up.It’s just not possible.

The chances had to be one in a million that my son stole the wallet of a man I hadn’t seen in seventeen years. From a man who didn’t even know he had a son.

Chapter3

Constantine

“What do you think, Constantine?”

About?I sat taller, unsure who’d been talking to me.

“Son?” My father looked at me from the head of the table in the conference room. He’d yet to give up his throne of our empire, and I was hoping he never did so I didn’t have to take over for him.

“Why don’t you tell us what you think first?” I asked him, hoping he’d understand that I needed help.

It wasn’t like me to lose focus at work, especially while closing a hundred-million-dollar deal I’d worked on for months.Butthere I was, doing it anyway, thinking about a woman instead of the business at hand.

My father adjusted the knot of his purple tie and did me a solid by addressing the room, buying me time.

I stopped listening, the opposite of what I was supposed to do, and returned to thoughts of that delinquent’s mother. A mother I wanted to . . .

Fucccck, I have to stop.

I got my wallet back, Bianca’s note was still inside, and now it was time to move on. Write the whole thing off as a case of unfortunate luck that could’ve ended much differently. Only, it ended how it ended. It ended with me meeting this woman who made me feelthings. Things I didn’t fully understand.

She’s a single mom—unattached, but not really unattached. She has a sixteen-year-old son to worry about—a thief, no less.According to his juvenile record, he’d been arrested for assault prior to moving to New York,so, there was that, too. Plus, maybe she was dating someone, and I was fantasizing about a taken woman. That was a hard limit for me.

---