Page 49 of Saved by my Baby Daddy Spy
Traffic is a mess, but I wouldn’t expect anything else on a Friday night. As I drive a few feet at a time, slowly moving along the line of cars running through the city, I try to relax. I don’t want to go in there and give her more of a reason to be upset with me.
I have to work though. I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I’m not used to staying still. I do make more than enough money to sustain us, but I need to make sure I can still provide for them in case one business ever falls through. Kerri shouldn’t have to want for anything growing up, unlike my own childhood.
If things work out between Hannah and me — and I’m hoping they do — we could have more kids. Those kids would deserve the best future that I can give them too.
At least, that’s how I try to rationalize how I’ve let Hannah down.
The drive home takes longer than it should. By the time I walk in the door, I’m nearly four hours late and it’s creeping closer to midnight.
Hannah looks up as I walk in the apartment. Her laptop is in her lap, and the baby monitor is sitting by her thigh. Her mouth presses into a thin line as she picks up both and stands up.
“I’m going to go to my office,” she says, her voice tight. “There’s some dinner keeping warm in the oven if you want any.”
“Hannah, do you want to talk about it?” I ask, setting my briefcase down on the kitchen island. “I know that I should have been home a few hours ago. I got wrapped up in work.”
“I understand.” She holds the baby monitor a little tighter. “But it isn’t just you living on your own anymore. You could have picked up the phone at any point throughout the evening and told me that you were going to be late, but you chose not to.”
Guilt claws at me as she turns and heads down the hall. Her shoulders are tense, and she shuts the door a little too hard behind her. I stand in the middle of the kitchen, wondering how to fix this with her.
I want to tell her about potential problems that might arise, but I don’t want her to worry and I definitely don’t want her to get involved. The last time she got involved, she was shot at. There’s no way I can let that happen again. I need to learn more about this new potential threat before I can figure out how to address it.
I sigh and run my hand through my hair. What I want to do right now is follow her in there and try to sort through this. I want to tell her that it’s never going to happen again, but I can’t promise that.
We have to talk about this, though. Maybe clear the air a little.
If I’m being honest, I don’t want her to let me off the hook that easily. Hannah should hold me to a higher standard. The fact that she doesn’t only makes me feel even worse.
Ugh, this is harder than espionage!
What did I expect after the last time we were together, though? I dropped off the face of the earth and left her trying to contact me with no luck for the better part of a year.
And now I’m leaving her feeling like she can’t depend on me again.
I take a deep breath and loosen my tie. The man in me who is good at lying and deceiving wants to tell her everything she wants to hear. He thinks that it will be easy to say a few sweet words and make the problem disappear.
That man is the last person I want to be with Hannah. I want her to see the real me, without all the lies and deception. I want her to know that she can count on me and that my words have meaning.
After another moment of weighing my options, I head down the hall to her office. When I knock on the door, there is no noise from inside. I don’t know if she’s ignoring me to make a point, but it bothers me.
I crack open the door and see her sitting behind her desk, dozens of pieces of paper spread out in front of her. She has a pencil tucked in her messy bun while she highlights something on one page before searching another.
“Hannah, can we talk about this? I don’t want to spend the rest of the night with this weird tension.”
Hannah arches an eyebrow and it’s at that moment that I know I started the conversation the wrong way. I can see the fire burning in her eyes as she pushes back slightly from her desk. She leans back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other.
Her entire body is tense, like a snake coiled and ready to strike. There is no doubt in my mind that she is holding herself back from whatever it is she wants to say right now.
“You don’t want to deal with this weird tension all night?” She shakes her head. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you caused it.”
The cut is sharp, but she’s right. We wouldn’t be doing this right now if I had just come home when I said I was going to come home.
“Hannah, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I’m trying to expand my business. When we talked about it yesterday, you knew that I was going to be working a lot of long hours.”
“To set up a new spy division,” she says as she crosses one leg over the other. “And I told you that I was happy for you. That we should both have the chance to pursue our dreams and get our work done.”
“I know that I should have been home earlier. I got wrapped up in signing a couple agents to the company.” I take a seat in one of the chairs on the other side of her desk.
I feel like slumping back in the chair and closing my eyes. It’s been a long day and the last thing I want to do is fight with her. I brought this on myself, though.
