Page 23 of Finding Forever

Leon turned and winked at me as we walked side by side.

“She’s not a distraction.”

Leon stopped walking and so did I. His brows rose to the top of his forehead as he regarded me. He hadn’t spoken a word, but his message was loud and clear.

“There’s something different about her,” I supplied. I had this inherent urge to defend what was budding between us.

“Yeah, well, you probably feel that way because she’s the first woman you’ve had sex with since the divorce. Which, by the way, was undue torture. Women have been throwing themselves at you for months. Even before the divorce,” he tsked, sounding impressed.

Of course, he’d admire something like that. There wasn’t a marriageable bone in his body. At least not from what I’d seen. He never dated a woman for more than two months, though he never dated more than one woman at a time.

“There are a lot of things in that last statement I could disagree with, but I’ll ignore them for now. The only thing I will say is that Gina and I haven’t slept together.”

Discussing my sex life with Leon wasn’t something I wanted to do. Let alone in the office. We were best friends, but there was an invisible line I’d drawn in the sand when it came to Gina. She was special and didn’t deserve to be discussed in that aspect.

Leon was always one second away from telling me,I told you so. And while I knew he was always joking, the sting of my failed marriage wasn’t something I was immune to just yet. Especially when Victoria had originally set her sights on Leon. He was born into wealth—his father was a popular jazz artist while his mother was part of a prominent black family who owned several acres of farm land — while I was still a work in progress at the time we crossed paths with Victoria. Being the perceptive man that he was, Leon had dodged her, and she’d sat her devilishly tempting butt onto my lap.

Literally.

At the time, I thought I was in love. But when I look back on it now, I saw how wrong I was. Meeting a romantic interest while dealing with grief was a bad combo. The guilt over my parents’ sudden death and having to be a parent to a younger sibling at the same time had made it easier for me to welcome the first person that offered me a modicum of comfort. Sometimes the memory of how I’d fallenin lovewith her made my chest burn. What I had deemed love in the past turned out to be infatuation. I learned very quickly that infatuation and no-limit credit cards were not enough to sustain a marriage.

Sure, there were plenty of my colleagues who had such unions. But it was never wanted for myself or my children. Unfortunately, we’d already created a child before that realization sank in. With all my missteps with love in the past, I wanted to keep what was going on between Gina and me quiet for a while more.

“You’re telling me that you haven’t slept with her and you’re already this gaga over her?”

My response was a pointed stare.

“Whoa.” Leon whistled. “I’m impressed.”

It looked like the conversation I didn’t want to have was unfolding right in front of me. I needed to shut it down in the next two minutes if I was going to make it home in time for dinner with Penny. The trip had instilled in me the importance of shared meals and actual conversations, and I was trying to stick to my commitment by creating more opportunities for that.

Penny loved it almost much as I did. I was really getting to know the kid. Sometimes Gina and Mycah joined us, too. The adult company was the icing on the cake.

“Look,” I said curtly. “As much as I would love to continue this conversation with you, I have to get going. I have a standing dinner date with Penny.”

Leon grinned at the mention of his niece and I mentally patted myself on the back for successfully shifting the conversation.

“You owe her a tea party, by the way.”

Leon wasn’t immune to the recent surge in work, either. But Penny didn’t care about that. She wanted her uncle to make good on his promise and show up for the tea party he’d promised her.

“Yeah, about that…” Leon was suddenly distracted, staring down at his phone.

With a final shake of my head, I assumed it was his booty call for the night and made my exit.

I knew that whatever was waiting for me at home was better than work. That much was a guarantee.

∞∞∞

My hunch was right. What was waiting for me at homewasbetter than work. Tenfold. When I pulled up and saw Gina’s car in our horseshoe driveway, my heart did a little skip. By the time I made it inside, she was already in the middle of a conversation with my brother, Enrick. The kids were out of sight, but I could still hear them in the playroom bouncing around.

There was no time wasted pulling her into my arms as soon as I was close enough. Getting time alone to kiss her had been sporadic since the kids were always with us when we met. Every child-free opportunity we got, I splurged on kisses. I held her tight until my brother cleared his throat, pulling us out of the moment.

Gina smiled up at me and the twinkle in her eyes told a story all on its own. She slid a glance in Enrick’s direction and gave a small smile.

“I’m going to check on the kids,” she said, leaving Enrick and me alone. I surveyed the food on the counter.

“Gina brought a ton of food from the hotel,” Enrick filled me in before I could ask.

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