Page 26 of Abduction
“Yeah, he’s probably at home by now,” I replied.
“But you don’t know?” he asked. I shook my head.
“He might have to stay late at work again,” I admitted.
“You mean, fooling around with the girl he’s seeing behind your back?” he corrected me bluntly. I bristled at the thought of it. I still hadn’t gotten a good explanation for what he was doing there every night, let alone why he’d come home the other evening smelling of booze. Some part of me wanted to punish him for it, though I should have known better. I should have been more mature than that. If we were going to be married, how would acting out like a damn teenager help us?
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I muttered, but in the back of my head, I had already resigned myself to it. I wanted to push those thoughts away, but they weren’t going anywhere. I needed to be more secure, but Aaron wasn’t exactly giving me good reason to think I should be.
“Yeah, you do,” he replied as he eyed me. “You wouldn’t have come here with me if you thought he was being faithful, would you?”
I chewed my lip. I wished he wouldn’t call me out, but he was right. I would never have agreed to go with another man to a place like this if I wasn’t feeling lonely, hurt, hopeless, and I didn’t want to go back to my empty house and just think about how much I was missing out on. Where my fiancé was, and if he was ever going to bother coming up with a good reason as to why he had been spending so much time so far from me.
“Let me take you out to dinner,” he suggested. He didn’t take my hand again, but I could tell he wanted to. If he had slipped his arm around my waist, I wasn’t sure I could have shrugged him off. My body ached for him, even as my mind warned me this was a crazy idea and I would probably end up in more trouble than I could handle
I shook my head. I had already come this far, but it didn’t mean I was going to see it through. I needed to get home, or else I would be officially on a date with Josh, and I couldn’t do that. I was never the girl who had cheated, and I didn’t want to start now, no matter how sure I was Aaron was doing the exact same thing to me right now.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I replied.
“Why not?” he asked. “You’ve been studying all day. You must be starving.”
My stomach grumbled, as though on cue, and I glanced down to glare at it for giving me away. I didn’t want to give him more reasons to think he was right. He was already cocky enough as it was, and I needed to pull myself together and start acting like a woman with a whole-ass husband-to-be at home.
“Dinner, that’s it,” he promised me, holding his hands up, as though making himself look innocent. As though I thought he was innocent, after what we had nearly done in there. He knew just what he was doing to me, and he loved it. He loved how helpless I was to stop him, and I enjoyed it more than I should have.
What was I, a fucking teenager again? Enjoying a cute boy paying me attention? I was supposed to be beyond all of that now. I was supposed to be bigger and better than this, but I couldn’t stop myself being drawn to him. I couldn’t shut down the way I felt, the attraction we shared, how much he seemed to want me when the one man who was supposed to was hiding out at his office, avoiding me with everything he had.
“Just dinner?” I confirmed with him, raising my eyebrows pointedly. He grinned, knowing he had gotten me right where he wanted me.
“Just dinner,” he promised, and I noticed his fingers flexing by his side. As though he was thinking about how good it had been to hold my hand.
But we were just friends. It was the only way I would be able to go to dinner with him without losing my mind with guilt. Much as I longed to kiss him, to feel his warm breath on my skin like I had before, I knew I had to control myself with everything I had. I had to make sure I didn’t let this get the better of me.
Chapter Fifteen
Josh
