Page 4 of The P Arrangement

“Ring the doorbell,” I called to him.

But rather than listening to me, Paxton grabbed for the door handle. I wasn’t worried until he actually managed to open the door. It just had to be one of those levers that made it easy for a toddler to pull down.

Picking up my pace, I hurried toward my son. I had no idea where my ex was in the house, and I worried Paxton could get hurt if he didn’t have an adult to watch him. Lately, he’d become too curious about things without any consideration for his well-being. Such was life with a toddler.

Thankfully, he was on the floor, pulling off his shoes when I reached him.

He threw the second one down, climbed to his feet, and yelled, “Daddy.”

My body tensed, going on alert as I waited to see where my ex would pop out from while I tried to shut out the memories flooding me.

I knew this house so well, and the fact that it looked like nothing had changed since I’d left was a surprise as well as a punch to the gut. It hurt to look at everything I’d left behind because, for some reason, in my head, I had pictured Preston doing a complete redecoration to erase all traces of me.

Preston had inherited the house from his parents when they retired, and when I moved in, we did a major overhaul of the old-fashioned furniture and outdated wallpaper. I had just assumed he would do the same thing when I left.

Snapping myself out of my depressing thoughts, I looked around for my ex.

To the right was his study and the stairs leading to the second floor, and to the left was the living room. But I should have been focusing straight ahead to the dining room, where it led to the kitchen because there he was in all his masculine glory.

Preston St. James III.

My ex-husband, the father of my child, and still the one and only love of my life.

Unfortunately, after the birth of our child, I’d stopped being his.

The wordcraggyalways came to mind when I thought of Preston, but it was his mouth that had always done me in. It was a little too wide and his lips a little too thick, but I had always loved them and thought they were the absolute sexiest things about my ex-husband. And that was saying something because Preston was tall and muscular with broad shoulders. And despite having a thick head of dirty-blond hair, his face was almost always dusted with a permanent dark five-o’clock shadow that matched his brown eyes. He had on black slacks that had been tailor-made for his ass, a black tie that was undone and hanging off his shoulders, and a white dress shirt he had unbuttoned halfway down his chest. I hated that I could see his smooth, muscular chest and the North Star necklace he wore between his pecs, but I hated even more that my breath still caught when I saw him.

“Hey, buddy.” He beamed at our son, who ran toward him, arms out wide, while not giving me a second glance.

The twinge was back, and I rubbed my sternum as Preston swung Paxton up in his arms. Kissing him on the forehead, he finally looked at me.

“Delaney,” he said with not even a hint of warmth.

I straightened my back. “Preston.”

Remembering I’d come here to convince him to switch weekends with me, I forced a smile onto my face. “I was hoping to talk to you about something.”

His eyebrows flew up as Paxton started to wiggle in his arms.

“I hungry, Daddy.”

Preston set him down. “Okay, buddy.”

Paxton ran over to me, grabbed my hand, and tugged. “Come, Mommy. I eat.”

Looking down at my son, I couldn’t help but smile. Even though he looked just like his father, enough to make my heart ache, I still loved the kid to death.

I held up a finger and didn’t budge from my spot. “One second. Mommy needs to talk to Daddy.”

Squaring my shoulders, I looked up at my ex.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

THREE

PRESTON

I had halfa mind to tell Delaney to leave and that I didn’t want to talk to her when texting had been working for us so far.

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