Page 24 of Enemy Ex's Secret Baby

“I’ll give you my number. We can arrange something this weekend. So I can have you all night.”

I try not to let the terror read on my face, but no way no how am I allowing Linda Drosney to have me all night. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. “Look, Ms. Drosney–”

“Linda.”

“Linda, I really appreciate your offer. I’m very flattered, but–”

“Don’t think I don’t know when I’m being rejected, Axel. I’ve been around the block before,” she says, but she makes no effort to draw away. “The thing is, I can be very convincing.”

I glance down at my watch again. Fuck it’s a minute past eleven. And I’m still stuck here. “The things is…”

“What’s ‘the thing’, Axel?” she asks, baby-talking me, pressing her front onto mine.

My body swells with alarm bells. I need to get out of this, I need to do it quick. “I have feelings for someone else,” I blurt.

Though it comes out without any thought, an image attaches to it right away. A person that I’m not sure where I stand with nor how I really feel. But she’s there in my brain all the same.

Gillian.

Linda guffaws. “Feelings? This doesn’t have to be anything about feelings, Axel.”

“Well, I don’t think I would be respecting myself or–or this person if I were to–”

“You’re so adorable when you’re nervous.”

I try to spew out some more words to defend myself, but Linda has made up her mind and she’s too quick for me to dodge. She throws herself at me, lips colliding with mine messily. It’s the clumsiest kiss I’ve ever had the displeasure of being a part of. I push her away by the shoulders and wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand. “Linda, really, I–”

“Oh, don’t be shy, Axel!”

She goes in for another kiss and I duck away again, this time leaping several feet away from her. “No! Thank you, but I–I–” I glance around to see if anyone is watching. No one seems plussed by it. But there is a photographer just nearby looking down at his camera screen, clicking through photos. God, did he… I can’t think about that right now. “I have to go.”

Linda calls out after me, but I can’t hear the words she says. My blood is boiling and the only thing keeping back the torrent of my ire is that I have to be a good boy in public, so my fucking dad doesn’t get a phone call about me. I’m thirty-two years old and I still have to act correctly lest I embarrass my father and the Hitchins name.

Luckily for me, my driver is waiting right out front. I asked him to meet me at eleven and hate to have kept him waiting. I leap in, slam the door after me, and let out a heavy sigh.

“Everything alright, Mr. Hitchins?”

I glance up at the driver and shake my head. “Just take me home.”

The driver doesn’t say another word, just puts the car into gear and starts to drive. I immediately feel relief wash over my body as we leave Linda Drosney in the rearview mirror.

However, the whole ride home, I’m plagued with what I said. “I have feelings for someone else.” And the image I conjured of Gillian in my mind.

That can’t be true. I just have her on the brain nonstop since we slept together. That doesn’t mean I have feelings for her. Besides, the only communication we’ve had over the past seven years has been nothing but forced politeness and consternation. There’s no reason for me to feel anything for her at all.

But if I don’t have feelings, more than intense loathing that leads to passion, why is it so damn hard not to think about her?

9

GILLIAN

“Three éclairs, coming up!” I say to my latest customer. I got to bag up her order, but nearly drop one éclair on the ground when I hear a loud clatter from the kitchen.

I glance at my customer. Her eyes are wide with fright. “Sorry about that. We’re having some work done on our mixer and–”

Another crash.

I force a smile and hurriedly hand her the bag of éclairs. “Next time you come in, I promise it won’t be–”

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