“Who are you?” I ask.
“Kimberly. Slade invited me for the weekend,” she says, eyeing me. “You must be the maid.”
The weekend? He brought her here to sleep with her, right under my nose. Then I’d have to wash his damn sheets after. “That’s my cake,” I say, walking over and yanking the stand away.
“Slade told me to make myself at home,” she says. “He’s just making a phone call. I’m sure he’ll want to hear about how rude the help is.”
“I don’t care what you tell him,” I bite out.
“Oh, there you are,” she says, waltzing over to Slade, who just appeared in the doorway. She snakes her body around him as he flashes her a dirty grin.
Finn wiggles in my arms, reaching out for Slade, and for the first time, he locks eyes with me. He’s hurting me on purpose, and I have no idea why. I grab my purse and Finn’s diaper bag, walking past them, still pawing each other.
I don’t know how I find the strength, but I stop, look him right in the eye, and say, “Today’s my birthday, and she ruined my cake.”
*
With tears streaming down my face, I hold Finn, the diaper bag, my purse, and a small overnight bag. It’s a lot, but I wasn’t about to make two trips. There’s no way I can stay in this house and listen to them go at it all weekend. We’ll find a cheap hotel for the next couple of nights.
Reining in my tears, I force myself to bury the hurt, like so many things in my life. If life has taught me anything, it’s how to stuff emotions. I can’t think about all that I’ve lost because there’s always more to lose. I promise myself that I’ll have a good cry about it later when all the losing is done and over.
I open the door to the garage, finding the outside garage door open. Slade stands with his head down and his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. My hands are too full to grab the keys, so I place the bags down, then reach for them. His head turns to me. I wipe my hot cheeks, pushing the button to open the trunk of the car, but he promptly slams it shut.
“You shouldn’t drive when you’re upset,” he says.
“I can’t stay here,” I sob.
“Nothing happened with her. She’s gone,” he says, stepping toward me. “Just had one of the ranch hands drive her home. She won’t be back.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it’s your birthday. I don’t want you to be alone.”
I look him right in the eye. “I’ve been alone my whole life, even when I was with people. This is no different.”
“Paige,” he says, softly touching my hand, “let’s celebrate your birthday. You can wear the dress you bought for the opening, and Finn and I will take you out.”
I just glare at him. “Despite what you think of me, I can’t be bought.”
“You know I don’t think that way about you.”
I laugh out loud, shaking my head. “Something almost happened between us the other night, but you pulled away. And then stayed away all week. That was enough of a message, Slade. I didn’t need you to do this. I get it. You think I’m a whore, and you don’t do whores. Okay, I fucking get it!”
“No, Paige,” he says, taking me by the waist. Finn squirms in my arms, feeling the tension, and starts to fuss.
Pulling away from Slade, I stick my finger in his face. “But let me tell you something. That woman was more low-class trash than I’ll ever be. At least I know how to use a damn knife and cut a slice of cake!”
Moving past him, I frantically strap Finn into his car seat, throw the bags inside, and slam the door shut. Slade holds his hand over my door, preventing me from opening it. “Just hear me out,” he says.
“You hurt me. And worse, you did it on purpose. I don’t need to know anything else.”
“Please, just stay here. I’ll go,” he says, almost pleadingly. “I don’t want you driving when you’re upset.”
“It’s your house.”
“My mother died,” he says, his voice almost unrecognizable.
This is the closest the man has ever come to opening up to me. I ask, “When? In a car accident?”
His head shakes. “Just stay here.”
“Is this why you don’t get along with your father? Something to do with your mom?”
I can see the walls go up in his eyes, and he snaps, “Will you please just stay here? I’m leaving. We’ll talk when things have calmed down.”
All I can manage is a nod.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SLADE
This is what I thought I wanted. I wanted her to hate me. It seemed like a good plan at the time, but what works in theory feels a whole lot different in real life. What kills me is the reason she thinks I did this. Immediately, she jumps to the belief that someone like me couldn’t want someone like her. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’ve made this drive into the city a thousand times, but this time it seems to be taking forever. Why do bad things seem to last forever, and the good moments are so fleeting?
This push and pull, back and forth isn’t good for either of us. Either she stops, or I do. Either she stays mad in an attempt to push me away, or I do something to push her away. Enough is enough. This has to stop. Today is the biggest fuckup I’ve made with a woman ever. As soon as I saw her, the hurt, I regretted it. I knew I’d made a mistake. I just hope I can come back from it.
Sometimes it takes losing someone to realize all the reasons you shouldn’t be together don’t matter.
I hate being the asshole. Forever, Paige will think of me as her jerk of a boss who brought home a sidepiece just to rub it in her face. Kimberly didn’t deserve to be used, either. Not that I laid a finger on her, but I still used her. So I’m a double asshole. But something tells me Kimberly will forgive me easier, not that I care or that it’s even important to me. All I care about are Paige and Finn.
That woman is fully underneath my skin. I haven’t spoken about my mother in years, much less her death. Granted, I skirted the truth, but for the words to even come out of my mouth is proof of the hold Paige has over me. From the first moment I saw her at the party, my need to save her, to protect her overpowered me.
I try to tell myself the hurt she’s feeling now will safeguard her against a greater one. The problem is, I’m a selfish man.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PAIGE
I’m still in my pajamas when the doorbell rings at eight in the morning. Not that I was sleeping. Not even the Cooking Channel could soothe me last night. I spent the night cleaning up the disaster of my birthday party that never happened, trying not to cry and contemplating if I should even keep this job.
The answer is yes because I have to. I don’t have any other options. Stumbling out of our room before the doorbell wakes Finn, I deactivate the alarm and answer the door. A huge metallic pink number one balloon hits me in the face.
“Delivery,” a female voice says, but I can’t see her through the sea of latex.
Moving the balloons aside, I find a smiling, middle-aged woman holding them with a wagon full of stuff behind her. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You have the wrong house.”