Chapter Six
Hayden
“Hi, baby.”
The words went through the room with the force of a silent explosion.
For a moment I didn’t move. I simply watched her.
Because the woman standing in front of my desk was not the same Edwina who had spent the last ten minutes speaking to me with a voice sharpened by five years of anger and restraint.
The moment she answered the phone, something in her expression shifted so suddenly that it felt almost unreal.
Her shoulders softened. The tension in her jaw eased. And the warmth that appeared in her voice carried a tenderness I had not heard from her in years.
I felt something dark twist in my chest.
Baby.
Who the hell was she talking to?
Because whoever that motherfucker was, he had clearly earned something I no longer had—the gentle tone she used to reserve only for people she cared about.
She turned slightly away from me as she spoke, and that small movement pissed me off more than it should have, as if even her body knew to keep him away from me.
“Yes,” she said into the phone, a faint smile touching her lips while tension remained around her eyes. “I’m finishing work.”
That smile got under my skin. I knew it too well. I remembered what it meant when her mouth softened that way, how much warmth she could put into a single breath when she thought no one was watching.
Her voice lowered.
“No, sweetheart. I’m coming soon.”
Sweetheart.
The word sat unpleasantly in my head.
I leaned back slowly in the chair, watching her with an intensity she either ignored or pretended not to notice. I dragged my fingers slowly across my jaw.
I reached for another cigarette, keeping my eyes on her as I brought it to my mouth.
So who the fuck are you talking to, Edwina?
She laughed at something the person said, and the sound hit harder than I expected. I had not heard that laugh from her since the years when things between us were easier, before lies, silence, and distance turned everything into something heavier.
Even as she smiled, tension held in her posture. She knew I was watching. Her gaze flicked toward me before dropping to the floor, as if she had remembered I existed in the room with her.
“Yes, baby,” she said again.
The second time, the word hit harder.
Something ugly stirred beneath my ribs. Jealousy had never been a dignified emotion, and I had never been good at pretending I didn’t feel it. The thought of someone else occupying the place in her life that once belonged to me made my chest tighten with a restrained violence.
She ended the call soon after, murmuring something soft before lowering the phone. For a second, she didn’t look at me. Then she lifted her gaze, and the warmth I had just seen on her face disappeared.
What returned was calm hostility, wrapped in professionalism and control. Cold and sharp, keeping me exactly where she wanted me.
“Is there anything else you need, Dean Stone?” she asked.
The formality of the title sounded deliberate now. I leaned back in the chair again, studying her carefully. A faint smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, though there was nothing particularly amused about the feeling behind it.
“No,” I said slowly.
Then my gaze dropped briefly to the phone still resting in her hand before returning to her face.
“But now,” I added, “I’m curious about one thing.”
Her expression stayed blank. “What?”
My voice dropped. “Who the fuck were you just calling baby?”
The question sat between us, and something told me the answer would make everything worse.
“That,” she said, her voice sharp, “is none of your fucking business. I’m getting tired of telling you that.”
Her anger flared so quickly it almost pulled my attention away from the question burning in my chest.
Almost.
“None of my business?” I repeated.
Her chin lifted. “Yes.”
I stepped closer, my voice roughening. “Everything about you is my business.”
“So that guy on the phone,” I continued slowly, “the one you were calling baby—”
“Stop.”
“—what the fuck is he to you?”
“You have no right to interrogate me,” she snapped.
“Watch me.”
Her eyes flashed. “You really think you still have that kind of right over my life?”
I stepped around the desk before she could finish the sentence. The movement alone made her go still. It was a familiar reaction. One I remembered too well. Five years hadn’t erased that instinct. She noticed the change in distance immediately.
“Don’t,” she warned.
But her voice had dropped slightly.
Not fear. Something else. Something tighter.
“Don’t what?” I asked.
“Don’t come closer.”
I stopped a step away from her. Near her now, I could see the way her breathing had changed and notice that she hadn’t actually stepped back.
“You look nervous,” I said.
“I’m fucking irritated.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, damn it”
I studied her face for another second before speaking again.
“Because from where I’m standing,” I said slowly, “it looks a hell of a lot more like tension than irritation.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?”
Her silence answered that better than words could have. Something dark twisted inside my chest. Because the memory of her voice saying baby into that phone still echoed in my head. And the thought of some other man hearing that tone from her made my temper crawl dangerously close to the surface.
“Who the fuck was that?”
Her jaw tightened again.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t owe you an answer,” she said. “I have no obligation to explain this to you.”
Owe.
The word dragged five years of unresolved history back into the room.
“You owe me honesty,” I said.
Her laugh came out sharp. “You lost the right to demand honesty from me the moment you lied to my face for months.”
That hit exactly where it should have. But it didn’t change the question burning in my chest. I took another step closer before I could stop myself. Her breath caught. Just for a second. And that small reaction hit me harder than it should have.
“Still the same,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Your body react exactly the way you used to.”
Her eyes darkened.
“You’re imagining things again.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“I’m not.”
“You fucking are.”
Her breathing grew uneven for a moment before she forced it back under control.
“Let me leave,” she said.
The request carried more tension than anger now. But I didn’t move aside. Not yet. Because standing this close to her again after these years felt like touching something I had spent too long convincing myself I had forgotten.
“You think this is easy for me?” I asked suddenly.
She looked up at me.
“I don’t care if it is. I moved on.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The certainty in her voice sounded rehearsed. I leaned slightly closer, lowering my voice.
“Then why the fuck are you still reacting to me like this?”
She drew in a shaky breath.
“Hayden,” she said, my name coming out strained this time.
And fuck, hearing Edwina say it that way did something to my chest I wasn’t prepared for. I leaned closer before I could think better of it, and the movement caught her off guard. A breath hitched in her throat, her jaw tightened, and still, her body betrayed her anyway.
Five years had changed the woman standing in front of me. She carried herself with sharper confidence now, choosing every word with care and keeping distance between us as though it could protect her from what still lived beneath the surface.
Then that familiar scent reached me.
Clean shampoo, something soft beneath it, something warm and unmistakably Edwina. It slipped under my skin before I could stop it, dragging me back to late nights, closed doors, brown hair against my mouth, a body near mine, ruining every sensible thought I had ever possessed.
Some reactions were written too deeply to erase.
I lowered my voice, letting the words settle between us.
“You can pretend you hate me all you want,” I murmured. “But your body remembers exactly who I am.”
Her eyes widened, and for a second, she looked ready to slap me. Instead, she pulled in a breath and forced herself still.
“You’re fucking crazy,” she said. “Let me out.”
“Yes,” I said, my gaze dropping to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “I am. About you.”
My gaze dropped to her mouth before I could stop it. God, she was tempting. For one reckless second, all I wanted was to grab her, pull her against me, and kiss the hell out of her until that anger broke into something neither of us could deny.
Her breathing had changed, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
The fury in her eyes faltered, and the wall she had held between us since the moment she entered my office began to crack in a way I recognized because I had seen it before, years ago, when she used to look at me and forget how much she wanted to resist.
Her gaze lifted to mine and stayed there too long.
A pause stretched between us, and we both knew the tension had stopped pretending to be anything else.
My eyes moved before I could stop them. From her eyes.
To her lips. Then back again. The movement was subtle, but she noticed it instantly.
Her breath caught. For a moment, she remained motionless, neither retreating nor averting her gaze.
This brief hesitation shattered the final remnants of my restraint.
Five years of separation, resentment, emotions left unsaid – all culminated in this instant, standing within a hairsbreadth of her.
Unable to restrain myself any longer, I reached out, my hand gripping her waist firmly as I bridged the gap between us. As our bodies collided, a flood of memories I had desperately tried to suppress surged through me.
“Hayden—”
Before she could finish uttering my name, our lips collided in a fierce, intense kiss.
The heat between us escalated rapidly as our tongues intertwined, each of us desperate for more.
The moment my mouth met hers it felt like something inside my chest snapped into place with a force that nearly knocked the breath out of me.
Her hands pressed against my chest as if she meant to push me away.
But she didn’t.