Chapter 2
WHAT’S YOUR SIZE?
PAIGE
My name came out rough and confused out of his mouth.
I watched his gaze travel from my face to Lily and back to me.
I had left the house so fast I hadn’t even grabbed my coat. My white blouse was wrinkled and stained with spit-up. My hair had fallen out of its usual neat bun with a few strands sticking to my wet cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was nothing but a broken whisper. “I shouldn’t have come here. I didn’t know where else… I couldn’t—”
My words cracked and then the careful control I had been clutching just shattered.
A sob tore from my throat. It was raw, ugly and utterly mortifying. I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying desperately to shove it back in, to be Professional Paige again. But it was too late. The dam had broken.
“She was in our bed, Derek,” I said, my words coming out strangled between sobs. “While I was at work, while I was getting your dry cleaning and confirming your dinner reservations, he was—”
I couldn’t finish. Flashes of them together, giggling and kissing as our bed creaked, made me want to be sick.
Derek moved fast.
One second he was standing in the doorway looking shocked, and the next his hand was on my arm, warm and solid, pulling me inside.
The door clicked shut behind me, and suddenly I was in his space. His home.
“Your date,” I said between my sniffles. “You have a date tonight. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Paige,” he said, his deep voice cut through my spiral. It was firm but gentle. “Stop. The only thing that matters is that you’re here now.”
I looked up at him, and his expression made my chest ache. He wasn’t looking at me as if I were his assistant. He was looking at me as if I mattered and someone worth saving.
Like his friend, maybe.
“Sit down,” he said, and it wasn’t a request.
His hand moved to the small of my back, steering me toward the massive leather sofa. I let him guide me because I didn’t have the strength to do anything else. Lily had started to fuss, picking up on my distress, and I bounced her while my hands shook.
He disappeared into the kitchen and returned instantly with a tall glass of water, pressing it into my trembling hand. “Drink this. Now.”
I obeyed, taking small sips while Lily’s fussing escalated to full crying. I rocked her, bounced her, made the shushing sounds that usually worked, but tonight everything was wrong.
“I can’t even calm my own daughter,” I choked out, getting annoyed at myself. “What kind of mother am I?”
“Stop it.” Derek crouched in front of me, and the intensity in his eyes made me catch my breath. “You’re a perfect mother, Paige. You protected her. That’s all that matters.”
Protected her. The words hit hard. I had grabbed Lily and left without looking back, even when Jack called after me with panic or anger or whatever emotion he had manufactured.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” I whispered. “My parents are in Europe. My sister’s in Texas. And I couldn’t stay there another second. I couldn’t breathe, Derek.”
His jaw tightened and in the dim light, with his wet hair falling across his forehead and his eyes gleaming with protectiveness. He looked nothing like the smooth, charming playboy I knew.
He looked dangerous.
“You did the right thing,” he whispered. “Coming here to me, to my home. You did exactly the right thing.”
Lily’s cries had subsided to hiccupping whimpers. I realized Derek was making silly faces, and despite everything, a small, broken laugh escaped me.
“Is that your solution? Ridiculous faces?”
“Hey, it’s working.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. Then his expression sobered. “You’re staying here tonight. Both of you. This isn’t a discussion.”
“Derek but I—”
“No arguments, Paige,” he said standing up and running a hand through his damp hair. “I’ll cancel my date. You and Lily take the guest room. My home is your home and tomorrow we’ll figure out the rest.”
Tomorrow. The word felt impossible.
I looked down at Lily, at her perfect little face and her wide, curious eyes.
“Thank you,” I whispered, blinking up at him.
When Derek looked at me, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t just about being friendly to someone you grew up with or helping an employee in trouble. It was something else.
Something deeper.
“Always, Paige,” he whispered, his eyes softening and displaying a different set of emotions that were hard to decipher. “You should have come to me a long time ago.”
I let myself wonder just for a moment. What would have happened if I had?
I blinked back those dangerous thoughts and followed Derek’s voice through his massive penthouse.
The space smelled of leather, wood, and rain.
It was clean and masculine in a way that made me hyperaware of how disheveled I must look.
Upstairs, he showed me the guest room, wearing a faded t-shirt that stretched across his shoulders, his hair still damp and curling slightly at the nape of his neck.
Despite the chaos I had fled, there was something oddly intimate about seeing Derek like this.
Barefoot and casual in his sweats. Showing me where he kept the shower products and asking if I preferred something with shea butter.
This wasn’t the sharp-suited attorney who terrified opposing counsel.
This was the boy who used to steal cookies from my mom’s kitchen.
“I’ll leave these for you,” he said, setting folded clothes on the edge of the bed. His attention shifted to Lily, who was nestled between pillows on the mattress, and his entire expression softened. “Hey there, little one.”
“You’re so cute,” he whispered to her in an exaggerated baby voice.
“She has your hair,” he observed, glancing between us. “Your nose too. And—”
He leaned in closer to examine her face, and Lily’s tiny fist shot out like a viper, latching onto a fistful of his dark hair. She yanked hard enough to make him yelp.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Actually laughed for the first time in hours as panic flooded Derek’s face and he froze like he had been caught in a trap.
“Don’t move,” I said, still laughing as I carefully pried Lily’s determined fingers open, cooing softly until she finally released her death grip on my boss’s hair.
“And most definitely your temper,” Derek breathed out, smoothing down the disheveled strands.
He offered to watch her while I showered and changed into clothes that didn’t smell like baby spit.
He cleared his throat, suddenly very interested in the ceiling. “I, uh... what’s your size?”
I blinked at him.
His eyes darted down from my neckline to my waist before snapping away. He looked back, his eyes dark, dropping to my cleavage and returning to my gaze.
“Before you call me a pervert,” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I only need it so I can order you some comfortable... clothes. Pajamas. And, you know. Lingerie or whatever.”
Despite everything—despite Jack and my broken marriage—I felt a smile tugging at my lips. Derek looked genuinely flustered, which was not an expression I had ever seen on him in the office.
“I thought you remembered it well,” I said, unable to resist teasing him about the time he had barged into my room when we were teenagers and tortured me about my bra size for an entire school year.
Teenage Derek was a jerk. A cute jerk, though.
His blue eyes widened. Then his gaze dropped to my chest and returned to my face with the most serious expression I had ever seen.
“I remember perfectly,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “And they’re definitely not thirty-four B anymore, Paige.”
The air felt suddenly charged as heat flooded my cheeks.
“I-I… you…” I stuttered, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at his head. “Pervert!”
He caught the pillow with a wolfish grin.
“I’m just being helpful,” he said, blinking innocently. “Accurate measurements are important for online shopping.”
“Shut. Up.” I could feel my cheeks get hotter.
“Thirty-six C, maybe?” he asked, tilting his head. “Thirty-six D? Post-baby curves look good on you, Paige.”
“Derek. Jane. Peterson—”
His laughter echoed through the room. It was warm and genuine, and despite the worst night of my life, I found myself smiling once I locked the bathroom door behind me.
Maybe, just maybe, I am going to be okay.