16. Mia
16
MIA
A s I woke up the next morning, I held in a quiet moan at the aches in my muscles. Keeping my eyes closed, I wondered why I’d worked so hard at Danger. New dance routines challenged me, and it gave my legs and arms variations of a workout, but Gina hadn’t changed the routines lately.
Wait.
My eyes popped open as I realized that this wasn’t my bed, wasn’t my lumpy mattress and thin blankets. I wasn’t in my room with the AC on the spritz, hotter and muggier than hell with the end of this New York summer.
Because I was in Henry’s bed. I lay next to him, naked, in his room.
All at once, it came back to me. I’d taken the risk to kiss him, and even though we were worried about Jason being ill, we’d ended up here where I’d danced and stripped, then…
Oh, my God.
I stared at Henry sleeping away, his handsome, rugged face so peaceful with half of it smushed into his pillow.
I fucked my boss!
I cringed, squeezing my eyes shut.
No. I didn’t fuck my boss. I slept with the man of my dreams. Literally. I’d lost count of how many dreams he'd starred in over the years. And the reality of feeling him sliding into me was far, far better than I ever could have imagined.
That was what I felt. The slight soreness I registered wasn’t from dancing. It was from making love with the one guy I tried to tell myself I couldn’t have.
Wincing, I hurried to slip out of the bed without waking him. I had no business having sex with him at all, let alone caving again and again. He’d woken me twice to take me again, and each time felt better than the one before. I had a hunch Henry would never disappoint between the sheets, but I was wrong to assume I could test that theory.
I never should’ve caved to my desire for him at all.
I tugged on my clothes, trying to be quiet as I checked the time.
Shit! It was so late. I wasn’t due at the office for a few hours, but I’d wanted to get up much earlier than this. First of all, I had to hustle and slip out of here before he woke up. I had no clue how to face him now that we’d crossed so many lines that there was no way to know which way was up. Second of all, I had to make sure I could do this walk—or run—of shame out of here before Jason got up too. I wouldn’t know how to explain to him that I’d stayed the night with his daddy.
Because shame was exactly what I felt. I drowned it in, almost rooted in disbelief that we’d done it. We’d both fallen prey to a desire so potent we couldn’t resist. We couldn’t. We shouldn’t have. There were strict rules at Dunn Enterprises.
I didn’t regret it, but we had to figure out how to cover it up and keep it on the down-low.
As soon as I stepped out of Henry’s room and heard Jason’s voice near the kitchen, I realized I was already stuck.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
I scrambled to think of a way out of his seeing me, but it was a futile brainstorm. As I walked down the hall, he noticed me in the reflection of the oven’s glass surface.
“Mia!” He smiled but didn’t get up from his seat on the counter. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
I steadied my breaths, hoping I’d look calm and cool. “I came with your dad last night when we heard you were sick.” Spotting the bowl of plain cereal he’d poured for himself, I hoped he was feeling better.
“And spent the night in the guest room?” He furrowed his brow as I reached him in the kitchen.
“Yep!”
“Yay!” He grinned.
“Feeling better?”
“Oh, yeah! I think I ate too much cotton candy last night. And then my tummy felt funny. Throwing up made me feel better.”
I smiled, brushing his hair back on his head. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. You look like you’re feeling better.”
“Uh-huh.” His smile stayed put as he lowered his gaze to the tablet where he played a game. He was self-sufficient for a young boy, able to pour cereal and preoccupy himself in the morning. He had always been like this, and Henry had praised his morning routine more than once.
I hope that means he didn’t come looking for Henry this morning. Then again, the bedroom door had been locked.
“I’ll see you later, okay? Now that I know you’re better, I should get going?—”
“No, stay. Grandpa will be here for brunch soon.”
“Oh, I don’t want to invite myself. I should?—”
“Stay. Please?” He turned those sad puppy dog eyes on me, and I laughed lightly.
“I should go. I have to work today.”
“So does Daddy, but he’ll have brunch.” He grinned, looking past me.
I turned to find Henry striding toward us. In low-hanging sweatpants that should’ve been illegal, bare-chested, and with his hair mussed from sleep, he was mouth-wateringly, devastatingly sexy.
“Yeah, stay for brunch, Mia.” He grinned, cocky and damn well knowing I had to feel put on the spot.
“Maybe for a while,” I relented.
“Yay!” Jason scooted out a stool for me, and I took it, charmed by the boy who always wanted to include me in his life. I was turned on all over again at the sight of Henry cooking at the stove, too. Once again, I had to fight back the emotions of heartfelt longing.
This domestic scene was just what I wished to have one day.
When Eddie arrived, though, his surprise at seeing me there threw me off. He noticed my clothes, and I prayed that I wasn’t blushing so fiercely that he’d see it. I was wearing the same things I had on last night, and the implications would be clear that I’d stayed overnight. Still, he refused to hear of my leaving, insistent that I stay until brunch was over.
Jason proved to be a much-needed distraction, chattering and keeping me company while Henry tried to get me to look at him. The less I made eye contact, the better chances I had of not blushing. The mere memories of what he’d done with me last night threatened to make me turn as red as a tomato, and I didn’t want to risk his son or father observing my being vulnerable and meek like that.
Unfortunately, Jason became a significant distraction when he spilled orange juice on my phone on the counter. It soaked into the soft outer part of the case, and I hurried to get it off and dry it.
“Oh, crap,” I muttered, cringing at the mess.
“I’m sorry!” Jason hadn’t done it on purpose. He’d moved his arm too quickly. With cracks already marring the screen, though, the acidic juice screwed up the whole device.
No matter how much Henry, Eddie, and I tried to mop it up then dry my phone, it was obvious the phone was ruined. I bet I could still make calls, but the screen was shot.
“I’m sorry, Mia,” Jason repeated.
I gave him a strained smile. “I know. It was just an accident.”
Anger kicked in deep down, though, because there was no way I’d be able to afford a replacement. It was my own fault that I tried to save and keep this already cracked phone for as long as I could. Had I gotten a replacement sooner, I bet the juice wouldn’t have ruined it as quickly.
At the sink, Eddie stood with me to clean up while Henry and Jason wiped the stickiness off the table. “We’ll get you a replacement,” Eddie said.
“You will not,” I argued.
He chuckled. “Obstinate as ever, I see.”
I smiled, unoffended. Eddie Dunn had always tried to look out for me. It meant the world to me when he got me that job all those years ago, but from day one, I refused to accept charity from him.
He’d become a fatherly figure when I needed one the most. And I wanted to wince at the thought that I was paying him back for that generosity by sleeping with his son.
“Aside from this phone,” he said, “how has everything been going?” He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the counter.
I still worked on pressing napkins to my phone, bitter and depressed that I’d need to replace it. I was saving all I could to expunge my record. Money was tight on top of all the debts from my four years in college.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to school?” he asked before I could answer his first, more general question.
“No.” I sighed, setting my phone on the counter. “I’m not sure that I will.”
For so long, my drive had been to go to law school. But so much time had passed since then that I wasn’t convinced I even wanted to do that anymore. Besides, even with the act of expunging my record, I’d never be able to get a job in the legal field. Not as a paralegal, attorney, anything. Even if I passed the bar, my record would forever be a stain on my name.
Honestly, all I wanted now was a family, not a career. I wanted to belong with the family I’d found here. With Jason and Henry. Even with Laura and Eddie. I loved being included in their lives, and I wished I could fit in as a permanent person to stay for good.
My father was in prison, and my mother passed away from cancer a month before I turned eighteen. I didn’t have anyone, and I wished I had these wonderful people as my family.
Jason called Eddie over, and he paused before leaving me at the sink. He regarded me carefully, as though he waited to say something else but debated it.
“Just know that if you ever need help with getting the future you want, I’ll do what I can to make that happen.”
I almost laughed. He could help by not bringing vapid, annoying women in for Henry to date. He could stop introducing gold diggers to the man I loved.
Yeah, right. I smiled and nodded. “I appreciate all that you’ve done for me,” I told him seriously.
As he walked away, though, I was hit with the conviction that he would always see me as a charity case. Something less than and needy. The young woman with a record he took under his wing when he hired me at Dunn Enterprises.
He’d never see me as a potential daughter-in-law.
I began to excuse myself, shoving my phone in my purse as I slipped away and left them to be a real family. On the walk down to the street level, my heart hung heavy with renewed aches.
I couldn’t dismiss this thought of never getting what I really wanted in life.
Eddie would never want me and Henry to stay together.
All Henry really had for me was a one-night stand. That had to be it. Now that we’d caved to the desire we’d put off for so long, that was it.
A tear streaked down my cheek at the yearning for something so far out of my reach.
There would be no repeat with Henry. I had no business wishing I could just be his and fit in with him in his home.
Stop the pity party, dammit. I wiped my cheek as the subway moved, bringing me closer to my neighborhood far from Henry’s skyscraper.
Torn with the ache to want the impossible, I tried to clear my head. I vowed to double down on doing what I was in control of. I couldn’t ever change the circumstances of who I was and who he was. I couldn’t erase my past. I couldn’t ask him to change the ethics policies at the office.
We simply wouldn’t ever work due to things I couldn’t change or control.
Instead, I could work on my debt. Make money. I could focus on expunging my record and getting over the mistakes of my past.
Maybe one day, I’d be able to feel worthy of someone else.
Not Henry Dunn.
I had a taste of him, but that was all that would ever be on the menu for me.
It was past time that I let that reminder sink in and stay in my head.