Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (125 page)

But even as I browsed the supermarket,
going from aisle to aisle, checking off items on my list—milk, vegetables,
fruit, chicken, beef, and staples—my thoughts kept turning back again and again
to the subject of Zeke Baxter and our strange personal-professional
relationship. I had actually had sex with him. I had gone on dates with him
with my son in tow. Zeke had gotten closer to me in some respects than my
husband had been in the last months of our marriage before we’d
divorced—definitely he was closer to me than any of the men I’d tried dating on
my own while working as a coach for the matchmaking service. It went without
saying that I was much closer to Zeke in all respects than I had been with any
other client that I’d coached. I’d never even been tempted to let any of the other
men I worked with kiss me, and I certainly wouldn’t have ever let them into my
home.

The real question in my mind was what to
do about the situation.
I’ve been telling
myself that I can still be objective, and that I can still assess and evaluate
him like any other client—but is that really true?
I had technically lied
to Katie about the situation between Zeke and I, in the sense that I hadn’t
told her about kissing him, much less about having sex with him. I knew that
there had been a few other coaches who had gotten inappropriate with their
clients. Katie had mentioned them to me in passing during my time at the
agency. How the company handled the situation varied, but I was pretty sure
that the fact that I hadn’t come clean with the information right when it had
happened would stand against me.

It was hard to tell myself—honestly—that
the opinion I had of Zeke’s progress had nothing at all to do with the fact
that we’d kissed, or the fact that we’d had sex, or especially the fact that
he’d essentially rescued me from a prospective client who could have seriously
harmed me in an attack. It was hard for me to try and say that I was able to be
objective about my coaching, especially after the tantrum I had thrown during
the practice date we’d had when Zeke had talked up the girl he had gone on a
real date with. If I was going to be scrupulously honest with myself—something
that the agency was big on—I had to admit that I wasn’t objective when it came
to Zeke. I was deeply, thoroughly subjective. I couldn’t separate my feelings
towards him from the progress he was making, or my emotions from the coaching I
gave him.

There were two options in my mind: either
I could go to Katie, admit that I had developed feelings towards Zeke, and ask
to be taken off of his case, or I could leave my job. As I wandered around the
produce section, trying to decide which vegetables I could make that Brady
would happily eat—and which I might be sick of and not want to eat for a
while—I thought about each of the options carefully. I knew I couldn’t tell
Katie the extent of what had happened between Zeke and me. I could go so far as
to tell her that I wasn’t able to be objective anymore. In fact, I would be
surprised if she wasn’t expecting me to admit that I had feelings for Zeke,
after my report about the assault. It was exactly the sort of thing that would
cement a general sense of liking a person into something much more serious and
difficult to ignore.

If I got myself reassigned, I would have
to stay away from Zeke. I would have to break the news to him and tell him that
I couldn’t even see him socially anymore because if I did, it would get back to
Katie, and it would look like I was violating a boundary. I couldn’t coach him,
and I couldn’t have anything to do with him. I would keep my job, and I would—I
hoped—move on with my life, but it would be a miserable few weeks of dealing
with other clients who weren’t as good as he was, as quick as he was, or as
charming as he was. I’d be frustrated and lonely again.

The other option would be to quit my job
and be with Zeke. The possibility was exciting and terrifying all at the same
time. There was no way to know how soon I would be able to get another job—or
if I would be able to get another job—and that would put Brady at risk. I definitely
wouldn’t be able to go to any of the other agencies in the city. If I quit, I
would have to give an explanation why and there wasn’t really one that wouldn’t
make me a bad hire for another company, even if I lied about my connection with
Zeke. I’d have to go into another field, and it might take months to get
something.

The other terrifying aspect of that option
was that I had no idea of Zeke was even serious about me. I knew that he liked
me—that was obvious—and he even liked Brady, but he was still working with the
agency. He was clearly still interested in dating someone he could get married
to, someone he could form a real relationship with, instead of the weird
in-between thing we had going on. Never once had he suggested to me directly
that he wanted more than what we had together, even if he had been the one to
make the first move. If I quit my job and moved onto something else—likely
something that didn’t pay as well—and then found out that Zeke didn’t actually
want to be with me, I would have tanked my career for no reason. I would be
putting my son’s food and shelter and clothing at risk only to get nothing in
return but heartache.

“Mama, look out! Look out, Mama.” I shook
myself at the sound of Brady’s voice. I had nearly run into a display of
Cheez-Its, I’d been so lost in thought.

“Thanks, sweetie,” I told him, leaning in
to kiss his forehead. “Mama’s got a lot on her mind. You’re being such a good
lookout!” I gave myself another shake, thinking to myself bleakly that I hadn’t
even decided what I was going to do about Zeke and I was already putting my son
at risk.

“Mama,” Brady said, looking thoughtful.
“Are you lonely?” He had asked me that before, and I couldn’t help but wonder
why my toddler son was so stuck on the idea.

“How can I be lonely when I have you?”

Brady shrugged. “You’re sad sometime,” he
told me. “Like with Daddy.” That made something inside of me cringe. Brady
barely had memories of his father anymore. Alex had no interest in cultivating
a relationship with his son, and since he’d left, I could count the number of
times he’d been around Brady on one hand. But of course, Brady was a little
sponge, just like any young child—he noticed any change in me, any shift in
mood. He would have noticed the way I’d been before the divorce, and he’d
notice the difference in how I acted around Zeke, no matter how hard I tried to
be professional and platonic.

“I’m not lonely, sweetie,” I said,
wondering once again where my son had come up with the concept of loneliness.
“I’ve got you, and I’ve got all my friends, and Miss Katie…”

“And Mr. Zeke?” He looked up at me, almost
anxious.

“And Mr. Zeke,” I conceded, feeling the
blood rush into my face at the mention of him. “He’s one of my friends.”

“He’s nice,” Brady said, smiling broadly.
“You like him. Lots.” I laughed.

“I think you like him lots, too,” I
suggested. Brady thought about that for a moment and then nodded. I sighed and
steered the shopping cart around the display that I’d almost run into, trying
to keep my thoughts strictly on the task at hand. But of course, my mind
started to wander again, especially as I started to unload my purchases onto
the belt. I inched forward, waiting for the elderly couple—one with the cart,
one with a walker—to clear out of the checkout line ahead of me.

“See Mr. Zeke soon?” I glanced at my son,
trying to understand his question.

“You want to see Mr. Zeke again soon?”
Brady nodded. I could have laughed or cried; my son thought that Zeke was one
of the best things since sliced bread—thanks in no small part to the very apt
gifts that Zeke had given him—and I had to make a decision that would either
risk breaking his little heart weeks or months down the line when he found out
that things hadn’t worked out between Zeke and I, or one that would disappoint
him almost as much when he learned the same thing sooner.

“I’ll see what I can do, little bug,” I
told my son, hoping that he would forget about the well-to-do businessman
before I had to be accountable for my promise. “He’s very busy, though, so you
may not see him for a while.” Brady shrugged; for him, a while was any length
of time that wasn’t five minutes into the future—as far as he was concerned, it
was something to look forward to, but not to anticipate. The elderly couple
finally coordinated themselves and moved away from the register and I pushed
the cart into place, smiling at the cashier with more happiness than I actually
felt in the moment. I promised myself that I would make a decision soon. I
couldn’t put it off any longer and I knew it.

Chapter
Thirty Two

Zeke

“Hey, Trevor,” I said, turning to look at
my assistant as he came into my office.

“Yes?” Trevor sat down across the desk
from me and I turned my chair away from my computer.

“I need you to do something for me,” I
started.

“That is normally why you ask me to step
into your office,” he pointed out. I rolled my eyes.

“My dating coach—Natalie. You remember
that she has a three-year-old son, right?”

“I remember,” he confirmed.

“She mentioned that he really likes me a
lot—and I have no reason to doubt her. Can you come up with some date ideas
that would be good for a three-year-old to come with us on?” Trevor gave me a
sharp look. “What?”

“It’s not my job to have an opinion,” he
told me with a shrug.

“Just say it, Trevor.”

“Should you be getting your coach’s kid
involved in your dates with her? That sounds pretty…personal,” he said, giving
me a look.

“It’s not that personal,” I insisted. “She
has a kid, I know about the kid, the kid likes me. She can save some money on a
babysitter.” I shrugged. “Besides, lots of women my age already have kids—why
shouldn’t I get some experience handling them on a date?” Trevor held my gaze
steadily for a few moments and then looked down at his tablet.

“Well, there are a few things that might be
toddler-friendly,” he said, tapping the screen a few times to pull something
up. “The aquarium has a couple of touch-tanks that are kid-friendly, and of
course little kids like aquariums in general.” He scrolled for a moment. “The
zoo is a good option, too.”

“His mom takes him to the zoo a lot,” I
countered. “I don’t want to turn something that she does with her son into a
professional-type thing. Not fair to her.” Trevor shrugged.

“There’s a giant playground, separated by
age, on the other end of the city,” he suggested. “Ball pits, jungle gyms,
climbing nets…the whole thing.”

“Add that one to the list,” I told him.
“See if there are any kid-friendly plays or anything like that going on, too.”
Trevor nodded.

“I’ll look at magicians and stuff, too—see
what I can do. A three-year-old isn’t going to have much of an attention span,
though. Probably best to focus on something that’s active.”

“Good point,” I said, thinking of how much
Brady had enjoyed running around the park: feeding the ducks, playing on the playground,
and being chased with water guns. “Get to work on that.” Trevor made a note and
nodded again.

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” he said,
looking up from his tablet. “Katie from the agency called, and she wants you to
give her the particulars of what you want for your first few dates.”

“Cool,” I said. I smiled slightly, but to
my surprise I didn’t actually feel all that excited by the idea. “I’ll give her
a call in a few. Is there anything else on my calendar we need to discuss?”
Trevor consulted his tablet for a moment, scrolling through items.

“You’ve got a meeting tomorrow before
lunch, and the next day you’ve got that proposal for the Friends of the Forest
benefit, but everything’s ready for those.”

“Snacks arranged for the meeting?” Trevor
nodded.

“Bringing in coffee and donuts, standard
fare,” he said with a shrug. “It’s just before lunch, so I didn’t think
anything heavy would be a good idea.”

“See if you can’t arrange for fresh fruit,
too—Isabel is on a diet, if I remember right.”

“I’ll make it happen,” he told me. He rose
and I gestured that he could go, turning back to my computer. I knew I wasn’t
going to actually work; I was too preoccupied.
Katie is going to start setting me up on dates.
There was something
about that fact that bothered me, even though it was the goal: meeting women I
could form a relationship with and potentially marry.
But if I meet other women…and if I meet someone I can actually date and
eventually marry…I won’t have any reason to keep seeing Natalie.

I sighed. I had decided during our last
date that I needed to get Natalie out of my head. I needed to find someone who
I could actually invest my emotions in. I knew that Natalie wasn’t that
person—she had made it clear that we could never have more than a professional
relationship to each other. But somehow, as long as I was still practicing, I
could ignore the fact that I would eventually stop seeing her. Once I found
someone that I wanted to date seriously, I wouldn’t be getting coaching
anymore, and I’d have to say goodbye to her. “I’m an idiot,” I muttered to
myself in the silence of my office.