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“Your future. With me,” he said simply, his warm gaze searching her face as if he liked what he saw. And wanted more.
Her heart dropped to her toes and without thought she pushed back her chair. “Well, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.” She glanced at Matty as she stood. “Let’s go to the bathroom and wash our hands.”
“Paige…” Matteo started but clamped his lips shut when she looked at him. Did he see the turmoil in her gaze? Did he know what she wrestled with day in and day out? Her feelings for him threatened to burst out of her chest like that horrible little alien from the scary movie she watched as a child. She still had the occasional nightmare about it.
She could not endure this torture any longer. He spoke of a future and she saw love and marriage and babies when he most likely saw her accompanying Matty to school and maybe finding her a uniform so she looked more like an official employee and less like a member of the family. Did they even do that sort of thing? She hadn’t a clue.
God, she was so stupid.
“Matty, let’s go,” she whispered, drawing the little boy’s attention. He stared at her with those big, velvety brown eyes, his gaze troubled. Lord help her, he was far too perceptive for his own good. The complete opposite of his blind-as-a-bat father.
“Okay.” Matty stood and took her hand, walking beside her as she led him to the bathroom. The restaurant was full, the space small so the tables were crowded within the room. Most of them occupied by couples involved in intimate conversations and as she passed by one table in particular, she nearly tripped over her own feet.
The man sitting there was her former boss, Paul Leonard, his arms stretched across the small table, clutching the hands of the woman who sat across from him.
Revulsion filled her, making her recoil in fear as she remembered what he did to her as if it were yesterday. She’d been in the laundry room, folding the children’s clean clothes when he’d accosted her out of nowhere, his hands all over her body, trying to slip beneath the hem of her T-shirt, the waistband of her jeans.
That’s how his wife had found them, Paige plastered against the wall and pushing him off. Paul’s mouth latching on to hers, his hands busy while she screamed against his disgusting lips. He’d let Paige take the blame for everything, never saying a word when his wife accused her of being a shameless slut messing around with her husband. He didn’t protest when Carolyn Leonard fired her either.
He was the worst sort of scum.
And the woman whose hands Paul Leonard held now was most definitely not his wife. Not that she was surprised he was out with another woman. She was shocked that she actually saw him after all these months. So odd. It was as if she’d conjured him from the very thoughts she had only a few moments ago.
“Hurry, Matty,” Paige whispered, jerking on his hand as they scurried toward the bathroom on the other side of the building. She hoped like crazy Paul didn’t notice them.
Paul glanced up at the precise moment she sped past his table, recognition dawning in his narrowed eyes. She looked away, embarrassed that he would see her, and nearly sagged against the door in relief when she found the bathroom.
She helped Matty wash his hands, noted that her own were shaking and she willed them to stop. Just seeing him had her heart beating like crazy and her entire body trembling in fear.
The man had the heart of a monster. Slick, charming, always smiling, always friendly on the outside, yet dark, foreboding and so incredibly cruel within. Those few moments of stark terror she’d experienced when he yanked her into his arms and tried his best to maul her still lingered in the back of her mind.
Would she ever be able to completely banish what Paul Leonard did to her from her memories? God, she hoped so.
“Are you okay, Paige?” Worry was written all over Matty’s face as he dried his little hands with a bunched up paper towel and her heart went out to him. He was so sensitive to other people’s feelings and at such a young age too. She always believed it had something to do with his relationship with his mother. He’d known even as a very small child—a mere baby—that something was wrong with the woman. Stasia had told her more than once Matty had worked extra hard to earn the approval and love of his mother but she’d always pushed him away. Ignored him.
Paige didn’t know how she could’ve stood it. Matty was like a shining little happy light wherever he went. She’d fallen in love with him.
Just as easily as she’d fallen for his father.
“I’m fine, Matty. Just…I saw someone I don’t like very much out there.” She dried her own hands, tossing the crumpled towel in the trashcan. Matty followed suit.
