Page 20 of Good Intentions, Vol. 2

And I would do anything humanly possible to keep my son with me.

And I would never stop before I got what I wanted.

There was no way in Hell Claire would take him away from me.

But for the last three days, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Heather and tell her what I wanted.

I didn’t get the chance to even hold her in my arms, or to sleep beside her. From the moment she let me enter her apartment; there was no other place I wanted to be.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Beth’s tentative voice fills my office through the speaker. “Heather’s not in. She’s on the lunch meeting with Mr. Matthews.”

“What’s she doing with him? We closed that deal months ago.” I ask.

“I don’t know, Sir. Oh..” the startled sound comes from the speaker, but before I can ask if she’s okay, she rushes to tell me. “Sir, your wife...” the last of her words are drowned out by a loud bang of the door against the wall. The woman in question is standing on the threshold with a strange look on her face.

“I got it, Beth,” I sigh not taking my eyes from her. “Thank you.” I don’t know when the last time was I did it, but right now I’m praying. Praying that He would give me the patience so I wouldn’t strangle the woman who made my life a living Hell. “What do you want Claire?” I don’t want her here. I don’t have the patience or the time to deal with her bullshit. I have to find out what the hell is going on with Heather.

She turns and closes the door. “We need to talk, Nick,” she murmurs softly.

Her tone has me on edge momentarily, “Is it Ben?”

“No,” she sighs and starts walking to my desk. Then she sits in the chair in front of it, the one Heather always sits in and that irritates more than anything she’s ever done. She has no right sitting there. She has no right coming into my office on a whim.

But the fact she hasn’t once looked at me after she closed the door or the fact she didn’t start ranting or demanding something right off the bat fills me with dread.

Something’s wrong.

“Claire, tell me. Is it Ben?”

“As I said, no, it’s not Ben,” again with the soft words. Fuck, what the hell is going on?

“Then what?” I’m almost too afraid to ask.

“It’s me,” she says in her soft tone and finally looks at me and, fuck me, there’s tears in her eyes.

When I don’t say anything, just look at her stunned, she goes on and tilts my world filling me with more guilt than I ever thought is possible one man can ever feel.

Goddamnit, Claire.

What the fuck do I do now?