“Dad,” he whined.

“I mean it,” I shot out. “I’ll have Mrs. Giroux order pizzas, and you and your friends can have the media room, but no one in my den. And don’t even think about trying to break through the parental controls on Pay-Per-View.”

“How come you can watch porn?” he blurted out sarcastically, and I heard a mother nearby gasp.

I leaned in, pulling him close by the back of the neck. “A. The controls are for R-rated movies, not porn,” I lied. “B. Who says I even watch porn? And C,” I continued, “I went to college, so I can do whatever the hell I want. Now, go get your friends.”

He smiled, brushing me off as he left to go round up his classmates.

I moved to head for the car, but then I looked up and I stopped.

Easton was in her classroom, walking by the window, but as soon as I spotted her, she disappeared.

I tilted my chin up farther, trying to see her again, but she wasn’t near the windows anymore, and I didn’t know what to do.

Leave her alone. For her sake and for mine.

It wasn’t even about Jack and what he’d just told me in the auditorium. I’d always known that Easton was a strong woman and she would be fine.

But my heart was racing, and I refused to think about what I was doing. I walked toward the school and climbed the steps, needing more than anything to look at her for just one moment.

Stopping at her classroom door, I watched her pad around in her bare feet, her heels lying next to her desk, and arch up on her tiptoes to stack books on top of a wardrobe cabinet.

Coming up behind her, I reached up and pushed the book into place for her.

She sucked in a sharp breath and whirled around, the long, sexy bangs of her deep brown hair falling over one eye.

“Mr. Marek.” Her small voice sounded out of breath.

Her red blouse was only one inch from my chest, and her little black pencil skirt only reminded me of how well I’d feel her if I took her in my hands right now.

But I backed up, forcing some distance.

“I owe you an explanation,” I told her.

Her expression turned emotionless. “No, Mr. Marek,” she replied stiffly. “You don’t.”

I had never told her our relationship was over. I’d never warned her I wouldn’t call again. I’d simply stopped. I owed her an apology and an explanation, and I wanted her to hear it.

“My son needs to come first,” I explained.

She walked around her desk and turned to face me, her back and shoulders straight. “Of course he does,” she agreed. “Christian is what’s most important, and we were wrong. You made the right choice.”

I narrowed my eyes on her. Why was she acting like that? Where was the sharp tongue? The temper?

At least yell at me when you tell me you don’t care.

“Are you attending the Greystone Ball on Halloween?” I inquired.

She shook her head. “No. Why would I?”

“Your brother is interning with their firm, right? I thought he’d be taking you.”

“How did you know about the internship?” She squinted her eyes at me.

But I ignored the question. I wouldn’t tell that I’d made the call after the luncheon to get him that position.

She waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, she sighed. “I’m not going.”

I watched her, wanting her to know so many things. That I thought about her every day, nearly all day. There was hardly a minute when she didn’t cross my mind.

That I couldn’t smell her in my bedroom anymore, and that I wanted to touch her.

If nothing else, I needed her to know how much she had mattered to me and still did.

Stepping up behind her desk, I hovered over her, seeing her breathing turn shallow. “Being a man is making hard choices and living with them,” I told her, “no matter how much it hurts.”

And then I reached out and ran my thumb across her cheek. “I miss you,” I whispered.

Her cold expression slowly started to crack, and her face turned sad.

Looking up at me, she shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she argued. “Being a man is having the wisdom – and the courage – to make the right choices.”

And then she took my hand off her face and evened out her expression.

“And you have,” she told me. “You’re a good father, Mr. Marek.”

So cold.

Her heart is a machine.

She turned away, but I reached out and pulled her in to my body, hearing her breath shake.

“Say you miss me,” I begged, whispering in her ear. “If you say that, then I can leave you alone. I can stop risking my relationship with my son, who is standing right downstairs, and my campaign, knowing that it wasn’t just sex.”

As I spoke, I held her cheek with my hand, turning her lips to meet mine. “Say you miss me,” I whispered against her mouth. “And that you won’t forget me. Ask me if I think about you and miss you every day.”

She softened and let her lips fall to mine, kissing me gently, and then looked at me with pity in her eyes.

“Oh, Tyler,” she lamented, speaking quietly. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want the answers to.”

And then she pulled out of my arms and calmly walked from the room, away from me.

TWENTY-FOUR

EASTON

I finished writing out Twitter handles for the students to follow for homework and capped my dry-erase marker, turning around and calling to the students, “Flip.”