Page 43 of Single Mom's Undoing

“Looking for these?” Jace asks and holds up his hand. My panties are hooked around his finger.

“I was, yes,” I giggle and try to grab them.

“Oh, no, we’re not done yet,” he replies as he throws the panties back on the floor.

“I thought we were going to keep this professional while we were at the office,” I protest.

“I think we’re well past that, don’t you?” Damon smirks.

Carter’s desk phone rings, causing all of us to go quiet. It’s like we just got busted by the teacher.

“Don’t move an inch,” Carter sighs and walks over to his desk. I admire his gloriously naked body as he moves. Every rope of muscle, the tattoos on his back, the faint scars on the back of his right leg. “Hello?”

I don’t know who’s on the other end of the line, but I can read Carter’s face. It causes a knot to tighten in my chest—so tight, in fact, that my fight-or-flight instinct threatens to kick in.

“I’ll need a few minutes,” he says, then hangs up and looks at us, regret written in his expression.

“My father is in the building. He wants to see me.”

And just like that, despite the promises made just moments ago, I’m ready to run.

12

JACE

“No.”

That’s all Clara is able to say. The color has drained from her face. Her lips quiver and her eyes widen with horror. I cannot for the life of me understand where it’s coming from, but it manifests on a visceral level.

She is terrified, barely able to breathe.

“Clara, what’s wrong?” I ask, drawing Carter and Damon’s attention to the sudden shift.

“Are you okay?” Carter turns to look at her.

Clara just shakes her head as she puts her clothes back on with trembling hands, mumbling something I can’t quite make out.

“Where is Bill?” Damon asks Carter.

“Downstairs; he’s waiting for me.”

“I can’t be here,” Clara manages, stumbling as she slips her shoes back on.

I catch her, but she’s quickly startled and jumps away from me as if my hands were red-hot iron rods. “Clara, talk to us, what’s going on?”

“I can’t be here, I need…I need to get out.”

This doesn’t make sense. As I go over her history with Blackthorn Falls, I can’t find any memory of her and Bill Lockwood that would inspire such dread, such a palpable sense of danger. Yet she’s exhibiting all the signs of trauma. She cannot be reasoned with right now.

“I don’t understand,” Damon says. He, too, tries to comfort her, to hold her close, but she only pushes him away.

“You never will. I need to get out of here.”

As if guided by a remote control, she gives each of us a look—the kind of look that feels final, a muted promise that it’s the last time we’ll see each other. She grabs her phone and bolts out of the office.

“Carter, leave her,” I tell him as he’s about to go after her.

“What the hell just happened?” he asks me.