“More than I have in a long time.” She glanced down between them as all the implications of the evening hit her at once.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
“The kids . . .” she bit her lip.
He tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Don’t worry. I understand that if I want to date a woman with children, I will be playing by other rules. We won’t let on a thing, and they’re young enough that they won’t catch on unless we tell them.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t want them to know, eventually, but this is new, and they already love you so much. If something—”
“Shhh.” Blake placed a finger over her lips, silencing her.
“It’s okay. I understand. No worries, all right. Let’s just . . . see where this goes.”
Mel nodded. She liked the sound of that, seeing where this thing with her and Blake went, which reminded her . . . She groaned and let her head fall back to the wall behind her.
Blake laughed. “Now what?”
“I almost forgot. I have this work thing I have to go to Saturday. It’s a company party which are usually boring. Would you go with me?”
“Look at you, asking me on a date this time.”
Mel jabbed a finger in his ribs. “In all fairness, I didn’t realize tonight was a date. You could’ve told me about Jen before.”
Blake shrugged. “I guess I wanted to make sure I knew how you felt about me first. I thought maybe I’d imagined that something was there.”
“You didn’t imagine it,” she said, catching her breath.
“No?” He leaned in.
“No,” she whispered against his lips.
“Mel?” The deep voice echoed through the hall, jolting through her like an electric shock.
Mel blinked, breathing Blake in as she tried to wrap her head around that voice. Because it sounded like. . .
She turned toward the sound, her moment with Blake broken, and the air froze in her lungs. The blood drained from her face.
There, in the hallway, under the dim light, stood a ghost. “Craig,” she whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MEL
Mel had dreamed of this moment a million times, but in those dreams never had she imagined it might actually happen. Especially like this.
“Mel,” Craig said, his voice a sigh, like she had been lost at sea, and he had finally found her. But Mel hadn’t been lost. She’d been right there in the city, where he left her, all along.
She felt Blake stiffen beside her as her mind raced, trying to make sense of Craig there at her apartment. “What—what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” He stepped closer, giving her a clearer look at him.
He had the same blue eyes and wavy, honey-blonde hair as she remembered. His angled cheekbones seemed more prominent than before, as if the years apart had somehow made him less of a boy than a man. A chest and stomach that she knew were once taut lines and hard muscle appeared to have turned slightly soft in her absence, but he was still handsome. He still had that ability to draw her in with just one look, one glance.
“Um, Blake, can we have a moment?” she asked, angling her head toward him but unable to meet his gaze.
“Sure,” he said beside her.
She handed him her keys with shaking hands, and only once he let himself inside, did she turn back to Craig. “Why?” she asked, stepping closer. “Why now? Why are you back?”