Hunt heard the ding of a message arriving on his phone and pulled it from the inside pocket of his jacket. Griselda? Now what?
If I sign all the releases and legal documents in the world, would you consider giving me your biological matter for me to use to get pregnant?
Hunt read the message, then read it again to make sense of her request. It sounded like Griselda wanted his sperm...
What the actual hell? Hunt didn’t hesitate, his fingers quickly typing a reply.
That would be a hard no.
What was Griselda thinking? He didn’t want kids, but there wasn’t a chance in hell of him handing over his genes and not having any contact with his child afterward.
And really, if there were a test to prove their suitability as parents, Hunt doubted he and Griselda would pass.
Hunt didn’t know a lot about raising children but he knew they needed love and affection and time. Neither he nor his ex had it in them to provide anything their offspring needed. He didn’t know if he ever would. So why did the image of a little brown-eyed, dark-haired baby keep drifting in and out of his mind, a cute toddler sitting on Santa’s lap, squealing at the sight of presents under the tree?
Those images didn’t stop at babies and toddlers. He could also see himself spending hours in the batting cage with his son, walking his daughter down the aisle...
Hunt rubbed his hands over his face and cursed. What the hell was wrong with him? There had to be a logical explanation. Hunt pondered the problem and decided it had to be a combination of Christmas and viewing the storyboard earlier for the summer advertising campaign for Sheridan Sports featuring happy families engaging in sporting activities. He was overreacting, a natural response to facing what he didn’t have, what he’d once desperately wanted.
He no longer wanted kids, didn’t want a wife or a family to call his own. His work was all that was important, work he could control. Work, unlike his mother, wasn’t a constant disappointment. Work, unlike his first wife, didn’t betray you by spending all your money and sleeping around on you. Work couldn’t die and leave you without your best friend.
Work was simple; relationships weren’t.
Hunt sighed, conscious of a headache building at the back of his skull. All he wanted was a whiskey, a couple of hours of silence and some time to decompress. He couldn’t wait to get up to his quiet, empty apartment and unwind. After a busy weekend and a long day of meetings, he was peopled out.
He needed space to breathe and to think.
That being said, he still, inexplicably, wanted to see Adie, to be with her. She hadn’t come into the office today and he’d missed her, looking up eagerly every time someone knocked on his door. He’d then spent the next ten minutes feeling annoyed at his disappointment.
Despite wanting to be alone, he wouldn’t mind seeing her wide smile, to look into her dark eyes, to hear her say...well, anything in her classy, British accent. Kissing would be great, taking her to bed would be friggin’ fantastic, but he’d reluctantly settle for laying eyes on her.
Needing her, wanting her more than he needed solitude to decompress, irritated the hell out of him.
“Mr. Sheridan? Are you coming in?”
Hunt jerked at the sound of his doorman’s voice and looked over his shoulder to see Glen holding open the door to his building.
Hunt strode inside, desperate for a drink and to slump back on his couch. He’d watch the city lights and try not to miss Adie or Steve and he’d make an attempt to relish his time alone. To banish those images of things he no longer wanted...
“Mr. Sheridan—”
Hunt ignored his doorman’s call, waving his words away. Stepping into the private elevator that would take him directly to his penthouse, he slapped the button to close the door and saw Glen’s shocked face.
“But I need to tell you—”
He’d had enough of people today and whatever Glen had to say could wait. Hunt rested the back of his head on the shiny metal skin of the door and closed his eyes. If he were normal, if he had any skill at relationships, he would be coming home after a crap day and stepping into the warm embrace of a partner, a wife, a significant other. She’d hug him, rub his back, pour him a whiskey and maybe take him to bed to distract him.
He wanted that tonight and for the person waiting for him to be Adie. He so wanted her to be standing in his space when the doors to the elevator slid open, seeing her wide smile and messy short hair.
Hunt shifted from foot to foot, annoyed that he kept pulling thoughts of her front and center. She was getting under his skin. In the middle of his meeting today, he remembered Adie having a long conversation about a skateboard with the hipster clerk at a famous surf and skate shop yesterday, asking him about the width of the deck and low, high and mid trucks. During a call to his accountant, he remembered her spending a half hour debating between two very lifelike, almost creepy-looking baby dolls, her face intense and animated.
She was fun to be around and he could do with her dry sense of humor and quick smile. He also wouldn’t mind getting her naked.
Nope, he wouldn’t mind that at all.
Hunt tapped the back of his head against the elevator wall, mentally and physically frustrated. Adie was someone who worked for him, someone who would be in Manhattan for only the next couple of weeks. He shouldn’t be thinking about her, wishing she were here, missing her.
He never gave women, anyone, this much mental attention and it was time he stopped.