Scream For me

Again, I voted for the latter. Sabrina was cold and calculated, a master manipulator. She’d been like this when I’d been with her, tooa lot of red flags had shown themselves when we’d been together, but my infatuation for her had blinded me. It had taken her walking away from me and leaving me to raise a child alone to open my eyes. I might have married her had she not chosen to leave me.

Thank fuck she did.

I shook my head. Before I could say more, the door to my office opened.

“It’s really important. I’m so sorry,” a familiar voice said, and blood ran cold.

“He’s in a meeting,” my secretary tried, but Jade pushed into my office and closed the door behind her quickly, shutting herself in.

She turned to me, breathing hard as if she’d been running. Her cheeks were flushed.

“I have to talk to you,” she said.

Sabrina and Moses both turned in their chairs, looking at Jade. She looked at both of them and swallowed hard.

“You’re busy,” she breathed.

“I am,” I said. “Jade, I can’t talk now.

“It’s about Ben,” she said.

My stomach twisted. Was something wrong? Had something happened?

Sabrina stood. “What about Ben? Is he okay?”

Jade frowned. “He’s okay…I just need to talk to Aaron…”

“Oh, thank God.” Sabrina pressed her hand to her chest and looked Jade up and down with disdain as if were was a bug that needed to be squashed.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t urgent…we’re in a meeting,” Sabrina said tightly.

“Yeah, I get that now. I just…” she looked at me. “I need to talk to you.”

“Who do you think you are?” Sabrina demanded. She looked at me. “Aaron, who is this?”

Sabrina’s demands were ridiculous. She acted like she was in charge of everything. This was my office, my world, my life. Moses stayed silent.

Jade’s frown deepened. “I’m Jade. I’m…” she hesitated. How was she going to introduce herself to Sabrina? As my girlfriend? We hadn’t finalized any of that. I’d told her how I felt, but I would talk to her about it all this weekend.

“I’m Ben’s nanny,” she finally said meekly.

“Oh, good. You have someone to look after him. At least it seems like you have things down pat for the most part. That should look okay in court, I imagine. You have something going for you, Aaron.” Sabrina turned to

Jade. “I’m Ben’s mother.”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

Jade paled. “What?” She looked at me with questions in her eyes.

“I’ll talk to you later, Jade,” I said curtly. “I’m in the middle of something.”

Jade swallowed hard. I saw the warring emotions on her facethe confusion about what Sabrina was doing here, the shock.

“I need to talk to you,” Jade said again.

I shook my head, trying to balance the two parts of my life. How was it possible that the past and the present collided like this?

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back,” I said to Sabrina and Mr. Moses.

Sabrina’s eyes flashed at me. “We have an appointment, Aaron. Howard is on the clock.”

“I won’t be a minute,” I said sharply and gestured for Jade to walk to the door. I opened it for her, and when we stepped out, I sent my secretary to fetch two cups of coffee from the kitchen.

When we were alone, I turned to Jade.

“What’s going on, Aaron?” she asked me.

“It’s complicated.”

“I thought she wasn’t in your life.”

“She’s not.”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of this, but I need to talk to you about Hannah.”

I frowned. “Who’s Hannah?”

“My boss,” Jade said. “The woman who owns the company I work for.” “Oh, as a nanny,” I said.

Jade shook her head and looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

“That’s the thing. I’m not a nanny.”

I frowned, shaking my head. “I don’t understand.”

She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t honest with you. When I came to see you, it was because the nanny I arranged fell through, and I couldn’t figure out a way to get you someone else. I went instead. I’m not a nanny, and”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.

“I tried, but”

“You tried? What does that even mean?” Before Jade could answer, I shook my head. “I don’t have time to deal with this right now.”

“I’m not allowed to work for you anymore. Hannah is going to call you to tell you that. I’ll still pick Ben up later, but I have to” “I’ll pick Ben up,” I said, cutting her off.

“What?”

“You don’t have to worry about it. Sabrina will want to see him and” I cut myself off. I didn’t have time to explain. Just saying the words made me feel like I was going to throw up. “Go home, Jade. I’ll call you after all this blows over.”

Jade’s frown deepened. “You’re firing me?”

“You just said you’re not a nanny. I’m telling you not to pick Ben up later. I’ll do that, and then we’ll see each other and talk about this. I just can’t deal with this right now. Sabrina is in there, waiting for me.”

“She hasn’t been around for ten years,” Jade said. “You want to prioritize her over Ben, over me?”

“She’s Ben’s mother,” I said.

Jade’s face changed, going from shocked to closed off.

“I can’t deal with this right now. If you can’t be Ben’s nanny, then fine, don’t be his nanny. I just need to get back in there.”

“Are we still okay?” Jade asked. Her face was worried now. “You and me, outside the nanny thing…”

I shook my head. “I have to deal with this right now, okay? Everything is different now that she’s back. I can’t do this.” I needed her to understand. I needed her to hang back. I couldn’t deal with a new relationship on top of the complication of Sabrina and her lawyer there and I didn’t have the time to explain it to her.

Jade’s face changed again.

“You can’t do this,” she echoed. “What happened to you wanting to do this long-term, to asking me not to be the one to leave?”

I shook my head. This was too much for me to deal with. My life was a perfectly stacked house of cards that I’d balanced carefully for years. Now that Sabrina was back, it all came crashing down.

“Will you call me?” Jade asked.

“I have to deal with Sabrina, I can’t right now,” I said.

“You can’t, or you won’t?” Jade asked. I was starting to panic about being out here with her this long if they were in there, talking about how they could take Ben away from me.

“It’s just complicated right now. We’re back in the real world right now, and you have your life to deal with. I have my life to figure out, too. With Sabrina showing up, I can’t do it all. Maybe we should just leave it at the week in Aspen and be done with it.”

Jade gasped. “I thought you were serious when you said you wanted more.” Her voice became higher pitched. “You told me this wasn’t just a fling. I asked you, Aaron. I asked you what about your track record, and you told me this was different…you told me this was serious.” Her eyes welled with tears, and a pang shot through my chest. Damn it. I had to choose which one I was willing to lose. Jade and Ben were both slipping through my fingers right now.

“I was serious,” I said.

“You just changed your mind.” Her eyes became dull, her tone accusing.

“I have to get back in there,” I said. Jade was angry with me, and it all came across as wrong, but I would lose Ben if I didn’t do something. I couldn’t do thatnot after everything we’d been through together. He was my everything. He was all I had. I was about to lose Jade because she didn’t understand, but it was a no-brainer if I had to choose between losing Ben or Jade.

“I’ll call you later, and we can talk about this,” I said.

“Don’t bother,” Jade snapped, her eyes spewing fire at me now. “I get it.”

She turned around and marched away. I wanted to call after her, but I had to get back in there. My life with Ben was at stake. Everything I’d done as a father hung in the balance right now, and if I wasn’t careful, it would all spin out of control.

I couldn’t afford to lose it all. I’d felt for a long, long time that I was trapped as a father, unable to live my life the way I would have wanted to because of it, but if I had to choose between Ben and a life of freedom, I would choose Ben every day.

I couldn’t let Sabrina take that choice away from me.