Chapter 6

Sebastian.

Several days after I left for my trip, I landed back home early on Wednesday morning. Since I’d left my car at the airport when I left, I just picked it up and made my way back home.

I was happy to be back in the country for several reasons. For one, I was in a country where just about everyone spoke the same language as I did. I’d had a translator following me everywhere on my trip, and it only made me think of Willow trailing behind me all day at the office.

The other thing I was happy about was getting to see Andy again.

I’d been too busy to try and check up on him. Even when I had time, it wasn’t enough to do much. I was either being entertained by my hosts, or being led around, or in a meeting with a bunch of executives. I had almost called back a few times, especially after I saw how many times Willow tried to contact me, but I didn’t want to be distracted, either. By both Willow and Andy.

Hopefully, she was fine while I was away. Andy, too. He could be a handful, but she did say she had some experience…I just hope it wasn’t a fucking lie. If not, then she would be in too much trouble with Andy, but if that was the case she would have called at least.

It was a bit late in the morning when I arrived, and I was feeling tired anyway after the long flight. I wasn’t in the mood for work, so I called in to let them know I’d be in the next day. After the work I’d put in, I didn’t think they’d bother me about taking a day off. I still had work to do, but I could just as easily get back to it tomorrow.

When I arrived home, I was so tired I figured I’d just get into bed and sleep the morning away. There was still Andy, though, and I managed to get a text sent to Willow to let her know I’d landed in the country.

Then, I went to my room and fell asleep.

I woke up hours later to the sound of my bell ringing, and I groaned as I rolled out of bed.

“Who the hell could that be,” I muttered grumpily.

I’d taken off my shoes and discarded my coat somewhere, and loosened my tie, but I was still in the suit I travelled in. I wasn’t in any condition to be taking visitors, but I couldn’t let whoever it was wait for me while I made myself presentable, either. I stumbled my way to the door and pulled it open, only to be surprised at who I saw on the other side of it.

“Willow?”

She was dressed casually today in a simple summer dress with a purse thrown over her shoulder and her hair flowing around her shoulders. I blinked at her, thinking she looked a lot prettier than usual. Not that she wasn’t always pretty, but I only ever saw her at work and she was usually in skirt suits with her hair done up.

What was she doing on my doorstep?

I got my answer when a little person moved around her legs and latched onto mine. I looked down, surprised, and then delighted, to see my son.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, picking him up with a grin. “Daddy’s home! Did you miss me?”

He didn’t reply, just wrapped his arms around my neck and held on tightly, then tucked his face into my neck. I chuckled and patted his back. He did tend to be shy around people he didn’t know well.

“Willow, please come in. I wasn’t expecting you.”

She hesitated, but then sighed and walked inside, before whirling towards me with her arms crossed over her chest and a glare on her face. Not just her dress, but her entire demeanor was completely casual, and different from how she appeared at work.

“I was waiting for you to come and pick up your son since you were in the country, but you took way too long. It’s already really late, you know? And a phone call? Not even once. I was tempted to call you a few times to give you a piece of my mind, but then I thought no. I’ll wait. He’ll call and make sure that his only son hasn’t been murdered, because believe me when I say, that was what I would have been arrested for if I didn’t figure out a way, with some help to calm him down!”

Her face grew red as she spoke and as expected, Andy had behaved far from well, I had hoped that he’d surprised me. But by he look on her face, I could tell that she’d been having a rough time.

“Ah, sorry about that,” I said with a chuckle. “You caught me while I was sleeping, actually. I was a little tired from the flight.”

Willow blinked at me, then; “Oh. Sleeping. You were sleeping? You left him. Do not call once and then you come home to sleep!”

Her arms dropped to her sides, like she’d lost her fight, but it was only momentary, before she put her fists on her hips and scowled at me. “Wow, I’m speechless. Sleeping? No call? Only son….” she kept repeating over and over again. I didn’t know if she was replaying the events in her mind or making a point “And I did miss my little guy, but I was working, Willow, I didn’t go out there to have fun. I didn’t have the luxury of getting distracted, either.”

Since I was all he had, I actually tried to spend a lot of time with my son, but I couldn’t get around all the shit I needed to do to support the both of us after the divorce. She didn’t leave me broke or anything, but after my ex-wife was satisfied with the divorce and the alimony she got from it, I was left with no choice. I’d already quit my old job because it was too demanding, and while my current job took up a lot of my time as well, it was something of a promotion, so it was worth it.

If I’d tried talking with Andy, I would have tried to convince myself to return early, and that was a distraction that would have cost me, especially since I was in a foreign country with a lot of foreign customs, and it would be so easy to insult someone by being careless than I liked.

“You still should have called!” Willow said with such vehemence that I stopped and turned to her in surprise. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through since you left? You didn’t even let me know if he had school or not, I had to look after him over the weekend and the past three days. I couldn’t even go to work, you know!”

I blinked at her. I’d thought she was just annoyed, but looking at her, she was probably furious at me. She was keeping her voice quiet, but her expression couldn’t hide it. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was already panting form the short speech she’d just given, her eyes shining.

“You’re supposed to be a father,” she continued through gritted teeth. “Can you at least pretend like you care for your own kid? I don’t give a… I don’t care about your excuses! No matter what had you occupied, you don’t just disappear on your kid five dam—days! And then you come back and the first thing you do isn’t to pick him up, you f—”

She cut herself off once more and growled, and suddenly, I felt very amused. She was mad, so curse words kept slipping out, but she was trying to be considerate of Andy so she wasn’t saying any of them out loud, and it was frustrating her.

Aside from just being amusing, it was cute, too. Also, Willow angry was so fucking attractive, even more than her serious attitude at work.

“Oka, okay,” I murmured, trying to placate her. “I’m sorry, I know I should have tried to get in touch and I’m sorry I didn’t. Okay? You don’t need to yell at me, I’m sorry, and I’m here already.”

Willow just watched me with a frown set on her face for a bit longer, before she sighed and her stance shifted, her shoulders slumping.

I looked down at Andy, surprised to see his eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep.

“He wakes up really early in the morning,” Willow explained. “Especially today when I let him know you’d be coming back today, and he was practically bouncing off the walls of my apartment before I decided to bring him. I had to call in work to get your address, too. I think he was excited to see you…”

I sighed and patted Andy’s back some more. “Sorry, little guy,” I murmured. “I wanted to see you too, I really did, but Daddy was tired.”

He didn’t reply, or even move, so I guessed he really must have gone to sleep already. Hopefully, he’d tired himself out so he wouldn’t be waking up so early in the morning. It was a habit I was trying to break him off, because as a kid he needed a lot of sleep.

I went and put Andy to bed and it didn’t take him long to get settled in bed. I noticed that he was quiet, which was unusual, which could only mean one thing, he was tired. When I went back to the living room, Willow was still there, waiting for me.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I hope he didn’t cause too much trouble for you?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came from her mouth. It was easy enough to guess things hadn't gone well, and she didn’t want to come out and say it.

“Still, you did surprise me by coming here,” I murmured. “You could have called and I would have picked him up, instead of you coming here.”

“I didn’t mean to be a bother…”

I smirked at her, then moved closer. “Oh, it’s not like I’m complaining. Do you know? I thought of you a lot while I was away, Willow.”

She gave a slow blink, the fading pink on her cheeks darkening once more as I closed the space between us.

“Oh, really?” she said, her voice sounding breathless.

There was a part of my mind that was wondering what I was doing. After what I’d told myself before about not mixing business with pleasure, having Willow in my house, both angry and sexy was pushing my responsibility out the window.

As I neared her, she stumbled a step back. There was nowhere for her to go, though, her back hitting the wall in several steps.

“Wait…,” she murmured, raising a hand and pressing it against my chest.

“Wait for what, hmm? What else did you think would happen is you showed up at my apartment looking like that?”

I covered the hand on my chest with one of mine, and looked down at her. Her dress was tighter around the top, flaring out from her waist and falling above her knees, showing off her sexy legs. The neckline was low, too, revealing her ample cleavage that made me want to bury my face between her breasts. Now that I think about it, we didn’t get to do that when I fucked her in my office.

We were both alone and with Andy asleep, we had all the privacy and no one to catch us. Not like in the office. I couldn’t help but get the one thing I’d craved before I went to China.

Willow.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to leave just like that,” I murmured, ducking to press a kiss to the side of her neck, feeling satisfied when her body shivered and she let out a sigh.

There was a bit of reluctance, but her other hand came up to my chest, only instead of pushing me back, they were just there, her hands rubbing gently over my chest, fanning the flames of my already growing lust.

She bit down on her lip, then looked up at me from underneath her lashes.

“You are such a bad daddy,” she murmured.

The words were innocent enough, but the tone she used and the heavily implied to the breaking point. One of my hands moved to her waist, the other cupping her cheek so I could tilt her head just right as I leaned down for a rough kiss.