When There Is Nothing Left But Love

I did not intend to meddle; I simply cared for the boy and did not wish for him to be harmed. His father was too busy earning a living outside to care much. Today, he was abandoned by his future stepmother. Who knows what would happen tomorrow?

With those thoughts in mind, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the little fellow. It looked like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It was not necessarily all sunshine and rainbows for him.

Ashton’s face changed at my words. He stared at me with an odd look in his eyes.

I was uncomfortable with being scrutinized like that and was about to come up with an excuse to leave when the phone in my purse rang. I extracted it only to discover that it was Emery.

“How’s everything? Are you home yet?” Emery sounded remorseful. “It was all my fault; I should have planned for this beforehand. It was such a rare occasion that we got to hang out and now it’s all ruined.”

“That’s alright,” I consoled her. “We can do this again some time. I walked around by myself for a bit and was preparing to leave. I’ll give you a call once I reach home.”

I had been chatting with Gregory non-stop after we had ordered, and had completely forgotten about Emery.

I ended the call but the screen remained bright as a call from Marcus came in.

It was silent on his end except for his voice. “Have you gone out?”

“Yes.” I glanced at my watch and realized that it was almost seven; he would have gotten off work by now. “I went shopping with Emery and lost track of time. I’m coming home.”

and wait

that’s alright. I’ll hail a

to argue with him if this went on. The only thing

a result, I left the mall

that cause many to glance in our

mall, we discovered

roads would be congested. To hail a cab under these circumstances was completely based on luck at

with a tug on my sleeve. Before I could respond, he turned his large watery eyes toward his father. “Daddy, Ms. Stovall

stood silent without

adults; it wouldn’t do to display our

a low voice. “I’ll drive the car

looked up and he was already

to the hotel entrance. Though it was drenched in rain, his

deliberating on whether I should get in when

us onto Ashton’s car. I had no choice but to allow myself to be

Ms. Stovall’s