Alle Kapitel von DON'T BEG ME NOW, MR. ARMSTRONG : Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 40

For a full second, my brain simply stopped working.My eyes landed somewhere around Brandon’s collarbone before instinct forced them upward again. His hair looked slightly damp, like he’d just showered, and there was a faint flush across his shoulders.Heat rushed to my face."I—" I cleared my throat quickly. "Did I come at a bad time?" For a moment, Brandon looked just as thrown as I felt. His mouth opened, then closed again."No," he said finally. "No, you didn’t." Another beat passed before he seemed to remember basic social protocol."Come in." He stepped aside, running a hand through his hair as I walked past him into the penthouse.The first thing I noticed when I entered was the boxes. It was hard not to; they were everywhere.Stacked along the walls, half-sealed on the floor, some already labeled in black marker. The living room looked like the aftermath of a very organized tornado.I turned slowly, taking it all in. "You’re already moving," I said.It wasn't really a quest

~~Dean~~I hadn’t planned on visiting the school that afternoon.The proprietor, Adrian, had called earlier that morning, sounding unusually enthusiastic about something he wanted to show me. He owned the place now, and ever since I’d invested in it, he seemed to think I had a personal interest in every new development on campus.Technically, I did. I had to make sure my money didn't go to waste... I didn't have enough of it to spend casually anymore. The investment hadn’t been entirely mine, though. Madeline had been the one to suggest it. Months ago, she’d mentioned that if we were going to have a child someday, she wanted them to attend a school with a strong academic reputation. Adrian had been looking for funding to expand at the time, and the arrangement had worked out conveniently for everyone.Still, that didn’t mean I had the time to wander around a school in the middle of a weekday.Yet there I was.Adrian and I stepped out of the administrative building together, still in

~~Dean~~Three days later, I was staring at the brown envelope on my desk, debating whether to open it immediately or to wait until I got home. It contained the answers I'd been searching for and denied for weeks, and I didn't know what results waited for me inside of it. If the boy wasn't mine, I was going to be disappointed. He could be a valuable connection to Joan, which was something I was desperately seeking. I needed him so I could still maintain some form of control over his mother. She was getting too powerful, and I was certain her son was the only thing that could rein her in. The envelope was placed neatly at the center of my desk by the time I returned to the office that morning, resting on top of the other documents my assistant had arranged in careful stacks. Apart from it, everything else had already been sorted according to priority.If someone unfamiliar with the situation had seen it, they probably would have assumed it was just another report waiting for my atte

~~Joan~~The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.I stepped out into the lobby of the building, already reaching into my bag for my phone as I walked toward the exit. My mind was still running through the list of tasks waiting for me tomorrow when my phone buzzed in my hand.When I checked, it was an unknown number.I frowned slightly.Normally, I would have ignored it. Unknown numbers rarely brought anything worth answering. But Kai was in school, and something might've come up that needed my attention. So, going with my better judgment, I paused just before I reached the revolving doors, answering the call. "Joan." The voice said immediately with a slight tremor, hushed but hurried. I already recognized who it was from that single word.Madeline.For a moment, I said nothing. I was waiting, expecting her to go straight to the point, but she didn't. I hated it when people did that. My lips pressed together."What do you want?"She let out a small breath, as if she had been

By the time I reached Kai’s school, children were already gathering near the gates as parents lingered nearby, some engaged in quiet conversations, others scrolling through their phones as they waited. I spotted Kai almost immediately. I could spot him even in a crowd of people—as long as those people weren't taller than him. It was my mom senses. He was standing with a small group of children, the ones I'd seen him with several times, laughing about something, his head tipped back slightly in a way that made him look so carefree it tugged at something in my chest. For a moment, the tightness I’d carried with me all afternoon eased. My son's happiness was more important to me than anything in the world, and I was glad that he still had that. He was untouched by everything that was already beginning to circle around him. Just as I started walking toward him, someone bumped lightly into my shoulder. "Oh—sorry!" I turned, instinctively stepping back. And then, I blinked