In another life

20

Another week had gone by and Charlotte was still not talking to Mia. At first that was easy being back at her own nursery. But this week she was working at the sister nursery. And what made things even harder, was that Reece was out for the week ill, and Mia was now acting manager.

It had only been two days of Charlotte working back at the sister nursery, only three more to go, right? Mia had been keeping her distance. Which slightly confused Charlotte even more.

She thought Mia would at least try to talk to her. Fight for some sort of forgiveness like she did before. But there was nothing. Charlotte wasn't sure what hurt more, Mia pestering her every free moment for forgiveness, or just being ignored. Maybe Mia was finally moving on. And that hurt Charlotte the most. Because she couldn't move on. She couldn't get her out of her mind. And pretending that nothing was wrong was draining her.

Charlotte was walking down the hallway while rummaging around her bag on her shoulder to find her phone. She didn't see the woman she was about to bump into,
"Oh! I'm sor-" her.
"It's alright" Mia didn't look at her face, she couldn't. The moment she saw those ocean blue eyes the pain would come swarming in and she couldn't handle that. No. She had to keep herself away from Charlotte.

Charlotte stood quiet for a minute, silently begging for the red head to meet her eyes. Why was she the one begging for attention? It should be Mia begging for her. She gave up, and moved out of way to continue walking. What neither of the women knew, was that both of them were silently arguing with themselves whether to look back or not.

Both Mia and Charlotte wanted to talk to each other, to just feel their hands on each other's bodies once more. One last time, that's all. But none of them could bring themselves to break the awkward silence between them.

...

Later in the day Mia found herself watching Charlotte out of the office window. She had taken a group of children out into the garden and they were all finding leaves and sticks. One child brought a big leaf up to Charlotte and she knelt down with the brightest smile of her face.

Mia found herself smiling too. She watched Charlotte play and laugh with the children in the sun and she never felt more mesmerised by her beauty. That was until Charlotte found herself glancing up to the top window of the building, catching the smallest glimpse of red hair before the woman moved out of sight.

Was Mia watching her from above? Why would she if she had moved on? If she didn't care anymore? The questions circulated the brunettes mind until the children stole her focus again.

"Amelia" the red head rolled her eyes and moved away from the window,
"Would you stop calling me that"
"Would you stop pondering over that brunette? If you can't focus on your job because of your pathetic emotions towards her, I might just have to remove her from the situation"
"Don't you dare touch her" the woman's defensive side kicked in once she heard her name. The one man she could never stand up to, who she'd let walk all over her. He could do or say whatever he liked to her. But she wouldn't stand for Charlotte to be in danger.

"I need you to do something for me"
"What?"
"You need to find information on Winter Fortune" Mia raised her brow, why the hell would he want information on Winter? She hadn't actually spoken to the man before but she knew of him. He worked at Marjorie's nursery and was also with Autumn.

"What do you want with him?"
"That's none of your concern"
"What are you going to do to him?"
"You're asking the wrong questions Amelia. It's not about what I'll do with him, it's what I'll do to your pretty little nursery worker if you don't do as I say"

Mia wouldn't usually care about what he wanted to do with who he wanted. But Winter struck her concern. No, she never met him and she didn't know a lot about him. But she did know he meant a lot to Autumn Knight. Which meant he was something somewhat important. Because Autumn never lets people close to her.

"I'll find out what I can" it wasn't him that actually scared Mia. She knew he'd never do anything too bad to her, hopefully at least. It was more about what he knew than anything else. Knowledge is power as they say. Or blackmail material is anyway. The only one Mia could really blame was herself. She was stupid to get too close to Charlotte. And now she was in danger because of her.

As soon as he left Mia felt a wave of relief wash over her. Although now, she had to find a way to get as much dirt as she could on Winter. A job like this wasn't unusual as all, in fact it was mostly what she had been doing for years. But despite everything from the past, Mia still cared for Autumn, and she knew how much the brunette deserved her happy ending. And now she was responsible for taking her happiness away.