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I blink, not believing what I see.
I sit up, trying to understand.
"What the—?" I shake my head.
"Hi Dane," she says, shutting the door and stepping toward me. She looks just like I remembered, but fuller now. Her breasts are larger, her curves begging for me to grab hold of them.
She steps into my life and it feels like everything since I left her that day has been a dream. And only now, am I waking up from it.
"I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Dottie," she says, standing across the desk. "And I have something I need to tell you."Chapter SevenI cry myself to sleep after hearing his story on the news. Lexi stays the night, promising me that everything is going to be okay.
"I just don't know what to do," I say, salty tears rolling down my cheeks.
"You have to tell him," she tells me, handing me a tissue. "He deserves to know."
"He might not even remember me."
"Sweetie, it isn't about you. It's about Asher."
I know she's right, but I'm terrified. I don't want everything to change. The past year and a half have been so hard. I faced so much judgment from other people, yet managed to keep my head held high. I kept my life together for Asher.
And contacting Dane Westbrook will change my life forever.
Will change Asher's life.
And isn't that exactly what happened the first time I met him?
But Lexi's right, I need to find out more.
He's dying.
He has weeks to live.
Still, the next morning when I call in sick to work and drop Asher off at daycare, I can't help but feel selfish to roll into his office now and tell him my part of his story.
The part that will link us together in life and in death.
The part he has no idea about.
In the news story, he said his greatest regret was not having a family. I swallow my tears as I get on a subway headed to uptown where Google tells me his office is located. I chose not to bring Asher, needing to meet him myself, and make sure he could handle the truth.
I try to imagine what it would be like to know you were dying, to feel all alone in the world, and then to find out you have a child. It's the cruelest joke the universe could play.
I don't even know if he wants a child. But Lexi and I had stayed up reading his Wiki page and looking at his social media profile—triple confirming that Dane is my baby-daddy. And even if he's been a player in the past, his impending death changes things. And honestly, his days of being a player truly did seem behind him. He had donated millions to various charities. And not just one million here, two million there. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars to our city.
I always wanted Asher to know who his dad is, but I never expected his dad would be dying when we figured out who he was.
And now, standing in the Manhattan office of Westbrook Inc., a venture capitalist firm, tears well up in my eyes again. The secretary is frazzled, and I am sure she has been fielding calls all day. In fact, I watch her phone lines blinking and she keeps putting people on hold while I wait my turn.
Eventually, she looks up at me, informing me that Dane isn't seeing anyone. But I had already forced my way past security, insisting and crying and eventually getting to his secretary. No way am I leaving without seeing him.
When she calls Dane, telling him someone's here to see him, he refuses to see me.
That's when I give up being polite.
This is worth causing a scene over.
And now I'm standing across from Dane Westbrook in his office. His face is written with shock over seeing me.
One look tells me everything I need to know.
He remembers me.
He remembers our time together.
And then I look at his handsome face. His eyes brim with a pain he hadn't experienced when we made Asher. He possesses a sorrow that a man so young shouldn't know.
Dane is dying. And no matter how many times I wished I knew who he was, for Asher's sake, I never imagined this moment going down like this.
I never imagined that the moment I found out his name I would also find out he had a timestamp on his life.
"Oh, God," he says, rising from his chair. The realization that I'm here clearly shocks him and he grips the edge of the desk, his biceps flexing and his button-down shirt stretching over his muscles. Even if he's sick, he's as strong as ever.
In control.
Taking him in takes my breath away.
He looks like Asher. My Asher.
And Asher looks just like him. Tears spring to my eyes, completely in shock at this revelation. I blink back my emotions, imagining Dane's baby pictures, certain they would show the same blond curls and bright blue eyes and cheeks with dimples. Dane's baby pictures would be mirror images of Asher's.
