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“Save me the preamble,” she says, a fierce note in her voice as she lets my hand go. “Dad, just tell me what’s going on.”
He takes a deep breath. “Rayla and I are together.”
“Yeah, duh.” She laughs, nodding at us. “Is this some kind of a joke? I can see that you’re together…”
She slowly trails off as the realization visibly shows on her face, as her cheeks drop and her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead. Her mouth falls open and she stares at us for a long time, as though waiting for us to speak.
“You mean together, as in together,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I say, struggling to force the word out. “It all happened so fast and—”
“As in you’re in a relationship?” she says. “You’re – what – boyfriend and girlfriend?”
I look across at Roman with a question in my eye, confident he’ll be able to read me. He’s shown an impressive ability to read me ever since we met, and it’s only gotten stronger and more significant since we made love.
It’s like our souls have fused as much as our bodies.
“Yes,” he says. “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“But when?” Millie says, shaking her head as her gaze moves between us. “I don’t understand. You two have never met.”
Roman laughs gruffly, his deep voice making it seem like the whole room is trembling. Shivers move through me, even now, even when I should be completely focused on the disbelief flaring in Millie’s eyes.
I don’t see any judgment though, any pain, any sign that she hates us like I was convinced she would. She stares as though she’s trying to make sense of it, rather than wanting to tear the whole thing down.
“We met when she arrived here,” Roman says softly. “I know it’ll probably make no sense to you, but I fell for her the second I saw her. I looked at her and… and everything clicked, Millie. Hell, it makes no sense to me. If I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t believe it. But I—”
He cuts himself off, causing my gaze to snap to him as my mind flows with what he was possibly going to say, as the word love flurries into my mind. Is that what he was going to say, that he loves me?
“What, Dad?” Millie asks.
“I want to be with her forever,” he says, his voice passionate and intense. “It’s all I can think about and I’m sorry, Millie. I’m so sorry that this started without your knowledge. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you about it.”
“Wait.” Millie holds her hand up, turning to me. “Rayla, do you feel the same? Because I have to say, this is a lot to try and take on board. I feel like I’m going freaking crazy or something.”
“I feel the same,” I tell her with confidence bursting in my voice.
But it’s the confidence I have in us, in me and Roman, not confident that Millie is going to be okay with it all. I can’t pretend to be sure about that, not when her expression is so difficult to read.
“I felt the same the second I saw him. I’m so sorry for not telling you right away when we spoke on the phone. I should have. But it was so… So quick. I thought we could get over it. No, no, that’s not true. I’m sorry. I can’t lie to you. I knew there was no way we were going to get over it.”
“It all happened in the past few days?” she murmurs.
“Yes,” Roman and I say at the same time, and then glance over at each other, emotion searing between us.
For a second I think we’re going to lean in and kiss.
The pull is so strong, the intense look in his eyes so captivating. He stares at me as though the world didn’t make sense before I came along, and now that we have each other he never has to question anything else again.
“You’ve fallen for each other this hard in a few days?”
I have to force myself to look at Millie. The pull of my man is almost overpowering, drumming through me, making me want to do wild things when I should be thinking about anything else.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth.”
“I’ve written, Millie.”
She gasps. “What? How?”
Roman nods at me, causing a flutter in my chest. “I know it’s crazy, but there was something about Rayla sitting in the room with me. She just sat there and when I looked over at her, I didn’t have to think about that empty feeling inside of me anymore. I didn’t have to worry. I could just be.”
Millie stares at us both, her mouth hanging open, her gaze slowly moving from me to her father and then back again.
Then she stands up, laughing with a low tone of voice, as though she doesn’t want to laugh at all.
