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“I never forgot about you,” I say while leaning a little to take my wallet from my pants pocket.
I hear her holding a breath while I put the wrinkled note over the countertop in front of us.
“Never, Melanie.”
Blinking, she looks at the note and opens her mouth to argue, but her phone goes off, ending the moment. She lifts her eyebrows at the sight of her phone screen blinking. I carefully fold the piece of paper to return it to its safe place.
“It’s my father. I need to get this,” she says before picking up the phone.
“Hey, Dad.” Silence as she closes her eyes, but a smile pulls up her lips. “Yeah, I know.” Another pause, longer this time. “Yep, we are at home. We’ll be waiting.”
Melanie sets the phone again on the counter and looks at me.
“My father is bringing Davi home. Apparently, one of my nieces told him you were here, and heinsistson talking with his new friend.” Her expression turns serious. “I’d never keep him away from you, David, but I do think it is too early to tell him the truth.”
Okay. I get it. What do you say to your son? Hey, I’m your father. I just didn’t know about you until today. Emotional damage for life. It’s the last thing I want for my kid.
“I can do that,” I concede. “But I’ll spend all my free time with him. I want my son to know his father isn’t too busy for him. Damn it, Melanie, who told him that?”
A sad smile appears on her lips. “Kids are smarter than you think, David. I just told him you were away. What should I say? That you were dead?”
I close my eyes, despair running through my veins. “No, of course not.”
“David, let’s do this as the adults we are,” she says. “I don’t want to fight with you all the time.”Oh, baby, I want very much to fight with you every day. Preferably while we both are naked and sweaty. “Everything happens for a reason. That’s what my Dad told me when I discovered, I was pregnant. Now you’re here, and I’d like to believe it is for a reason. A good one.”
I know what that reason is, but I hold my tongue. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her gaze flies to mine. “You’re here for six more weeks.”
“I’ll find a way,” I tell her, my words full of sincerity. I really want this to work. Davi. Her. Us.
“My son isn’t just a novelty thing.”
“No, he isn’t.” Anger flashes through me. We might not know each other, but her lack of faith in me as a human being is pissing me off. As much as I want her under me, I want her to…. What? See the real me? Respect me? Believe in me? “And I don’t like the implication that you think I see him as such.”
“You have a life in another city. A big company to run, millions to make.”
“Money isn’t more important than my son.” Or her. She was my solace in the storm.
“You say that now.”
“Ask me in five years, ten years. Twenty. The answer will be the same, Melanie.”
She stares at me silently for a couple of minutes. I rack in my brain for the right thing to say. Words don’t matter. In recovery, we learn that actions speak louder than words.Acta non verba, right? I can do that. I will do that. Somehow.
“Call me, Ella,” she asks, and fire runs into me again. “I like when you call me Ella.”
“Ella,” I say softly, closing the distance between us. “The woman of my dreams… you have no idea how many nights I spent with you looming in my mind.”
“All of them, nightmares?” she asks me in a breath.
“The nightmare started when I woke up, and you were nowhere to be found.” I lift my hand to her beautiful mane, putting a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I couldn’t stay,” she whispers.
“Did I scare you?” I’m close, so close our breaths are mingling.
“Yes,” she replies. “No.” She blinks and shakes her head. “Not in the way you think.”
