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Tears stab at my eyes as I tighten my hold on her, feeling the warmth of her body for the first time.
“I—” My voice breaks as I attempt to speak, my throat clogged with too much emotion. “I missed you, too,” I eventually say, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Please don’t go away again,” she says in a small voice. “I want to stay with you and Daddy.”
“You will, sweetie. No one can ever take you away from me,” I vow.
In that moment, all the pain that I’ve kept locked away in my heart breaks free. But instead of inundating my being, it liberates me. A lightness I had never thought possible envelopes me from head to toe.
She’s mine. My child. My daughter.
And as I look at Raf, his eyes as glossy as mine, I know he’s thinking the same.
Ours.
She’s our child.
“I love you, baby,” I choke out.
“I love you, too, Mommy,” she replies immediately.
I don’t know what happened in the past, or how she came to be with Lucero. I only care that she’s alive and well and she’s here, in my arms.
Raf hugs us from behind, resting his cheek against mine.
“You too, Daddy. I love you too,” she says happily.
“I love you, too,” he murmurs, and I can tell he’s barely holding himself back from crying.
We stay like that for what feels like an eternity before the little girl starts to fidget in my arms. God, I don’t even know her name…
Reluctantly, I put her down, and she wastes no time in dashing into the house, all the while giggling and sparkling with joy.
“Alice, please go watch her,” Lucero tells the older woman. With a nod, she steps into the house and follows after her.
“Come in,” I tell them as I dab at my eyes. “Let’s go to the living room.”
Raf’s hand rests on the small of my back as he leads me to the sofa. As I sit down, he wraps his arm around me, drawing me closer.
Lucero and her husband sit on the opposite sofa, their hands linked together.
“How is this possible?” I whisper.
“I never meant for this to happen, Noelle. All along, I wanted to make sure Sergio would never get to your child.” She gives me a sad smile, quickly explaining what had happened the day of the fire and how she’d switched the babies.
“We came back,” she gulps down, her voice shaking. “We left her at the hospital and came back for you but… I really thought you were dead. I swear to God, I would have reached out earlier had I known you’d survived. It wasn’t until Michele showed up to my house that I realized you were alive, that you’d reunited with Rafaelo. But because Michele wanted to harm you, I didn’t think it was safe for me to do or say anything. Not when I didn’t know his intentions…”
I nod slowly, taking in all the information.
“What’s her name?”
Lucero smiles.
“Malia.”
“M—,” I croak. “Malia?” Tears stream down my face as I utter the name.
“I thought you’d approve. We never tried to take your place as her parents. In the beginning, we planned to tell her that you’d died when she was older and could understand.”
