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My face scrunches tight. “Hotel?”
Those greens light up at my confusion. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”
I didn’t realise I was. “What hotel?” I ask again.
Invading my personal space, he takes my head in his hands, then he slides them into my hair, making me shiver. “The hotel we’re staying at tonight.”
His fingers gently pressing into the back of my head make me relax. “How am I supposed to get there?”
His face drops a fraction. Tilting my chin up again, he gently presses his lips to mine. My insides collapse. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way. Jess will drop you there.”
I roll my lips tasting him on me. “Okay.”
He takes me in before he turns, and I watch him walk away. Each step he takes, I feel the urge to follow him increase. I quickly check my phone. Still nothing from Mollie. I push off the wall, my feet daring me to go. To stop him.Do it.One-foot raises, my heart going into overdrive as I lift my heel off the ground.
“Madison?”
My foot instantly goes back down. “Mum?”
“You okay, sweetheart?”
I turn, looking back to where Dean walked away. He’s gone. My breath expels, and I chew the inside of my mouth trying to squash the way my heart aches. Where’s he going?
“Fine. Can we grab that coffee now?”
She walks to me, looping her arm under mine. “I know just the place.”
The waitress places our coffees on the table. I don’t pull my gaze away from the passers by outside. The state Dean came home in, I’ve seen him worse. Once. Last night was no way near as bad as that. But it was a reminder I’d rather not have had.
“Sugar?”
I look at Jess holding up two sachets. I smile, pushing my mug closer to her, then check my phone. Nothing.
She tips in the sugar, stirs, then looks at me as she pushes it back. “Want to talk about it?”
My eyes drop. “Can I say no?”
Mum leans forward. “It’s good to talk about it.” She places her hand on my knee. “And,” she strings out the word, “you have no choice.”
I let out a huff, sitting up straighter. My hands go to my head, rubbing my temples. “I don’t like the feeling of being helpless.”
Mum gives me a knowing look. “It doesn’t get any easier.” I frown. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean for that to sound so morbid. I just… I mean, together or apart, the decisions new parents have to make are the most difficult you’lleverhave to make.”
Jess and I exchange a look. We’ve heard Mum’s story—of how she asked Rocco to let her go. But we don’t know how she and our dad lived with that. How hard that must have been for both of them. I take the opportunity to finally find out. “Did Dad know early on?”
I see her think back to when she and our dad, Michael, were married. She picks up her mug taking a small sip of coffee. “He always knew.” Looking out the window at the front of the café, she loses herself in thought. “He loved you. There was no denying you weren’t his, though. You have Rocco’s eyes.”
I smile back at her.
“Dad must have found that hard,” Jess says.
Mum gives a slight nod. “The first few weeks were the hardest. We hardly spoke. Barely touched one another. Like ships in the night, we simply existed.”
“What changed?” I ask, knowing they had a happy marriage for many years.
“You did.” My eyes start to fill. “You brightened each day and brought us together. Then Jess came along and suddenly we were parents to two beautiful girls who stole our hearts and turned our world upside down.”
“Who was more annoying?” Jess asks with a laugh.
