“Zach. Help.”
She stared at him, pleading with her eyes.
“Fine.” He took Fionn back but only so Nora could sit. Then he wrapped the blanket more tightly around Fionn, swaddling him, and returned him to her arms.
“Better now?” he asked.
Nora stared down at Fionn’s sleeping face. She whispered, “Better.”
“You two talk,” he said. “I’m going to go and kiss my wife awake.”
“What? No. You can’t leave me alone with him.”
Zach looked at her with suspicion. “Why not?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No one does.”
“What if he gets hungry? Has he been fed and…I don’t know, watered?”
“Watered? He’s a baby, not a houseplant.”
“What part of ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ did you not understand?”
“You’re doing fine.” He bent over and kissed her on the head, then kissed Fionn. “I’ll be back soon.”
Fionn blinked, yawned, and for a split second his blue eyes opened before closing again.
“Not too soon,” Nora said.
“I knew this was what you needed.”
She pushed her foot on the floor to set the rocker rocking. “This is what I needed.”
He smiled, started to leave. She stopped him at the door by whispering his name. He turned.
“Thank you,” she said. “For all your help.”
“My pleasure. Literally.” He wagged his eyebrows. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Whew. Still asleep.”
Nora laughed silently, hoping the movement of her chest wouldn’t wake Fionn again. Fionn. Zach’s son. Søren’s son.
“What will we do when it’s his turn?” she asked. “When he figures it out. What do we do then?”
Zach shrugged. “We’ll play it by ear.”
“Yeah, but whose ear?”
He nodded toward Fionn. “His.”
Zach left and Nora was alone with the baby in her arms.
She kept the rocker in motion and soon Fionn’s small weight felt so natural in her arms that she knew when she put him down again, she’d feel like she was missing something.
“You won the father lottery twice, too,” she said to the sleeping blond boy. “You don’t even know it yet. But you’ll find out. You’ve met Zach, but you haven’t met Søren yet. I think you’ll like him. He’s…unusual. He’s very serious a lot of the time, but don’t you be intimidated by him. It might be a very long time before you get to meet him. His situation is a little bit complicated.” She paused. “That’s an understatement. You’re English, so you’ll learn all about understatement. Your father—your other father, I mean—he’s actually not supposed to have children.” She winced. Fionn had opened his eyes again at the sound of her voice. He almost seemed to be listening. “Søren sort of broke a big rule bringing you into the world. But rules like that were made to be broken, weren’t they? So don’t feel bad or anything if you don’t get to meet him for a while. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. I can tell you this for a fact, little man—right now, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing…he loves you. He loves you so much. In fact, he loves you so much that if you decide someday that you don’t want him in your life at all, he’ll honor that. Your happiness matters more to him than his own, that’s how much he…” She kissed his head, smelled his hair—lavender—and patted his bottom through the blanket. “That’s how much he loves you. And how much I love you.”
She cradled Fionn closer to her chest so that his head lay in the crook of her neck. That’s where he fell back asleep, listening to the sound of her heart beating, and soon the only two sounds in the room were his tiny even breaths and the slight squeak of the rocker treads on the floor.
Zach came back an hour later and took Fionn from her arms to put him back in his crib. “Stay the night?” he asked.
She knew that would be pushing it. “I booked a hotel.”
He walked her to the door. Her cab was waiting at the curb.
“Thanks for a great week,” she said.
“Let’s do it again sometime.”
“I better not kiss you goodbye.”
“Better not.” He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.
“Well,” she said. “Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
She didn’t kiss him, but she did hug him, and he hugged her close to him, a little longer than he probably should have. Nora pulled away and started to go.
“Sent you a little something in your email,” Zach said. “Check it later. Cab’s waiting.”
Nora could only blow him one last kiss and walk away.
As the driver wove through the streets of Mayfair, Nora looked at her phone. She had one email from Zach, with the subject line “For you and Søren.”
She was certain it was photos of Fionn…but she was wrong. It was a sound file. She opened it and held the phone to her ear.
Fionn…hiccupping.
Two hot tears ran down Nora’s cheeks. She closed the email and made the call she needed to make before she changed her mind.
Nico answered after the second ring.
“I’m sorry to call so late,” she said. “I, uh…didn’t want to wait.”
“I was awake. Are you okay? Are you crying?”
“I am, but for unrelated reasons.”
“I don’t want you to cry.”
“I’ll stop, I promise.” She’d ruined Nico’s young life and here he was, more worried about her than his own problems. “Listen, I called to tell you…if you don’t want me to, I won’t say anything to Kingsley about you. I’ll keep you a secret.”
“You will?”
“Yes.” She nodded, even though she was on the phone and he couldn’t see her.
“Why?”
“I realized something tonight. Whether you like it or not, Kingsley is your biological father. And whether he knows it or not, you’re his son. And I know if Kingsley knew about you, he would tell me to do what you wanted, not what he wants. To do what’s best for you, not what’s best for him. So if you don’t want him to know about you, then…that’s okay. If King ever finds out about you, finds out I knew, I’ll tell him I was just doing what was best for you, and he’ll understand.”
“I thought you were loyal to him.”
“He would want me to be loyal to you.”
Silence. A long silence.
“You don’t have to decide anything now,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that. So…au revoir.”
“Au revoir,” he said. “For now.”
He hung up and Nora stared at the phone for a long, long time.
When she returned to the States, Nora went straight to her house in Westport. She used their upcoming move to New Orleans as an excuse not to go into the city. She had to pack, of course. Packing her books alone would take a solid month, she’d told Juliette, who Nora could tell was only pretending to buy her excuses. Nora even skipped Kingsley’s annual New Year’s Eve party. Thank God Søren was still at whatever monastery he’d run off to. She missed him so much she had chest pains when she thought of him, but in a way she was grateful Søren wasn’t around right now. The weight of the secret she held was so heavy, she didn’t know if she was going to be strong enough to carry it alone. If he asked her what was wrong, if he asked her one more time why she’d gone to France…she might tell him. And she had promised Nico she wouldn’t.
Then the mail came, the day after New Year’s. Airmail from France. Overnighted.
Nora sat on the floor of her office amid the towers of boxes. With shaking hands, she opened the envelope. The letter was written in cramped but neat handwriting.
Nora,
Call me, please.
Nico
Her entire body shook as she fumbled to find her phone and called Nico’s number. She didn’t even bother checking if it was the middle of the night in France. He answered after two ring
s.
“You didn’t have to send a letter,” she said. “You could have called.”
“I like letters. When you get a letter, you have something you can hold and keep.”
“Nico,” she said. Just that. Just his name. A plea and a warning, but what she was pleading for and what she was warning him about, she couldn’t say. It was happening again, that feeling they were having two different conversations, that he was trying to tell her something she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear yet.
“So…I called like you asked,” she said, trying to sound as professional as possible. Detached, professional, neutral. “What did you want to tell me?”
A long pause followed and Nora held her breath.
“I’m not ready to talk to him,” he said. “But…you can tell him about me.”
And just like that, the weight was gone. Her chest eased and she took the deepest breath she’d ever taken in her life.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
“There is a caveat,” he said.
“What’s the caveat?”
“I’m not ready to talk to him. If he needs to tell me something, he tells it to you, and you tell it to me. If I need to tell him something, I tell it to you, and you tell it to him. I don’t want to hear his voice at all. Not yet. Only yours.”
“You’re the devil,” Nora said.
Nico laughed his quiet laugh. “Why do you say that?”
Oh, he knew why she said that. He knew exactly why… Suddenly Nora was fifteen years old again, sitting in a police station in handcuffs and Søren was sitting across from her, demanding she obey him for all eternity. And if that’s what he wanted from her, she would give it to him…with one caveat.
But now she was on the other side of the table, in Søren’s seat, and this twenty-four-year-old French kid had somehow managed to manipulate her from the other side of the ocean. Her opinion of Nico, already high, shot through the roof. If she’d ever doubted he was Kingsley’s son before, she would never doubt it again.
“This isn’t a good idea,” she said.
“It’s the only way I’ll do it.”
Nora almost applauded the man. She’d never been so decisively cornered before. And he knew it. Nico Delacroix was thoroughly, if quietly, ruthless.
“Fine. But I’m only agreeing to this because I know you’re going to love King—eventually.”
“So you say.” He sounded skeptical.
“I should go. I’ll call you later and tell you what Kingsley said.”
“No, write it to me.”
“What?”
“Write me letters.”
“Letters?”
“I told you…with letters you have something to hold and to keep. Write a letter to me. Tell me my sister’s name.”
“I can tell you her name right now.”
“Write it to me.”
Nora winced, almost growled. In a flash, a sudden urge came over her and she could see herself ordering Nico onto his stomach on the floor so she could put her booted foot on the back of his neck. Immediately she pushed that mental image out of her brain and forbade it to ever return.
“Fine. I’ll write you.” She sighed heavily. “I should go.”
“I’ll look for your letters.”
“Right,” she said. Before this conversation got any more complicated, Nora said, “Nico, thank you for this. Thank you for not hating me.”
“Nora, I don’t hate anyone. But if I did, it would never be you.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head. Ruthless, manipulative, and a mindfucker. He was already one of them.
There was no safe reply to what he had just said, except “Au revoir.”
“I drank the December wine,” he said before she could hang up.
“You did? How was it?”
“I’ll tell you in a letter.”
Then he hung up.
“Son of a…” She didn’t let herself finish that statement. Son of a King, that’s what he was.
And now she had permission to tell the man himself about Nico. She threw her coat on and drove to Kingsley and Juliette’s Riverside Drive townhouse.
She entered through the side door without knocking. She heard voices upstairs and went through the living room, toward the stairs. The tree was still up, and she paused to look it up and down. It was hard to believe this was their last Christmas in New York. By this time next year, they’d all be celebrating the holidays New Orleans-style. Considering it was eleven degrees outside, Nora could not wait.
“Ahem?”
Nora froze. Søren was coming down the main staircase, dressed in his favorite off-duty uniform of jeans and long-sleeved black t-shirt. She dropped her bag, met him on the third step, and kissed him—not an easy task, because of his height. She broke their kiss to lead him all the way downstairs, where they resumed on level ground.
And while they kissed, this thought ran through her head: No matter what happens next, I will never love anyone as much as I love you.
But where had that come from? And what did it mean, No matter what happens next? What could possibly happen next? She pushed the thought aside and broke the kiss. “Hello, Sir. How was the monastery?”
His hands were on her face. He kissed her again. “Hello, Little One. The monastery was what I needed. When did you make it back?”
“Yesterday. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I have a good reason, I promise.”
“Ready to tell me yet?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
“When you’re ready, I—”
She interrupted him, which she rarely did. She couldn’t help herself. “I held him, Søren. I held your son.”
He sat down on the steps. Right then. Right there. Just sat on the third step and she stood in front of him, waiting as he breathed once through his hands, and then again once more. And finally, he pulled himself together to look up at her.
“You did?” he asked.
“He’s perfect.”
“He is?”
“Of course he is.” She blinked and tears ran down her face. “Here. Zach sent this for you.” She picked up her bag off the floor, pulled out her phone, turned up the volume and hit PLAY on the file she’d saved.
“Fionn had the hiccups. Grace recorded it.”
The sound of a little baby boy hiccupping miserably filled the hall. They both listened, staring at her phone, saying nothing. But Søren had her hand in his and he squeezed, tight, with every hiccup. The sound file came to an end a minute later.
“What are we going to do?” Nora whispered.
Søren had the answer. He always had the answer.
“Play it again,” he said. So she played it again.
As they listened, Nora found herself staring at the antique porcelain Nativity scene displayed on a small marble-top Louis XIV console table. She saw Mary bending over her son; Joseph, standing guard over his wife and son; the animals, the shepherds coming to pay their homage; even the three kings. But where was God, the Father, in the Nativity scene? The Creator, who had given his only son to a scared and humble teenaged girl, and her even more terrified husband? Where was He in the Nativity scene? Up in heaven with His angels, holding a phone in His hand and listening to a recording of Jesus’s first hiccups? Do you hear that? He’d ask Raphael and Gabriel. That’s my son, He’d say, beaming with such pride that the night would turn to morning.
That’s how Juliette, Kingsley, and Céleste, fast asleep on her papa’s shoulder, found them five minutes later; Søren sitting on their stairs with Nora next to him, cradling her phone in her hands as they replayed the tiny yips again and again.
“What’s going on?” Juliette asked.
Nora let Søren tell them. “My son had the hiccups.”
“Poor baby,” Juliette said, tutting a mother’s tut.
When the next yip came out of Nora’s phone, Kingsley put his hand on Søren’s shoulder and Søren put his hand over Kingsley’s. The four of them—Céleste was still asleep�
�listened to the recording, over and over. Then Nora stopped it by putting her phone away.
“You saw him?” Kingsley asked her.
“I saw him. I held him.”
Next to her, Søren was silent, and what he was thinking she couldn’t begin to guess.
“You want another?” Juliette playfully elbowed Kingsley. “Try for a boy this time?”
Kingsley grinned at her. “Let’s try right now.”
This was Nora’s chance. She took it.
“You don’t have to try,” she said.
Kingsley looked at her. Juliette looked at her. Søren looked at her.
She reached into her handbag and took out the photograph of Nico, the one from the magazine where he stood in front of the gates of the vineyard, smiling. She held it out to Kingsley. Juliette, somehow sensing something momentous was happening, collected Céleste into her arms as Kingsley took the picture from Nora’s hand.
“What’s this?” Kingsley asked. He stared at the photograph and Nora saw his eyes narrow. Juliette peered over Kingsley’s shoulder and softly gasped.
“His name is Nico,” Nora said. “Nicolas Delacroix. Happy Father’s Day, King. It’s a boy.”
* * *
FIN
The Christmas Truce
I. Nora’s Christmas Truce
Author’s Note: This story takes place three Christmases before the first Original Sinners novel, The Siren, during Nora and Søren’s five-year estrangement.
Now playing: “River” by Joni Mitchell
Westport, Connecticut
“King, I need your finger,” Nora said.
Kingsley rose from her overstuffed gray suede armchair and sauntered—as Kingsley did—across the living room floor, his wine glass in his right hand.
“Only one?” he asked as he sat down on the floor next to her. “I thought three was your finger preference?”
“This is my finger preference,” she said, showing him one finger in particular.
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