“Just for a sec.” She leaves the door ajar. “What is it?”
I push her against the wall and kiss her. It’s been weeks. I’m instantly hard.
She lets me kiss her, then pulls away. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing. You called me lieutenant.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Earlier in the car, you called me lieutenant. You do that when you want to hook up. You know, like how I call you Miss Lockhart. It’s our thing.”
“Our thing?” she says. “I do not do that.”
“Oh, but you do. Tell me you haven’t missed this. Look at me,” I say. “I just touch you, and I’m hard.” I brush her hair aside so I can speak softly in her ear. “All I have to do is think about you, and I get hard. Do you have any idea how fucking blue my balls are right now?”
She tries to suppress a smile. “I’m not having sex with you when Evelyn is in the next room.”
“You realize how ludicrous that is, right? The population of the Earth would cease to exist if adults didn’t have sex with their kids in the next room.”
“Married adults. I don’t want to give her the wrong idea.”
“Sweetheart, that ship sailed long ago.”
“You shouldn’t call me that,” she says. “And, I’m only trying to repair the damage that’s already been done.”
“You haven’t damaged her, or your relationship, by acting like a normal healthy single woman.”
“Listen, I can’t think about sex or anything else right now. I’ve been lying in bed for hours, wondering what we’re doing here. I’m not sure I really thought this through. What if we find him and everything changes?”
“What do you think would change?”
“What if he does want her, Brett? What if he wants to take her from me?”
She’s making herself crazy, thinking about things that most likely would never happen. I pull out the chair by the desk. “Sit.”
She hesitates.
“It’s a chair, Emma, not a bed.”
She sits. I stand behind her and rub her shoulders. “You’re holding onto a lot of tension. Try and relax. You know as well as I do that if Stefan wanted her, he’d have contacted you long before now.”
“But what if—”
“What if nothing. You’re over-tired and your mind is racing with what-ifs. So just stop it and relax.”
“But—”
“Shh. No talking.”
Touching her does nothing to get rid of my erection. Her smooth skin feels incredible. Her moans remind me of other times I’ve elicited the same noises from her. But I don’t let my hands stray from her shoulders. She needs this more than I need a release.
I lose track of time but eventually realize she’s gone still. The back of her head is resting against my stomach. She’s fallen asleep. I carefully pick her up and carry her back to her room, laying her on the empty bed next to Evie’s.
I half expect the girl to wake up. It seems like she’s always awake when her mother and I get into a compromising position. And me carrying Emma to bed in her nightgown is most definitely a compromising position. But she doesn’t. I gaze at her for a while, noticing how much she looks like Emma. The curve of their noses is identical. Their hair color is a dead match. Even the way they sleep is similar.
For the first time, I think of how jealous I’d be if Stefan wanted a relationship with Evie.
I want to be the only man in her life. Just like I want to be the only man in Emma’s.
Chapter Thirty
Emma
I look at the time. It feels like we’ve been driving forever. “Are we almost there yet?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, it occurs to me how childlike I sounded.
Brett laughs. “We’ll be there soon.”
I am particularly anxious today, maybe because I know we’re running out of options. Two down, two to go. What if neither of them is Evelyn’s father? What then? My daughter, however, is cool as a cucumber.
Brett turns one last corner and pulls into a parking lot.
“This is it?” I ask, looking at the old, rundown apartment building that looks like it belongs in some not-so-desirable parts of New York City.
“If the address is correct, yes,” Brett says.
As he finds a place to park, I look at our surroundings. “Is it safe?”
“That’s why you brought me, right?” he says with a wink.
He’s trying to lighten the mood, but I feel myself becoming consumed with grief and regret. I see little hope of this ending up the happy reunion Evelyn has been dreaming of for years. Am I a terrible parent for allowing her to get in this situation?
Kids run around a small grassy area nearby, which makes me feel marginally better. That is, until one of them picks something up off the ground and shows his friend.
“Jesus,” Brett says before running over to them. He takes what looks like a syringe away from the young boy and has a few words with them before going to a trash bin, finding something inside to wrap around the needle, and tucking it into a bag.
I dig around in my purse for my small bottle of hand sanitizer. I hold it out to him when he rejoins us. “Use it all. That was horrible.”
He douses his hands and says to Evelyn, “Don’t touch anything.”
“What did you say to those kids?” she asks.
“I told them to never pick up a needle or it could make them very sick. But I’m not sure they understood me.” He continues to the building. “Let’s get this over with.”
I shake my head, disgusted. What if this is where Stefan lives?
“What’s the apartment number?” Brett asks when we’re inside.
“Two-eleven.”
Evelyn walks ahead of us, eager to get there, but Brett forces her behind him and takes the lead. I’m amazed she doesn’t have a problem with his protectiveness. Every time I try to do anything to keep her safe, she calls me on it.
“This is it,” Brett says, standing in front of the door.
It’s dilapidated and missing two numbers. The remaining one is askew. And the only reason we know it’s the correct door is because 210 is on one side and 212 is on the other.
Evelyn knocks on the door.
Loud music plays inside, so there is no way anyone heard her. Part of me wants to suggest that we just walk away now because I have a bad feeling about this.
She knocks again, much louder this time.
Still no one comes to the door.
Brett pounds on it with the side of his fist.
Finally, the door opens, and a tall blonde woman, haphazardly wrapped in a sheet, stares at us.
“Is Stefan Schmidt here?” Brett asks.
The woman looks us over and then closes the door.
Evelyn says, “Maybe she doesn’t speak English.”
Brett pounds on the door again. It opens with a jerk. “Vat ze fuck do you vant?” a man holding a cigarette asks.
My heart officially breaks. The emaciated half-naked man standing in the doorway has blond hair and is exactly the same height as I remember. And despite the fact that he looks much older than he should, there’s no mistaking the birthmark on his right cheek. It’s him.
Nobody says anything. I think Brett and Evelyn know it’s him as well.
Stefan looks at me as if he’s eyeing a piece of meat. But it quickly becomes obvious he remembers who I am. Other than my hair being a few inches longer and my waist a few inches thicker, I look very much like I did in high school.
He looks at Evelyn. I can practically see him make the connection.
“Vy are you here?” he says with a heavy German accent. It’s the same voice I remember, except a little deeper and rougher.
“Why do you think, Stefan?” I say.
He takes a drag from his cigarette and exhales, not bothering to blow the smoke in the other direction. “If you’re looking for an invitation to Sunday dinner, you von’t get one,” he says. “You’re vasting your t
ime.”
Evelyn pulls out the strip of photos. “You’re my father.”
He drops his cigarette on the floor, grinds it into the floorboard with his bare foot, and takes the photos from her. He looks at them, then rips them to shreds. “I’m no one’s father,” he says and tries to close the door.
My first inclination is to lunge at him, hurt him for his deplorable behavior, but Evelyn stops me the same protective way Brett stopped her earlier. She shoves me behind her and sticks her shoe in the doorway, preventing it from closing.
Stefan looks down at her foot. “You came a long vay for nothing, kid.”
“I came a long way to find you. The least you can do is talk to me.”
Stefan looks at Brett, who has a hand on my and Evelyn’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to say,” he says, pulling another cigarette from his jeans pocket and lighting it. “Go back to verever the fuck you came from.”
Brett squeezes my shoulder, fingers tense. I wait for Evelyn’s tears. She’s been completely rejected by the man she wanted to find for so long.
Instead of crying, however, she does something that utterly shocks me. She steps forward, rips the cigarette from Stefan’s fingers, and throws it down the hallway. “You have no idea how grateful I am that you’re such a deadbeat, because if you weren’t, my life wouldn’t be nearly as amazing.” She touches my arm. “My mom is the strongest person I know. That’s probably thanks to you leaving her when she was fifteen and pregnant. You bailed on her and made her figure this out by herself. She’s the best mom anyone could ask for. She made it so I didn’t need a father. And she raised me to be just like her.
“So thank you for being an asshole who can never measure up to my fantasy about what a dad should be.” She glances at Brett and then back at Stefan. She picks up the torn picture and throws it at him. “Crawl back inside your hole and enjoy your pathetic little life, Stefan, because nobody needs you.”
After a stunned moment, he slams the door in her face. That’s when I realize we had an audience. An old lady in the apartment across the hall is looking at us through her cracked-open door.
Evelyn strides down the hall, not a single tear in her eye.
I reach out to her. “Sweetie?”
She turns. “What? You think I wanted to find him and have some kind of happy reunion?”
I scrunch my brow. “Well … yes.”
Brett and I look at her and then each other, both completely bowled over by what just happened.
“Your daughter is kind of a badass,” Brett says with a huge smile on his face.
Evelyn shakes her head. “A reunion was never what I wanted. But you wouldn’t have let me come here if I’d told you the real reason.”
I’m confused. “You planned all along to tell him off?”
She nods.
Brett offers her a fist bump, which she reciprocates. “You’re pretty damn awesome, kid,” he says.
The old lady across the hall opens her door wider and steps out. I offer her an apology. “I’m sorry if we bothered you,” I say, not even knowing if she understands English.
She pulls her housecoat around her and approaches Evelyn. “That nasty man is your father, little one?”
Evelyn nods.
The woman shakes her head. “All he be is trouble, that one. Wait here for a minute, child.” She retreats into her apartment.
“What’s going on?” Evelyn asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say.
She returns and hands Evelyn a piece of paper with two names and an address on it.
“What’s that?” I ask.
She points to the second name. “That’s your sister.”
The three of us gasp.
“That’s right. Nasty man has another gorgeous girl he don’t pay mind to. She and her mother used to come around. They don’t anymore. He stopped answering the door when they knocked.” She points to the peephole in her door. “He could see them through that. They left their information with me in case he ever wanted to contact them.” She looks sad. “He never asked.” She puts a hand on Evelyn’s arm. “Now I know why I kept this piece of paper all these years. Everything happens for a reason.”
Brett and I look at each other. He smiles at me. Yeah, I guess she really did just say that.
“Thank you,” I say. “You’ve been very helpful.”
She goes inside her apartment and closes the door. Evelyn runs a finger across the second name on the paper. She looks up at me with more excitement on her face than I’ve ever seen. “Can we, Mom?”
“I googled the address,” Brett says. “It’s not too far from our hotel.”
I had all kinds of thoughts about how this day would turn out. And not one of them took into account what an incredible, strong, larger-than-life daughter I have.
Evelyn takes my hand and then Brett’s. His gaze is fixed on Evelyn, and his eyes are filled with love and pride.
“What are we waiting for?” I ask, swallowing hard to keep tears from falling. “Let’s go find your sister.”
~ ~ ~
Evelyn and Greta hit it off right away. Greta speaks perfect English. That comes from her stepfather being American. He sits with us while the girls get to know each other.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t meet my wife. She would have loved to have met you. Perhaps another time, when she’s not out of town.”
I say, “I’d like that.”
“We visit the States quite often,” he says. “I have business in New York. We’ll be sure to schedule some of those trips around Greta’s school schedule so she can come along.”
“That would be wonderful,” I say. “Evelyn would love to see Greta again.” I study the girl who is not even a year older than Evelyn. “I can’t believe she’s thirteen. When the lady at Stefan’s told us about her, I pictured a little girl.”
“Why do you think Stefan was sent to America?” Bill says. “His parents didn’t approve of his relationship with my wife. When Pia got pregnant, they denounced their grandchild and sent him away.”
I shake my head. “So they’re as bad as Stefan? I suppose we shouldn’t even try to contact them.”
“It would be a waste of your time,” he says. “We’ve tried to get them to have a relationship with Greta, but they’ll have nothing to do with her.”
I look at the girls. They are getting on like long-lost friends. “I can’t believe it. I’m not sure what I expected when we came here, but it wasn’t this.”
Brett takes my hand under the table. “Looks like the old lady was right.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
He squeezes. “Looks like your dad was, too.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Brett
Evie gazes out the small window when we take off, and Emma doesn’t seem nervous to be on the plane.
This week has been empowering for her. After Evie told off her father and bonded with her half-sister, Emma seemed to become stronger.
We even ended up at the top of Zugspitze. Emma said if Evelyn could do what she did, surely she could get over her own fears.
I’ve since wondered if that applies to all areas of her life. Because even though she’s clearly changed, I’m not sure she’s changed her stance when it comes to me. Although we had a few close encounters, Emma never let herself come into my bed the entire time we were in Germany.
When we’re up in the air, Evie finally turns away from the window. She leans forward so she can see both of us. “I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for me this week. You guys are the best. I mean that. This has been the most awesome week of my life.” She looks at her phone, where her background picture is a photo of her and Greta. “I don’t know any other mom who would have done what you did or any other man who would have gone along with it.” She takes Emma’s hand. “You deserve to be happy. You two belong together. Everyone can see that. Grandma, Brett, even Greta said something. When are you going to realize it was no mistake meeting him? I’m stuck with a
crappy biological father, but I got a sister out of it. You grew up without a father, but in some strange way, maybe that’s why you ended up meeting Brett. You know, what goes around comes around.”
I laugh. “I think you mean to say, ‘everything happens for a reason’.”
“Yeah, whatevs.” She puts her earbuds in. “I’m going to listen to music now.”
“You’ve got one heck of a kid,” I say to Emma.
I flip through the pictures of Leo on my phone.
“You really miss him,” Emma says.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Actually, I would.” She glances at Evie. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I put down my phone. “In case you haven’t figured it out by now, she’s the reason, Emma.”
“What?”
“Your whole life you’ve been looking for a reason for what happened to your dad. The answer has been right in front of you. You said you became promiscuous because you were looking for acceptance from men. You said you never would have gotten pregnant if your dad had been around.”
“I didn’t say that, my therapist did.”
“That doesn’t make it any less true. Think about it, Emma. The paths our lives take sometimes lead us down roads we don’t expect. I never expected to get divorced and hate my ex-wife. Would I change anything? No, because I have Leo, and he’s the best thing about my life. I’m not saying losing your dad was a good thing, but just look at what came of it.”
She nods over and over as tears well up in her eyes.
“Brett, uh … I’m not sure how to say this …”
“What is it?”
She blows out a long breath. “Well, I’m not scared of tall buildings anymore. And I’m not scared of airplanes. I’m not even sure I’m scared of elevators after going up in that cable car. So, maybe if I’m not scared of all those things …” She pauses and bites her lip. “Then maybe I’m not scared of—”
“Firefighters?” I say.
She shrugs. “I think I might be ready.”
My heart thunders. But she’s said those words several times before. “Ready for what, Emma?”
The Men On Fire: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 79
