by Mj Fields
I had been tempted to call him a million times, to text him just as many, and tell him to please, please just make an excuse not to come.
I had even come up with the idea to pretend I was ill, and quickly squashed that when Mom told me she couldn’t wait to have a drink, and that she was officially done breastfeeding. When she brought in two dresses, one gold with black sparkles and one black with gold sparkles, both sewn by her, especially for tonight, I knew I had to suck it up and try my best to enjoy the night with my mom.
When I step into the hallway, I hear the unfamiliar sound of two men laughing. I take a deep breath and hurry toward my mom’s room to see if she’s ready. But really, because I need my mommy like a five-year-old needs her favorite blanket, and right now I would use any excuse to procure her.
“Perfect timing.” I smile at her as she walks out of her room.
She looks at me and shakes her head. “When did my baby girl become a grown up?”
“I’m not sure,” I shrug.
“Well, it happened, and I could not be prouder of you.” She hugs me. “I’m dreading the day when Joshua decides he should make up for all the grief you never gave me.”
“He wouldn’t,” I laugh. “He has the face of an angel.”
“He looks just like you the day you were born.”
“Except–”
“Except nothing, Natasha, he looks just like you.”
When we walk down the stairs, the conversation between Oliver and Bass stops. I quickly look away from him and at my feet.
It hurts to see him, it hurts worse to see him in a black tux with a smile on his face looking at me like he did in his bedroom the last time I saw him, when he kissed my neck, my cheek, my ear, even my damn forehead, but never on the lips.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, he gives Mom a hug and she tells him, “It’s nice to have you back.”
“Glad to be back.”
Back? What does that mean, back? The United States? de la Porte? Paris? Where is back?
“Natasha.” I hear the smile in his voice and I look up and give him a fake one. When he retaliates with a real hug, I relax just a bit. When he inhales my scent, I get annoyed.
“Oliver.” I step back with a tight smile.
I look to Mom, my security blanket, who has a grin from ear to ear as Bass walks around admiring her, totally missing my angst.
“Bass, you think we could have a drink before we leave?” Oliver says smiling at me.
Bastard.
“Yeah, sure. Fuck, Ang, you look amazing.”
God, he’s of no freaking help either.
I look away from the two lovebirds and at Oliver who’s looking me up and down with his lower lip between his teeth and he whispers, “Stunning.”
I roll my eyes and walk to Maisie’s wing to get a damn drink. “I’ll get them.”
“How about in here?” I look back as Oliver nods to the conservatory.
He doesn’t wait, he just walks in.
When I follow Mom and Bass in, I see he has turned on the computer and is signing into an account of some sort.
He leans back against the desk and nods to the couch. “Have a seat, I need to show you all something pretty special.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Bass laughs as he sits next to Mom, and I sit on the other side of her.
“You all know about my childhood. Bass lived some of it. Before Bass, though, I met Grace.”
He steps back and the screen is filled with a picture of her in a wedding dress and him in a tux with his arm around her, beaming. I feel myself grow dizzy.
Oliver married Grace. Numb, I feel numb. I feel numb and sick and shaky.
“Shit, wrong picture,” he stammers as he turns to change the screen.
“She looks like Natasha,” Mom gasps.
When he steps back, there’s a picture of him standing between two women in white dresses, both beautiful, both smiling and so is he.
I can’t do this. When I start to stand, I realize I can’t, and then I realize I have no choice because my brain and body aren’t working together.
“You marred two chicks?” Bass asks. “Sister wives?”
“I married them,” he says and smiles fondly as he looks at the picture.
“What?” Bass laughs.
“As in, performed a ceremony. They got married after eleven years of being together.”
“Grace and,” Bass pauses.
“Natalie,” Oliver rolls his eyes.
I’m so confused.
“So, you turning to the cloth now?” Bass jokes. “Shall we call you Father Josephs.”
“Funny you should say that.” He looks at me and blindly clicks to the next picture. “This is Olivia. She is the most beautiful little girl I’ve ever met. Grace and Natalie met six months after she left the hell hole I called a family home, and Natalie took her in.”
He pulls a chair over and sits directly in front of me. “Grace was pregnant, and I had no idea. She never looked for me because she was afraid of what might happen to her and the baby. By the grace of God, she found Natalie who was a few years older than her, and Natalie had just enlisted in the Army.”
“Wait, you have a kid?” Bass asks.
He doesn’t look away from me. “I do.”
“And,” Bass pauses. “What the fuck, man?”
“I have an eleven-year-old daughter, who has beautiful green eyes.”
A tear runs down my face.
“She’s sweet, she’s kind, she’s always known about me, but her mothers couldn’t find me because I changed my last name.” He sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “I got to play Santa Clause to her for the first time.” He rolls his eyes as he looks down and smiles at me. “Probably the last time with her too, because she’s eleven and she’s bright, so bright.”
His eyes shine and I see tears in them.
“Both her moms are in the service, so she’s bounced around a bit when they both get deployed which makes her a little too trusting, but it also makes it easier for her to deal with change.”
A tear falls down his cheek and my entire throat burns with emotion.
“I will always have love in my heart for her mother.”
I reach forward and wipe away the lone tear cascading down his cheek, and he closes his eyes, causing another to fall.
“It’s okay to love her,” I whisper and sniff back my tears.
“The fifteen and sixteen-year-old broken boy loved that girl so much.” He swallows hard and his eyes crinkle in the corner. “But he loved her because at that time she was the only thing good in his life.”
“And I’m sure she felt the same.”
“No doubt.”
He leans back and looks at Bass.
“You sure you’re not wanting to try to make a family out of this?”
“The broken boy is dead, Bass. He’s dead and buried. I knew that when I came home a little over two years ago. But then I was buzzing around the city and the most fucked up thing happened. This girl ran right in front of me, I nearly dumped my bike to avoid hitting her. She stopped and looked at me, tears running down her face, sunlight highlighting this tiny little scar and she mouthed, sorry. I swore I had seen a ghost and I spent a good part of an hour searching for her, for this ghost, to make sure she was okay.”
He looks back at me. “No one in that city paid a damn bit of attention to this little blonde who was in so much pain. She was so upset. So hurt.”
I shake my head and he nods. “But I did. I saw her. And guess what?”
I wipe away my tears. “What?”
“She wasn’t Grace.”
“Natasha?”
I sniff and look over at Mom. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Natasha.” I look back to Oliver. “For two years, I’ve known that girl was you. I knew what I felt, but there was her staring back at me.”
I look down at my hands and he takes them. “When you busted into my room in this house, over and over agai
n, even when I warned you not to, you didn’t give a damn you were stronger than the man who lost his shit over seeing a ghost with haunting green eyes. The man who knew he couldn’t take what you offered over and over again.”
Dying now of embarrassment, I close my eyes. “Oh my God.”
He snickers, “Not like that. Your heart. Your love. I thought I was broken again, and I will not allow myself to come at a woman who deserves a whole man, not part of a man with anything less. And something was missing inside, something to do with Grace that I couldn’t shake.”
“Olivia,” I say softly and smile.
“Olivia.” He says her name like it’s everything. And seeing him now, it seems it is. “Can you forgive me for all the shit that’s happened over the past couple years?”
“What shit?” Bass ask, but I don’t answer.
“When you saw her, when you hugged her, when I sat and watched your reunion on a screen like a movie, where was I, Oliver? Where was I between then and now?”
His eyes search mine desperately, his hands grip mine tighter and he leans in and declares, “Where you’ve been since this started? Everywhere. I was becoming whole so that when I came back here, and told you I love you, you knew it was for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t stop.”
My body shakes as I silently sob, I close my eyes. “Love isn’t always enough, Oliver.”
The depth of his voice intensifies. “When you’ve gone a lifetime without it, it’s everything.”
Mom interrupts, “I think she needs a moment.”
He replies immediately, “No.”
“Oliver.” Bass stands now.
“Natasha, open your eyes and look at me. Look. At. Me.”
I open my eyes.
“I dream in color now, in a kaleidoscope of colors. I imagine our future, mine and yours. I understand you and I, we’ve been trained to be weary, but you know and I know, this thing isn’t going away. In fact, it’s only growing stronger, not even between when I saw her, and you watched. In those moments, I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to prove to you, that you and I, we’re going to stop, ever.”
He leans in and pushes his forehead to mine. “I will piss you off at times, we will butt heads about things, but there will never be a day that I won’t look at you and think of that moment everything changed in our worlds. That moment when you realized you were in love with me and I allowed myself to admit, I am so, so very, crazy stupid, in love with you.”
He reaches in his pocket, and he pulls out the Eiffel Tower keychain. “We have reservations for dinner at 58 Eiffel Tower. A date, Natasha, a real date. Come with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Oliver
Just over three months ago, I left her sleeping knowing this day would come, but needing to find out what it was, with everything I never thought I deserved staring at me for two years, I was still missing.
I left a blonde-haired, aspen eyed, freshly inked spitfire and I’ve returned to a stunning, sophisticated, and sexy brunette who owns my fucking heart and when her head wraps around all that I just laid on her, she’ll remember I am the protector of hers.
I stand and wait for her at the door. Thor’s hammer beating the hell out of my chest from the inside out. As I watch Angela whisper to Natasha, Bass walks up to me.
“First, my wife looks like a goddess, and it’s your fucking fault that I’m not going to get laid tonight. Second, that’s my stepdaughter you’re going to be… Jesus Christ, Ollie, really?”
I shrug. “Was out of my control.”
“And, man,” he hugs me, “Congrats on the kid, she’s a lucky little girl. And while you’re nailing my stepdaughter tonight and I’m consoling my wife, who just finished breastfeeding, mind you, think about your daughter when she’s Natasha’s age and take it easy.”
“Not even on my agenda. But when it happens, it’s gonna last approximately two seconds at best. Probably not even that long.”
He laughs.
“Not funny, man, I haven’t had sex since I came home last time, so cry me a river.”
“Are you serious?” he gasps.
“I saw her and no one else mattered.”
“Angela,” Bass calls for her and she looks back. “We’re going to be late.”
When Angela and Bass leave the room, Natasha stands and straightens her dress. When she turns around, she looks scared. As she walks toward me, she doesn’t even look at me. When she starts to walk past me, I pull her to me.
I lean in and kiss her cheek. “Whatever your worries are, give them to me, they are mine to rid you of.”
“We’ll be late,” she whispers and pulls away from me.
I take her hand and when she links her fingers through mine, I lift them to kiss her hand.
The entire car ride, she sits close, but I know there is a distance between us. I don’t doubt she could have handled all that was going on with me, but I could not burden her with any of it when I clearly had no idea what was going on. Until now.
I watch Angela look between her and I and when our eyes meet, hers narrow slightly. She’s not going to be an easy sell, but the product in which I’m peddling is what I know all parents would buy for their kid if they could, true love.
Sitting in the restaurant, I watch Natasha looking out the wall of windows at the spectacular view of Paris at night.
“The city of lights,” she says quietly and looks at me.
“I hardly noticed them.”
She rolls her eyes. “Corny.”
I smile. “I warn you, it’s probably going to get worse.”
She presses her lips together in a smirk as her cheeks pinken.
I lean in. “You look stunning. Your design?”
“My Mom, actually.”
“Reason two that tonight’s not the night.”
“What?” She laughs knowing full well what I’m referring to.
“Your mother isn’t fond of me right now. I promise you, I will win her over, but can you imagine how she’d feel if I destroyed that dress?”
She laughs out loud and I swear everyone must be looking at her, how could they not?
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Little Warrior.”
She surprises me by throwing her arms around me and hugging me. “I’m so pissed at you for not telling me why you were there. So mad at you for allowing me to think that she and you were together. But I’m so happy you found out you are a dad.”
“In response to being pissed, I apologize. As to being mad for allowing you to think I could possibly want anyone more than you, I’m not sure how you could’ve thought that, Natasha, you gave me every dream you ever dreamed, every wish you ever wished, every prayer you have ever prayed, did you think I would take them all from you and never return them?”
She hugs me tighter.
When the waiter comes to the table and asks to take our order, Natasha lets go, but she leans against my side, her head resting on my shoulder. Angela stares intently and protectively at her daughter, and when she closes her eyes, and smiles, a tear falls down her face. I look at Natasha and she’s smiling.
“Is she okay?”
“Hmm,” she sighs. “I told her I love you.”
“I should be upset that you didn’t say it to me after I proclaimed my love for you in front of your mother and Bass.”
“But you won’t.” She again sighs contently.
After dinner, we all walk to the same spot that Angela and Bass married. Natasha takes picture after picture of them.
I never understood why people took so many pictures, posted them online. I thought it self-centered, attention seeking, like they were bragging about their lives, but right now, I’m not seeing it that way. I’m seeing two people who love each other, capturing a moment at a place that is special to them.
A picture like that is post worthy. People who think a woman in her forties has no business marrying a man in his twenties will judge, hell, I judged. But now, I see no age, I see love, I
see the type of love that is true and real. And I see hope, hope for people who may be in the same situation, but hiding it from the judgmental eyes, and maybe if they see them, they won’t feel they have to.
When she’s done, Natasha looks back at me, aspen eyes shining, a beautiful smile on her stunning face as she smirks and rocks on her heels.
Walking up, I punch in my code, and hand my phone to Bass. Nodding to Natasha, I ask, “Do you mind?”
I reach out my hand and she takes it. I position her in front of me, her back to my chest, and wrap my arms around her.
She looks up at me and wrinkles her nose. I can’t help but kiss it.
Her smile changes and she bites her upper lip, she does that when she’s feeling self-conscious.
“You look beautiful,” I remind her.
She shrugs one shoulder and licks her lips.
“If I kiss you here, your mother’s going to see things no one’s mother should see.”
She laughs as she turns around and hugs me.
“You hug me any tighter and the little knee action at our house a few months ago, that made you quiver, is going to make you quake.”
“Her eyes widen and she swallows hard. “What’s the difference between a quiver and a quake?”
“I’ll show you another time.”
“Soon I hope,” she whispers as her hands slip under my jacket and runs up and down my back.
“Let’s figure out a way to ditch the folks,” I wink.
“The what?” Bass laughs.
“The folks, the ‘rents, the–”
“You better stop while you’re ahead,” Angela says lightheartedly.
Natasha giggles and turns around, never allowing our bodies to lose connection, as she leans against me.
“Am I ahead?” I ask Angela.
“She loves you.”
“I know.” I look up. “I know.”
“She’s in college, here in London, you bought a house in the Hamptons. How is that going to work?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“And you have a daughter.” Angela smiles tightly.
