by Alexis Gold
Janine had reminded Roman to go buy a new suit for the big event, and he'd gone shopping and found something he thought would work. He brought it back to the office, and having no one to try it on for at home or anywhere else, he took it to work to run it past Janine. Denise would only have criticized him, but Janine had good taste, and she would be honest without being vicious to him.
He pulled the trousers on and was standing in his office bare from the waist up as he wrestled with the buttons on the shirt when Janine walked in and stopped short, staring at him. "I don't think you'd better go to the party looking like that, but I also think the only person who would object would be your wife."
Roman looked at her in exasperation. "Janine! Please knock first!"
She nodded. "Well, normally I would, but you've got a special visitor here and I thought I'd send them right in to you."
"Janine! I can't see anyone right now, I'm half-" he stopped short and stared at the doorway, his shirt in his hands, as his mouth fell open in utter shock.
Janine moved aside as Cami walked in, pushing a pretty pink stroller in front of her. She looked up at Roman and gave him a little smile. "It's okay, I've seen it before."
The shirt fell from Roman's hands, but other than that, nothing in the room moved or made any sound for a long, long moment. Janine glanced back and forth between them. "Well, I've got things to do." She stepped out and closed the door behind her.
Roman tried to think; he tried to remember to breathe, tried to remember to move and speak, and slowly, as though he was thawing out. Finally, he was able to draw a breath.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" Cami asked, looking at him nervously.
He felt the blood moving in his legs again and he took slow steps toward her. "How... how is this happening? How are you here?"
The realization hit him and he gasped as tears stung his eyes. No one had ever made him feel as cherished and alive as this woman had made him feel, and she'd disappeared after their time together, with no word, no note, no contact at all for a whole year, and now suddenly she was standing in front of him. It was like he had woken up again and everything in his soul began to move once more, drawing him to her and setting him on fire with life once more.
He rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him. "It's you!" he laughed through his tears. "It's you! I never thought I'd see you again. I thought it was all just a dream... it seemed so unreal as more time passed, and now you're here! You're..." He stopped talking and stepped back from her, looking at her as though she was the reason there was suddenly light in his life again. He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned away and he stopped, staring in confusion and then stepped backward.
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly.
She shook her head and laughed at him. "Can you see anything but me right now?"
He finally looked down and saw the stroller at her side and he stared anew.
It was a bassinet stroller, and the back was laid down while the top was pulled up in a canopy, so Roman had to walk around beside Cami to look down into it.
"What... what..." he whispered as his jumbled thoughts and emotions began to form some semblance of logic. “You... you had a baby?"
She shook her head. "No... Roman, we had a baby."
He could have been knocked over with a feather.
There was another long silence from him as this information sunk into his head. He was a father. He had a child. He had a daughter, by the looks of all the pink the baby was wrapped up in. Cami was back. Cami was standing in front of him, looking far more beautiful than he remembered in his dreams, and she was telling him that they had a child together.
"You should sit down." She said it gently, reaching for him and taking his hand. He held her hand in his, but he didn't move when she pulled a little on his arm. Instead, he looked down into the stroller and saw a precious baby with dark curls and chubby cheeks, a little button nose and beautiful dark pink lips. Her long eyelashes rested against her dark caramel skin and her fingers were curled around her blanket.
"I'm a father...." he whispered aloud, feeling amazed at the sound of it.
"Why didn't you ever tell me? Why didn't you let me know? I would have helped you; I would have wanted to be a part of all of it!" He turned to look at her and saw that she was smiling through silent tears. He reached out to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him and rocking her as he closed his eyes. "You're here, you're real, and we have a daughter. I can't believe this at all, but I won't let go of it for anything."
She wrapped her arms around him too, and held him close, burying her face in his chest. She had faced so much alone without him. Now that he was holding her, it felt like he was taking his part of the weight from her, part of the burden and stress, his part of the joy and happiness, and his portion of all of the things that she had borne alone without him during the year they had been apart. It was profound for her and she wept and he held her.
She felt the feel of his skin against her cheek as she laid her face on his chest, and she closed her eyes, knowing that this was not a way for them to be. She picked her face up to look at him and he took her face in his hands and moved to kiss her again, but she turned away once more.
"No... we can't!" she whispered painfully.
He blinked at her. The last time she had been in his arms, they were making love. The last time she had been in his arms, they were making the baby that was sleeping beside them.
"What is it? You don't want me to touch you?" he asked in confusion.
She shook her head. "No, it's not that." She sighed. "You're still married, and I'm not your wife, or your lady; I'm just a woman you had an affair with once, and now we have a baby. I didn't know what to do for a long time, for the entire term of the pregnancy, really, but then after she was born, I knew I had to come up here to find you and tell you, to give you a chance to be a father to her, but you and I... we can only be friends.
“I'm not going to be your mistress, Roman. You aren't like that, and I'm not like that. Neither of us needs that in our lives, and our daughter deserves the best situation from both of us. That means we have to step up to the responsibilities of being the best parents we can be, which means that we can't be sneaking around together behind your wife's back.
“You're married, you're hers, and this baby is ours, and we are friends, and that's how it is, and that's how it's going to be. I'm just here so you can be around her." Cami spoke sadly, but truthfully, and he knew she was right.
He had no right at all to try to be more than friends with her, and he knew it deep down in his soul. "I'm sorry. I apologize. It's just... seeing you... it brought everything back for me, and I just wanted to... I needed to...." He looked down at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. "This isn't about us anymore, though, it's only about her." He looked up at Cami again. "I understand. I'm so sorry that you went through all of it alone. I promise to make it up to you." He turned and looked at her fully. "Are you still living in Los Angeles?"
She shook her head. "No, I'd like to try to find a place up here so we can raise her together. It's too much for me to try to do it on my own, and I don't want you to miss out on any of it."
"I'm here! I'm here. I'll help you. Never worry about that; never worry about it again." He walked over to door and opened it up, calling for Janine. Then he walked back over to the stroller and looked down at his daughter again.
"What's her name?" he asked softly, feeling the joy in him overflow and spread the smile on his face.
Cami walked toward him and looked down at their daughter. "Her name is Emma. Emma Bruce."
He looked up at her quickly. "You gave her my last name?" he grinned.
Cami smiled and laughed a little. "Of course I did; she's your daughter."
"How old is she?" he asked.
"She's two and a half months old," Cami said as their daughter began to stir and open her eyes. Cami leaned down and picked her up carefully. "Would yo
u like to hold her?"
Roman nodded and grinned the biggest grin of his life as Cami placed the baby girl in his arms. She stared up at her father with big brown eyes; his brown eyes, they weren't as dark as her mother's eyes; and he felt like he could cry with joy forever.
Emma reached her little hand up and touched her father's face and Roman fell in love with her then, for the rest of his life.
"Yes?" Janine said, walking into the room and taking in the scene with a sly smile.
Roman turned to look at her and she raised her eyebrows.
"Janine, please close the door," he said softly.
She closed it and looked at him, waiting expectantly.
"Janine, this is my dear friend Cami, Cami this is my secretary and right hand, Janine." He nodded as he introduced them to each other while his baby patted his face.
The ladies shook hands and Cami grinned at Janine, who gave her a wide smile back.
"Janine, this is my daughter, Emma." He looked up at Janine who tried to blink back the water in her own eyes while her mouth pulled back wide. "Cami and Emma need a place to live, a car to drive, and bank accounts opened in their names. Please take care of that for them right away."
"It would be my honor, Roman," she said, her grin splitting open as she walked toward the baby to look at her more closely.
She gasped and giggled. "Look at that little pipsqueak!" She reached up and tickled Emma's face, and Emma smiled at her happily. "Don't you worry about anything at all, little pipsqueak! Your Auntie Janine is going to take care of everything! Yes I am!"
Janine looked up at Roman and shook her head in joy. "It's about time you got some good in your life. Cami," she said, turning toward the woman standing at Roman's side, "don't you go anywhere. You stay with this man for the rest of your lives."
She turned and headed toward the door, just barely reaching for the doorknob when she turned to look over her shoulder at Roman.
"What do I do about 'The Wife'?" she asked as though the words left a sour taste in her mouth.
Roman pursed his lips and looked at Emma, grinning away at him. "She doesn't need to know anything about this yet. Let's leave that be for now. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. There's no reason to make all of our lives miserable just because we let her in on the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."
Janine nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her, and Cami laughed. "Well, that's one way to do it!"
Roman turned and looked at her, laughing with her, and he said, "That's the only way to do it. The less she knows, the happier we will all be." He lifted Emma up in the air, bouncing her just a little and then bringing her back down to his chest to cuddle with her.
"Besides, your Auntie Janine is going to have everything all squared away for you in no time, and then you won't have a single worry in the whole wide world. Not one." He leaned forward to kiss her and as he reached her skin, her scent stopped him and he closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of his daughter's skin. It sparked something in him, and new places in his heart opened up where there had been nothing before.
He kissed her and felt the sweet softness of her baby skin on his lips. It brought new worlds of joy to him and a tear rolled down his cheek.
Cami stepped toward him and grinned. "There's nothing in the world like her, is there?" she asked knowingly.
He shook his head. "Nothing at all." He held her close and looked at Cami. "Thank you so much for bringing her here to me and for letting me have this chance with her. I'm going to do everything I can to give you both a good life."
Cami shook her head. "Well, I'm not here for me, but for her..." she smiled at Emma.
Roman looked at her intently. "Absolutely for you. You went almost a whole year on your own with her, through the pregnancy, the labor, the birth, through raising her on your own for a couple of months; there's all of that. There’s the fact that you mean a great deal to me, Cami, and I'm not about to let the mother of my baby, and one of my dearest friends, go without the best. It's my duty and my privilege to do everything I can for the both of you."
She walked up to him and wrapped her arm around him, and laying her head on his bare shoulder as they looked at their daughter. "Aren't we all the lucky ones, then," she said with more elation in her heart than she had felt in a long time.
"I didn't know if I should come; it's so funny, I was so worried about it, and now here I am, with you and her, all of us together, and it's incredible. I'm just sorry that I waited so long to come to you. I wish I'd done it sooner, and that you had been able to be in the hospital."
Roman shrugged. "Well, that's all past; this is what we have now, and what we have now is the best that I've ever had, so I'll take it."
Cami held him tight and he wrapped his arms around them both, and they stood there holding each other, the new little family; a precious secret to be shared.
Emma grew hungry and began to fuss, and her mother sat down to breast feed her. Roman watched in fascination and couldn't believe that anyone would ever have a problem with women breast feeding in public; it looked like the most natural and beautiful thing in the world to him.
Cami looked up at him as he watched her. "There's a good reason for my chest to be bare. Why are you running around your office half naked?" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
He blushed slightly and walked over to where his shirt was laying on the floor. He bent and picked it up and she didn't stop herself from appreciating his physique as he moved around her. She took a deep breath and tried to keep the memory of the feel of his body against hers out of her mind.
"Well, actually, it's kind of a mess, but part of it is good. Captain Heatherwick, who was on our cruise, is bringing another yacht into the marina today, and he's going to stay on it for a short visit while I decide if I'm going to buy it and then sell it to Senator Johnson. Senator Johnson and his wife Carmen are really interested in buying a yacht from me, and in joining my yacht club.
“My dear wife, whose eyes are always on the social aspect of things, is keen to have them become our new best friends so that she can brag to all and sundry that she is now a close personal confidant of the Senator of the great state of California. Myself, I don't care; I just want to be out on the water."
He pulled the shirt on and buttoned it up as he spoke and Cami watched him as he slowly covered his chest, one button at a time. She couldn't help feeling a little disappointed to see him dressing.
Roman continued. "So, in an effort to impress the Senator and his wife, Denise is planning some big bash on the yacht to impress him with her almost non-existent social status and convince him to buy the yacht. Janine, in a bid to save me from the wrath of my persnickety wife, sent me out to buy a new suit for the big bash, as my wife instructed me to do.
“This is that suit. I was trying it on when you came in, and that is why," he tucked the shirt in and pulled the jacket on, leaving the top two buttons on the shirt undone, "I was half dressed when you walked in; or rather, half naked, depending on your perspective of things." He winked at her.
"It's not nice to tease. Behave," she said with a grin at him.
He nodded. "Fair enough."
She burped the baby and as she was patting Emma's back, Cami looked at Roman and said thoughtfully, "You know, when we get a place, I'll want you to come over anytime you like and you can start feeding her, too."
Roman raised one eyebrow. "Uh... I'm not equipped for that." He smiled at her.
Cami laughed out loud at him. "You're too much. I have a breast pump, Roman, I'll pump the milk for her and put it in a bottle and then you can feed her. Daddy duty."
Roman looked excited at the prospect. "Absolutely! I can't wait!" He looked one hundred percent as if he meant every word of it, and he did.
When Cami and Emma left the office that day, after Auntie Janine had taken her turn to hold the baby and play with her, and then deciding that her nickname would be Pip, short for Pipsqueak, Roman watch
ed them leave and realized that there was almost no way that his life could be better. Almost. It was hard to watch Cami leave and feel so confused in his heart about her and about Denise and his marriage vows.
He had no idea how he would explain it to his wife, but somehow, he was sure, he would find a way, and then maybe the nagging pull in his heart for Cami would go away and they could be the friends that they started out being on Captain Heatherwick's beautiful yacht.
Chapter Three
Cami stepped out of Roman's office into the bright San Francisco sunshine, and drew in a huge breath of salty sea air, letting it out of her lungs slowly. She'd been worried about their meeting, wondering what he would think, what he would say, what it would be like after so much time had passed. But it was over and she felt enormously relieved.
