Who was this man and what had he done to my father?
“I thought you wanted me to concentrate on the business, on my career.”
Dad shook his head. “I love what you’ve done with the business. You’re the best performing subsidiary I have and your company is doing well, too.”
I gaped, putting my coffee on the table to slap his arm. He slopped coffee everywhere, laughing as I took his cup from him and continued my assault, gently slapping him until he put up his hands in surrender.
“Rebecca, stop.” He grabbed hold of me, wrestling me into another embrace while I laughed. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. You’ve worked so hard, and I can’t even begin to tell you just how proud I am of you. How proud I’ve always been of you. If this is the man you want, just be with him.”
Tears sprang up as he rocked me. Even at my age it was comforting. My whole life I’d had this internal battle going on, torn between being the good girl he wanted and the rebel, desperately trying to get his attention.
After all this time, I finally realised he needed my approval.
Now to sort things out with Elliot.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Secrets. Secrets can destroy you, no matter how small they are. Sometimes it’s easy to protect someone with a little white lie, but if it comes back to bite you? Well, I’d had enough of secrets. Telling Dad had taken some weight off, even if it turned out to be nothing I had to worry about.
Now I’d put my heart on the line and if Elliot wanted it, it was his. I could only hope I wasn’t too late.
He missed me.
He needed me.
After Dad left, I went back to bed and slept until mid-afternoon. When I woke, I showered, washing away the gross feeling, standing under the shower until there was no hot water left.
I dressed, slipping on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and pulled the sheets off the bed. If there was any chance of having a guest, I wanted the bed to be clean. Even if it would just end up being all hot and sweaty anyway.
My stomach grumbling, I headed out to the kitchen, cracking a couple of eggs into a pan and toasting bread to stop the achy, hungry feeling I now had.
Shower, food, coffee. Now I could take on the world.
I picked up my phone. No further message from Elliot.
I need to talk to you. Please call me.
I pressed send and waited. And fidgeted. And waited.
Staring at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, I looked back down at the phone. Two minutes had passed.
You need something else to occupy your time.
I went back to the living room, flicking on the television and opening the laptop on the coffee table. There were a couple of work e-mails, and I wasted a bit of time on Facebook.
Elliot and I aren’t friends on Facebook.
I typed his name in the search and pressed enter, my heart pounding as I saw his photo. His profile was pretty closed up, but there were a few photos of him, and I clicked the request friend button.
My phone beeped as he accepted it.
The message tone sounded.
Aren’t you working? What are you doing mucking around on Facebook?
The words were followed by a big poking tongue emoticon. Talk about mixed signals.
I’m at home. Can we talk?
Oh. Go out on the deck.
I stood, moving back through the kitchen and out the back door.
Elliot stood on his grandmother’s deck, with that affectionate look on his face I knew so well.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
He reached the fence first, beckoning me closer.
“I’m sorry about being a complete douche. I was going to come over after dinner to apologise. I missed you so much,” he said.
My heart skipped a beat as I looked at him, and I had no doubt he meant it. “I missed you too.”
“I’m also sorry I didn’t call you more often. Things have been a bit crazy.”
My heart wavered as I looked at him. He’d just said he missed me, but he’d not called me, clearly too busy with something else. Alarm bells raged in my head. Not my Elliot—he couldn’t do anything bad. Could he?
“Like what?”
“Some stuff I need to talk to you about. I should have at least sent you a text, but I was so damn anxious to get home and see you. When I say I missed you, well, I didn’t think it was possible to need someone around so much.”
I exhaled the breath that felt on hold forever, his soul open to me for the first time. We’d shared so many intimate moments, but right now, on opposite sides of the fence, we felt closer than ever.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Elliot said.
“What are you up to?” I asked, aching for him to jump the fence, to jump me.
“I’ll bring her around the front door. Be over in a minute.”
Her? He had a‘her’ for me to meet? His mother? I already kind of knew his grandmother.
Curious, I walked back into the house and through to the front door, opening it. Moments later he appeared, walking up the driveway, a small child by his side. She was at a guess about four, with blonde pigtails and the cutest little pink dress. Who is this?
Elliot spoke to her as they walked. I couldn’t hear it, but she held his hand tight as our eyes met and she slowed her step to walk slightly behind him. Whoever she was, she was adorable and shy.
When they reached me, he looked at me so earnestly I wanted to cry for some reason. What was this all about?
He kissed me tenderly, producing from behind his back a single red rose. Very obviously been clipped from his grandmother’s garden.
“I’m sorry about last night. I was such an idiot. I missed you like crazy and then seeing you draped over that guy …”
“It wasn’t just a guy, it was Logan. Olivia’s partner.”
He twisted his lips, looking sheepish. “I worked out it was something like that afterward. I’m so sorry, Becs, I hope you can forgive me. I let my emotions run away with me.”
I grinned, running my finger across the soft, silky petals of the rose. “I think I might be able to do that. Hope I’m not going to be in trouble for having this.” I swung back and forward, raising the flower to my nose and taking a deep sniff of the gentle perfume.
“Nan cut it for me. She felt sorry for me moping around, and I confessed what I’d done. If it means anything, she told me I was an idiot, that she’d never seen any other men around here.”
“Because there haven’t been. Apart from my dad this morning. And Logan, who helped me out when I was far too drunk to drive for myself.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why were you that drunk? All the time I’ve known you, you haven’t been like that. Not since the night before we met.”
“It’s a long story. Want to come inside and catch up?”
Elliot looked down at the little girl beside him. She was yawning, and kicking her feet into the ground, very clearly bored. “Shall we go inside and sit down?”
She hid behind him, poking her head around his leg at me. I grinned. “Boo,” I said.
With a giggle she came out a little, and I stood aside while Elliot led her into the house. She had big blue eyes that took everything in. What a little heartbreaker.
"Who's this?" I asked.
"That's what we need to talk about."
They sat on the couch and Elliot stroked her head as she snuggled up against him.
“Do you want a drink or anything? I think I have some juice in the fridge.”
He smiled. “We just had a snack. Rebecca, I’d like you to meet Ruby.”
Slowly I sat in a chair opposite them. “Hi Ruby. It’s nice to meet you.”
She grinned and I looked back at Elliot curiously. “What’s going on?”
He took the deepest breath I think I’d ever seen him take, never taking his eyes from me. “Ruby’s my daughter.”
I swallowed hard and looked again at
the little girl. Her gaze was fixed on Elliot and in profile I could see it more than anything.
“I know I need to tell you the whole story, but I wanted you to meet her. She’s going to be living with me now.”
My head swam as he reached for my hand. This was huge and unexpected. My chest began to hurt at the thought that something had obviously happened for him, for both of them and I had no idea what it was.
"That’s why I came over. I wanted you to know everything. I tried to come over this morning before work, but you didn’t answer the door.”
“I was asleep. You could have let yourself in.”
He looked sheepish. “After turning up on your doorstep and jumping to some really big conclusions, I didn’t want to make any assumptions about being welcome.”
I nodded. He smiled at Ruby.
“I should have brought over some of her toys. Keep her busy while I tell you everything.”
“I’ve got some pens and paper if she wants to draw?” The ache in my heart made me want this story, no matter how painful it might turn out to be. If Ruby was there, where was her mother?
“That’d be great. What do you think, Rubes?” Elliot asked, tickling her under the chin.
She giggled and twisted her head away. “Nooooo,” she said, with a laugh.
“No to being tickled, or to drawing? Want to draw, baby?”
Ruby nodded, her pigtails flying. I couldn’t help but smile; she was so precious.
I stood and moved to my desk, opening the drawer. There were always plenty of pens in there, highlighters, the works. Grabbing a pile of paper, and a handful of random pens, I placed it on the surface and motioned for her to come over.
She ran over, hopping on the chair, and ran her fingers across the pens, carefully selecting the first one.
Once she’d started scribbling, I made my way back to the other side of the living room, sitting in a chair opposite Elliot. Despite his earlier words, the need for some distance, to put a barrier between us was necessary. What if after all his words he still broke my heart?
“Ruby’s mother and I were together about five years ago. Not for long. We broke up after six months because it just wasn’t working. Anyway, I get this call a few months ago and Toni’s dying. Twenty-five years old and she has cervical cancer. Wasn’t picked up early—she was never very good at keeping appointments. Anyway, she tells me that I have a kid.”
I turned and looked back over my shoulder. It really was clear as anything looking at her. She frantically scribbled on the paper, looking up to check on Elliot and smiling at me before returning to her drawing.
“She’s amazing. Bright as a button and very artistic. She starts school next year.”
Turning my head back to face him I nodded. “She seems very sweet. Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t mean the question to sound as if I had to know for my own benefit. I just thought that with him sharing my bed often, he might have shared this with me.
“I didn’t know how you’d deal with it. Here we were in this casual relationship, and I didn’t even know for sure that Ruby was mine. The last thing I wanted was to lay all this on you and then find that she wasn’t mine after all. Toni didn’t have any family support so I went and stayed with them to get to know my daughter and to say goodbye. I stayed until … we buried her last Friday.”
Tears stung my eyes as my heart broke for that little girl behind me. She’d lost her mother, and only just discovered she had a father. What an upside-down world she must be living in. And yet she was so good, sitting quietly and colouring while the father she'd just met spoke to me. Another stranger.
“Elliot, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “I wish I’d known earlier. Maybe I could have made things easier for her, stayed and taken care of Ruby. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m home now and not going anywhere else. Ruby needs me. I need you.”
I stood, moving to the couch beside him and wrapping my arms around his neck.
“You’re not upset?” he whispered.
I leaned back, cupping his face in my hands. “I’m hurt that you didn’t tell me what was going on, but that kinda pales in comparison to what you two have been through.”
“I know. I was scared to tell you. This wasn’t part of our deal.”
“Maybe not. But it’s your deal now. You need to do what’s best for her.”
Elliot’s brow wrinkled as he frowned. “What about this thing we’ve got going? What about what’s best for us?”
That brought a grin to my face. I’d missed him so much, just having him back in my house was enough for me right now. We didn’t have to be rolling around naked to enjoy time together.
“We’ll work it out. You can bring Ruby over for dinner some nights maybe.”
He snuggled into my shoulder, leaning against me and watching her.
“I’d like that. This whole thing is so scary, Becs. I have no idea what I’m doing trying to be her dad.”
I kissed the top of his head, squeezing his shoulder. “Looks to me like you’ve gotten off to a great start.”
He gulped. “I was worried that you wouldn’t want for us to … well, you know.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.
“I know how you feel about children.”
The words stung, stabbing at my heart like pinpricks. “I don’t know if you do.”
“You said you didn’t want any. I mean, I know we’re not together together, but with Ruby in my life I thought things might change between us.”
Ruby slid off the chair, and held her picture up for us to see. “Elliot, look what I drew,” she said.
That did it. I burst into tears at the sight of her picture, very clearly a family. At a guess it was her in the middle, Elliot on one side and her mother on the other.
She frowned, tucking the picture behind her back and slipping around the coffee table to stand beside Elliot.
“Ruby, it’s beautiful. I’m sorry I’m crying, but it’s just such a lovely picture,” I whispered the words, unable to force my voice above a murmur.
A little smile appeared on her face, and Elliot reached for her, pulling her closer. “It is very lovely, sweetheart. What is it?”
“Me and Mummy and you.”
“She’d love it.” His voice cracked, and I squeezed his shoulder even harder. “We’ll put it on the fridge when we get home.”
“When can we go home?”
“We’ll go and see Nan in a little while. I just wanted to come and say hi to Rebecca so you could meet her. She’s a special friend of mine.”
Ruby tilted her head to get a better look at me, and I winked, making her giggle.
She had her father’s dimples, and that same mannerism of swaying back and forward looking at the floor. On him it was endearing, on her, cute.
I didn’t know just how much room you could have in your heart until that moment. Elliot needed me; Ruby needed me. Nothing in my life had ever been so important.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I sat in the silence when they left, consumed by thoughts of the future. This was the moment I had to make a choice.
Elliot would need help, support. He might have his grandmother, but she wouldn’t be around forever. Could I make the type of commitment he needed? Was that even what he wanted at all?
Elliot had made it really clear he wanted to see me. What if he just wanted to keep me on as a booty call? After the weeks I’d missed him, been faithful to him even though he’d never asked me to, and all the feelings of longing—how would I feel if he made that decision?
Ruby had to come first now, of course. Some selfish little part of me wanted him to myself, but that wasn’t going to be. I had to share him in some form. I couldn’t resent her, especially after all she’d been through.
The thought of her made me smile. She was shy, but composed. Unsure of herself, but Elliot’s cheekiness shone through her. She’d grow up to be a lot like her father. Beautiful and creative.
Lost in thought
, I jumped as my phone vibrated across the table, rattling the cups that still sat there from Dad's visit. The text message made me laugh. It was from Elliot.
There’s a lot more I want to say to you. But not for little ears. See you tonight.
I clung to the phone, holding it against my chest with glee. My body grew warm at the memory of his touch. It might have been months since we’d had sex, but every second we’d spent together had been unforgettable. My dirty little secret. I’d told Dad about Elliot, but now I had more to talk with Dad about.
So much to think about.
And yet it seemed to be the easiest decision of all.
My stomach churned as I pecked at my dinner later, unable to concentrate.
I love Elliot.
There, I’d thought it. Now to say it out loud.
I ran at the sound of a gentle tap on the door. Elliot waited on the other side, and didn’t stop to say hello. He grabbed me in the doorway, pulling my body to his, and kissing me with the intensity I craved.
Backing away from the door, he pushed it shut with his foot as we moved down the hallway toward the bedroom. He grazed his lips down my neck, guiding me toward the bed before running his hands down my back and pulling my legs up as I jumped. He twirled me around, and I laughed as he growled.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever,” he said.
“Me too.”
I fell backwards onto the bed, reaching for the button on my jeans and wriggling out of them while he pulled his T-shirt over his head. Sitting up, I pulled off my shirt, his hands on my back as he unclipped my bra. Those big, warm hands stroked my skin.
“I missed you more than anything, Rebecca Wallace.”
“Sex now, talk later.” I grinned, leaning back.
He smiled, hovering over me and kissing me, stripping off his jeans. Nothing had ever felt as good as his flesh on mine, together as we needed to be. This was never meant to feel this serious, be this real, but it was, and I gladly gave my heart to this man.
Elliot slipped his hand between my legs, rubbing my clit and moaning just as I did. "This is home." He said the words, nuzzling my neck, making me sigh and shudder as I gave myself to him, body and soul.
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