Chapter 23

TWENTY-THREE

W hen the house came back into focus, the sweet, musky scents of salt and man cocooned me. After Xavier had gone out of his way to show me exactly how desirable I was once more on the kitchen table and then again over the back of the couch, we landed on the soft cushions, naked together. Xavier on his back, me splayed across his chest and cradled in his big arms.

The world was quiet again. Not just outside the house, where Red Hook was a ghost town in the wee hours of the morning. For once, my mind was also still as I lay there, eyes closed while the solid thump of Xavier’s heartbeat played under my temple.

We said nothing. Neither of us was much for trite words or meta-critiques to begin with, but right now, nothing seemed appropriate. No “Well, that was something,” or “What did we just do?”

There was something else familiar about Xavier that I had almost forgotten. This moment after the fact, when lying together skin to skin in the dark of the night, was more of a meditation than an existence.

And so we did, measuring our breaths, content just to be in each other’s arms. Until soft and muffled, Sofia’s voice cut through the quiet with an unintelligible cry.

Xavier tensed, grabbing my shoulders as he clearly prepared to move.

“Relax,” I said, pressing my palm flat to his chest to push myself up slightly and look at him. “She talks in her sleep. But once she’s out, she could sleep through a hurricane.”

He sank back into the couch cushions but didn’t relax. Not completely. He looked at the ceiling for a minute before sighing, blue eyes finding mine with the depth of unknown loss.

“There’s so much I don’t know,” he said quietly. “How she sleeps, for instance. I followed your instructions. Read her a story. Sang a song to that bunny or whatever. Said good night.”

I chuckled. “She got you to sing? She never makes me sing anymore.”

He snorted. Sofia had clearly already wrapped him around her little finger, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. In fact, he seemed all the more game to make a fool out of himself just for her enjoyment. Just like he used to with me five years ago.

“But then I had to leave,” he continued softly as his hand began to play up and down my back, occasionally taking pieces of my hair and combing through them. “So I don’t know what happens after that.”

I lay back down, chin propped on my forearm so I could still watch his face. “On her back, arms overhead like she’s in a freefall. But only after I lie with her for at least thirty minutes and let her run her mouth about the day. She only goes to sleep on her own for other people, the little minx.”

He didn’t smile. Not quite. But his mouth quirked at the edges, reminding me just how much I wanted to see that grin more often. As frequently as possible, really. I wanted to see it every day.

Xavier remained quiet, staring at the ceiling, still lost in his thoughts as his fingers traced the divot of my spine.

“I understand now why you did it,” he said after a long while.

I blinked. “Did what?”

“Kept her from me,” he confirmed with a quick, dark glance down. “I would have done the same thing.”

My hand paused somewhere over his sternum. “You would have?”

He nodded. “I didn’t understand at first. I thought, what right does she have, keeping the girl from her own dad? And maybe I still think that a little. But I see now when I look at her, and—Jesus God, she scares the shit out of me, Ces. This feeling…” He splayed a big hand over mine, except his covered most of his chest, whereas mine covered only a fraction. He pressed both our palms down hard and took several deep breaths. “I look at her, and I can hardly breathe, I’m so scared.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Parenthood does that.”

“Fucking hell. It’s only been a few days. What’s it like after four years?”

I shrugged, then lay my cheek back onto his chest. “Weirdly, you get kind of used to it. But sometimes it’s worse. I love her so much, the idea of anything happening to her now makes me feel like I honestly couldn’t go on. I get why people who lose their kids fall apart. It’s not natural.”

He quieted again, but his hand had stopped moving. Instead, he spread his fingers and pressed his palm flat to the small of my back, as if to hold me even closer.

“You know, I’m not what you think I am.”

“Oh?” I mumbled into his neck. “What do I think you are?”

“Cold. Callous. Angry.”

“You’re not those things?” It was news to me. “You want to tell that to the date you just scared off?”

He chuckled. It was nice to hear. “Well, not always.”

“I don’t really think that about you,” I said as I started tracing my own fingertips up and over the broad lines of his pectoral muscle. “You’ve changed since I first met you, of course. But mostly…mostly I think you’re just sadder, somehow.”

That hand at my back tensed. “You mean pathetic?”

“No, no.”

I pushed myself back up so I could look at him again. Shyly, he tucked a few loose strands of my hair behind my ear.

“Sad as in…forlorn,” I clarified. “Sorrowful. Unhappy. Except when you’re with Sofia. When you met her, you finally smiled, you know.”

“Well, she doesn’t really give you a choice.”

Said smile made a slight appearance. But it faded just as quickly. I balanced on top of him, waiting for some kind of explanation. To tell me exactly what had happened in the course of five years that had made him like this.

Instead, Xavier just cleared his throat. “Anyway, yeah. I wouldn’t have told me either. You were right to be careful.”

I frowned. “But…but that’s just it.”

He looked down at me. “What?”

I swallowed. Why was this so hard to say? “I’m glad you understand. But Xavi, I was wrong to keep her a secret.”

At that, he pushed himself up to a sitting position, forcing me to straddle his waist, but keeping an arm around mine so we remained close. We stared at each other for a long time, blue eyes matched to green. But there was nothing predatory in his gaze, and for the first time in a long while, I felt no shame and not the slightest bit self-conscious. Here, together with Xavier and naked in the dark, I wasn’t the frazzled teacher or the exhausted mother. Not the needy sister or the five-year liar. I was forgiven. Here in Xavier’s arms, I was only myself.

I had missed her.

“You’ve changed too,” he murmured as his hands drifted down and settled on the fullest part of my backside. “You’re…I don’t know…riper somehow. Like a piece of fruit.”

My face twisted. “I think that’s a polite way of telling me I got chubby.”

“God—woman, just listen, will you? Did I not just spend the last two hours showing you exactly how exquisite I think you are?”

His hands kneaded lightly on my sensitive flesh, and for a moment, I thought he was going to ignore my apology completely and start hour three as he kissed me again, lips full of promise.

But then he pulled away and shook his head hard enough that that wayward lock toppled forward onto his forehead.

“You weren’t wrong,” he told me. “I know who I am, Ces. And I know who I was. Fuckboy headcase. Good for a few weeks’ shagging, but left you for another woman, didn’t I?”

“No,” I said emphatically. “If I don’t get to see the worst in myself, then neither do you.”

“Still.”

I pressed my palms to his cheeks, stroking the lines of his strong bones with my thumbs. His eyes closed for half a second, vulnerable and wide when they opened again.

“I see you with her, Xavi,” I said softly. “How gentle you are with her. How you watch her, interact with her. I see how you care for her, even after just a few days. That man isn’t cold or a headcase. He’s a father. Am I wrong?”

He stared up at the ceiling, lips pressed into a thin, almost white line while a muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw. He was silent long enough that I thought he wasn’t going to say anything at all. But when he finally looked back at me, his blue eyes were shining, wet and bright. A tiny tear slid down one side of his face, so small I might have missed it if it hadn’t caught the light that gleamed on the edge of his chiseled cheekbone.

“No,” he said in a deep, rumbling whisper. “You’re not wrong.” He swiped the tear away, then barked at the ceiling in a vicious parody of a laugh. “Christ. I feel like my heart just got ripped out of my chest. Is this what you’ve felt all the time, the last four years?”

I chuckled and kissed him. “Since pretty much the second she arrived, yeah. When she’s not pushing my buttons, anyway. And even then…” I shrugged. “You never stop loving your kid. Even when she drives me up the wall, I’d jump in front of a bus for her.”

“I can see that.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it against his chest. “You’re a good mum, Ces. She’s lucky to have you. We’re lucky to have you.”

There was nothing sexual in his touch. He didn’t want anything, per se—or at least not right now.

“Your family,” he said. “Are they really as intense as you say? Or was that just an excuse to keep me a secret while you decided whether or not I was a decent bloke?”

I swallowed. “Some of both. I needed a reason, but they are legitimately…a lot.”

I could just see the looks on my sisters’ faces if Xavier ever crossed Nonna’s threshold. Like vultures, all of them. They’d peck his eyes right out. And that was if Matthew didn’t beat the crap out of him first.

Xavier shuddered like he was reading my thoughts.

“Do you want her to know?” I ventured.

It wasn’t until then I realized that I did. It hadn’t taken long, but I realized I’d only been delaying the inevitable. All the reasons had only been because of one thing: my own fear.

But here in the dark with him, I felt perfectly safe. And I knew without a doubt that Sofia would always be safe with him too. Maybe Xavier didn’t understand love—yet. Or maybe he did already. Wasn’t that what he had just described about Sofia?

It sounded like love to me.

“I want her to know,” he said. “I do.”

I stiffened. There was hesitancy there. “But?”

“But…” He shifted against me. “I’ve grown up my whole life having people talk about me when I wasn’t there. Depending on who it was, I was either Rupert Parker’s no-good bastard, or maybe Masumi Sato’s son-in-rags, or else just that nasty prick who ruins other restaurants for fun.”

I frowned. “I never knew you as any of those things.”

He peeked down at me, a shy smile playing over his lips. “Don’t think I don’t love that.”

There was that word again. Not in the way I wanted it, but he still used it more than he thought.

“At any rate, the rest of the world isn’t you.” He shook his head ruefully. “Am I a coward, not wanting anyone else to poison what she thinks of me when I haven’t even had a chance to build that for myself?”

“And you think my family will do that?”

He cocked his head to one side. “You think they won’t?”

I wished I could say he had nothing to worry about. My family were many things, but discreet wasn’t one of them. Neither was forgiving. My sisters were expert gossips, my brother was basically a military-trained guard dog, and every one of them held a deep grudge against Xavier for his absence over the last five years. The second they knew he was back in the picture, I wouldn’t be able to stop them from stalking every social media profile they could find, probably leaving him a variety of choice messages and pieces of advice shielded as threats. More importantly, however, I wouldn’t be able to keep Sofia from hearing all sorts of things about her father. And most of them wouldn’t be good.

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted quietly.

“And is there any chance of our four-year-old keeping this a secret from her aunties and her uncle while we get to know each other?”

I just looked at him.

He snorted. “What about my name? Do they know that?”

I shrugged. “Kate does. The others know Xavier Sato, if they remember it at all. But Kate won’t say anything, and Mattie’s in Italy. Plus, he’s so damn tied up with his lady friend, he won’t notice if Sof mentions you when he gets back.”

Xavier nodded. “So we use Parker, tell her to call me Xavi, and keep the truth between us. Just a bit longer. A few months, maybe?” His mouth quirked again in that sad way that made me want to kiss him. “You were right about that too, I guess.”

I found I couldn’t argue with him. I didn’t like it, but it was the truth.

So, instead, I buried my face in his neck, allowing him to wrap his big arms around me and pull me close. I wanted to sink into him, to pretend like the outside world and all its complications didn’t exist. I wanted that simple peace we’d enjoyed just moments before.

There was another way to get it, I realized, as I felt him stir beneath me.

His hands tensed at my waist. I turned my lips into the crook of his neck and enjoyed the way he shivered in response.

But then he spoke again.

“We can’t do this either, can we?”

I closed my eyes, willing the sudden shooting pain through the middle of my chest to ebb. Dread. That’s what it was. Pure, heavy dread.

I sighed and turned my head the other way, still leaning on his shoulder, but looking toward the kitchen instead of him. “Probably not.”

“It would mess with her head, wouldn’t it?”

The dread tightened its grip around my heart. “Most likely.”

I started to move away, but his hands slipped up my back, holding me in place.

“Not—not just yet,” he said into my hair. “Just a bit longer. Please.”

I relaxed back into him, and neither of us said anything more about it. We both knew what had to happen. That before the sky turned light, Xavier would have to get dressed and leave. I’d retreat to my corner at the top of the stairs, and we would both pretend like all that had passed between us was a friendly goodbye. Once again, we had to be nothing to each other but secret parents standing on opposite sides of our daughter.

But for now, we just stayed there, skin to skin in the dark while the minutes ticked by, a silent countdown until morning came. Meditating in the silence.

And in each other.