My amusement fades when I realize he’s not joking. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry.” Rising, he hands Lucia back.
Snapping a picture of the two of them was half the reason I agreed to this meeting. I wanted to have something to give to my daughter someday … a special photograph she could keep whenever she wanted to remember the other half of her DNA.
“O … okay.” I place Lucia over my shoulder, patting her back as she nuzzles her face into the bend of my neck. She’s going to be out like a light soon.
“Thanks for letting me meet her. You have a lovely home and you seem like a great mother.” His tenderness is gone, replaced with the kind of insincere tone you reserve for a stranger.
I follow him to the door, standing back as he slips his shoes on and readies his car keys.
“I didn’t mean to upset you with the picture thing, I just thought it’d be nice to have something to commemorate … this.”
“It’s just odd to me that not long ago you wanted nothing to do with me,” he says. “Then you invite me into your home and want to take pictures.”
“I had a change of heart. It happens.” I narrow my gaze, trying to comprehend where he’s going with this. “Just like you, I’m taking this whole thing minute by minute.”
“Why’d you turn down the clinic’s offer?”
I wrinkle my nose. Random, but okay. “Because it was laughable.”
“So you’re gaming for more money.”
“I’m not gaming for anything—I just want to talk to an attorney first and see what my options are.”
“Exactly.” He rubs his hand along his chiseled jaw.
“I’m sorry, I’m really confused. We were having a nice conversation and then the second I grabbed my phone …” I think of him storming off the set of that talk show months back. Clearly something triggered him. “Was it something I said?”
Not that it matters at this point, but if I don’t get an answer, I’ll forever wonder.
The hollow below his cheekbone divots. “I don’t know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t go selling that picture.”
Taking a step back, I almost choke on my spit. “So that’s the issue? You think I want to extort you?”
“You said yourself that you’re going to talk to an attorney because you think you can get more money.”
Sniffing, I say, “Yeah, more than the twenty-five grand the clinic wants to give me.”
His expression softens, but his brows are still knit. “That’s all they were offering you?”
I nod. “They said because the breach didn’t involve my name, they didn’t owe me anything, but they wanted to offer that anyway.”
Pinching his nose, he blows a hard breath between his lips. “I’m sorry, Rossi. This entire situation is—”
“—insane,” I say. “Complex. Life-altering. Bittersweet.”
Our eyes catch in my dim foyer.
“I wish this could be simpler for us,” his voice is low, his tone apologetic. “For her.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to have the weight of the world on my shoulders, to have millions of strangers watching my every move, ready to judge or take advantage of you or accuse or assume at a moment’s notice. But at the end of the day, we’re only human—and we’re both trying to preserve the lives we’ve worked so hard to create. You have to do what’s best for you, and I have to do what’s best for us.” I bounce Lucia on my hip. “If you don’t want a picture, I’m disappointed for my daughter’s sake, but I respect that.”
We linger in silence, and I get the sense there’s something more he wants to say, only those words never come.
“I should get going. Early flight tomorrow.” He reaches for the door. I walk him out, following him to the parked Range Rover in the middle of my driveway.
Streetlights glow above sidewalks and I happen to glance over in time to spot Dan pulling into his drive. Climbing out, his attention snaps our way. I give him a wave.
He offers a slow one in return.
“Who’s that?” Fabian asks.
“My next door neighbor.”
“Why’s he staring like that?”
“Probably because he’s asked me on a million dates and I told him I’m not ready—wait.” Embarrassment flushes my cheeks when I realize I’m giving myself all the credit. “No. I bet he recognizes you. Sorry—I keep forgetting who you are …”
Fabian chuffs. “Can’t remember the last time anyone said that to me.”
“Is that a good thing?”
He pauses, staring ahead like he’s lost in thought. “I don’t know.”
“What was it like before you were you?”
He gazes past my shoulder, staring at my front door.
“Quiet,” he says. But before I can ask him to elaborate, he climbs into the driver’s seat and starts his engine. A moment later, he rolls the window down, stealing one last glimpse of the raven-haired beauty in my arms.