Page 54 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

Chapter Sixteen

Two months later

Dante reclined in the lounger and watched Michelle splash around in the turquoise blue salt water pool on the deck of the resort. He wasn’t drunk, because he was on vacation with Michelle, but he wished like hell that he could be.

He hadn’t had a drink in two months and in some ways, it sucked to not have the dulled edges that alcohol provided. In other ways, he was glad to be seeing things so clearly. It kept him on his toes. Made him realize that he hadn’t been wrong in the way he’d left things with Aurora.

The vacation he’d booked seconds after hanging up the phone with Aurora had turned into an extended sabbatical. He and Michelle had lit out for Spain and thank god it was summer break for her because he hadn’t even been tempted to go back. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t replayed his last conversation with Aurora over and over again in his head. Looking for any way he could have done it differently. But if he’d given her more time, heard her out, it would simply have been a long, messy conversation, at the end of which he’d been wrecked. No way. He’d done the right thing in the long term. Quick and painful was better than long and painful.

“You coming in, Coco?” Michelle called, her feet dangling over the edge of an enormous floaty in the shape of a palm tree. The plus side of this forced vacation was that Dante and Michelle were closer than ever. He’d stopped correcting people who referred to her as his daughter. And Michelle either didn’t notice or didn’t mind.

He just hoped for once, Michelle wouldn’t bring up Aurora anytime soon.

He’d made the mistake of being honest with her about the way they’d broken up. Michelle had been astonished and outraged.

“You left it just like that?!” she’d hollered at him, her hands on her hips, her hair a messy tumble. “There’s so many ways you could have the wrong idea, Dante! You should have been more clear!”

But he wasn’t budging. He wasn’t letting Michelle change his mind about this. He knew what he’d seen.

He just wished he was getting over it a little faster. There were days, wandering through old Spanish villages with Michelle, or looking out at the ocean after she’d gone to sleep, that Dante thought he might finally be getting over Aurora. But then he’d find himself subconsciously reaching for her in the night and all of it would hit him like a hurricane.

He wasn’t getting over her. He wished he could hate her for that. But no matter what he did, his stupid heart just kept loving her. It would be so much easier if he could be bitter and angry. But he couldn’t stop himself from wishing her well.

Dante set his water bottle aside and did a running cannonball into the pool just to delight Michelle.

That night, they decided to wander into town, see if they could rustle up some seafood. Michelle walked next to him in a pair of jean shorts and shirt she’d picked out in Barcelona. It was surprisingly girly. Not her usual style. Red and flowy, the top had little dots and stars in a pinwheeling pattern.

Dante watched her walk for a second and realized, with a start, that she’d brushed her hair before they’d left the hotel. She was pushing eleven. Her birthday was in a month.

Soon she was going to be a teenager. Interested in dating and makeup and god knows what. The thought tightened his stomach. Dante had the impression that he was going to be spending a lot of time googling parenting techniques.

He thought of how natural Aurora had been with Michelle. How she’d helped Michelle pack her bags for the sleepover. How she’d stood beside them in the ER, comforting them both, lending her strength.

The thought was like a poisoned arrow in his heart. Aurora was never going to be that person for Michelle again. She was never going to be Dante’s partner in raising her.

“Dante?” Michelle asked, dragging a fingertip from brick to brick of the old buildings they wove through.

“Yeah?”

“Would it be alright if I called Aurora?”

He came up short. It was almost like she’d read his mind. Why was she thinking about Aurora now?

Michelle glanced at him and quickly said, “I just didn’t get to say goodbye. And I really liked her. And I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Dante felt like the worst kind of jerk. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Michelle and Aurora had been close. Really close. Of course Michelle would want to talk to her again.

“I didn’t mean to keep her from you. If you want to call her, you totally can. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.”

“It’s okay,” Michelle said as she craned her neck to watch some kids running down toward the beach. Then she glanced nervously up toward Dante. “That’s, uh, not the only reason I want to talk to her again.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to continue talking.

Michelle took a deep breath. “I want to tell her that I love her. That she felt more like family than just a friend.”

Dante was quiet as they walked.

“Say something,” she urged him.

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