Page 98 of Bastian

“My apologies.” I offer her a gentle smile. A genuine smile. “Cupcake.” I don’t like dogs. Hell, I dislike most animals, but there’s something about dogs and cats that creeps me out. I don’t say that to her, though. The small dog with a pink vest makes her happy, so I just suck it up and deal with it.

“Issa okay, Mom and…” She looks up at me with a sheepish, dimpled smile. The same as her father’s. My weakness. Shit. “The pink is a surprise, but first, we eat!” She takes my hand and guides me toward the small seating area inside my office, where a sweet picnic setup waits for us. “We’re having a breakfast picnic, mom. Are you surprised? Do you like it? Are you happy?” She hits me with a million questions and I can’t help but laugh at her cuteness and eagerness. Bending down, I grab her face, squishing her cheeks together, and drop a kiss on her nose. That makes her smile wide. God, I love her smile. I truly believe Ellaiza’s smile can heal any wound. “Look, dad!” Ella jumps and down while staring at her father with a mischievous grin. “Mommy’s laugh is back!”

“I see, mon coeur, and what a beautiful laugh it is, yes?” My stomach flips when I turn to look at Sebastian and find him already looking back at me with a tiny dog trying to bite his hand and a soft look on his face. A million tiny bugs flip their wigs inside my stomach, and I can’t help it. I can’t. Most days, Sebastian’s charming side is hard to ignore but the two of them together? That’s an impossible task. I am bound to lose that battle.

“The most beautiful!” Ella nods, then plops herself down on the leather couch I have in my office on the far right and takes me down with her. “This is going to be the best date!” My girl smiles at her father while I look at him, as he puts the dog inside a tiny pink dog bed, then sits back on the couch lazily, looking carefree while confidence oozes off him in waves. His intense eyes find mine and hold me hostage. It was a betrayal, the way my heart calmed when he looked at me. How my breathing leveled out just at the sight of him. I wonder if he feels the same when he looks at me. Lately, I’ve been wondering so many things. For example… Does he love me the way he says he does? Or am I just a challenge? I know how much he loves challenges, but it all quickly vanishes from my mind when he looks at me as he is doing right now.

Clearing my throat, I break eye contact and use Ellaiza as a shield. As an excuse to not deal with my chaotic feelings toward her father. “So, a date, huh?”

“Yes!! Dad says we take the people we love on dates!” Ella frowns, looking between us, and I just know that whatever will come out of her mouth next will be catastrophic to my heart and my self-preservation. “You’re my dad. Right, dad?”

Sebastian smiles softly down at his daughter before nodding. “That’s right.”

Ellaiza turns her little head towards me next. “And you’re my mom, right, mommy?” The way she says mom disarms me. I do not know whether Sebastian has told her the truth about who her real mother is. All I know is that she’s mine. She has always been mine, and that is my truth. So I smile and poke her nose. “That is correct,” I whisper, making her smile.

“And this is a date!” She exclaims.

“Yes.” Sebastian chuckles. “It’s a date.”

Where is she going with this?

Ellaiza then smirks at both of us. “Since you’re both on a date, then you love each other,” Ellaiza says, rendering me speechless, but not her father. No. Never him.

At the same time, I open my mouth to try to explain to her in a way she could understand, her father replies. “Yes, we’re very much in love.”

Snapping my head back at him, I narrow my eyes while he leans back on the sofa with a wicked grin on his face, takes a strawberry from the food container, and takes a bite out of it. “You taste like strawberries…” I remember how he used to say that every time he kissed me on the mouth and my…

No.

Get your head out of the gutter…

You are going to pay for this little stunt, Sebastian. I smile sweetly at him while he just chews and wags his eyebrows. The gigantic ass.

He then turns his attention to his daughter. “Ellaiza…”

“Yes?” Ella replies with her mouth full.

Sebastian leans forward and wipes Ella’s face with a white tablecloth napkin. “Don’t you have a gift for your mom?”

Your mom…

I’ve never had or will have a better title.

Not mafia princess nor boss but Mom. Ellaiza’s mom.

“Oh, yes!” I watch in amusement as Ella hops off the sofa, runs towards one of the pink teddy bear arrangements of flowers, pulls a white envelope from it then hurries back to me. “This is forever, Mom.” She whispers with so much love reflecting in her eyes that I’m overcome with emotions just at the sight of her sweet smile.

Taking the envelope, I smile at Ella, and from the corner of my eye, I watch her father looking at both of us with a smile of his own. Tearing the envelope, I take out the stack of papers inside and open them.

Suddenly my past, present, and future collide. Everything seems to fade as time stills. At this moment, it feels like all I’ve been through and all that has happened has led me here. It’s as if all I went through made me stronger. Stronger to love her. To love this family. As if this is where I was always supposed to be.

Here with them.

With a little girl asking me to be her forever.

Adoption papers.

“Will you be my mommy forever?” Ella whispers almost self-consciously.

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