Page 84 of Until I Find You

But be willing to shatter your heart is a huge thing.

Still, we work together here at our temporary office space everyday with the Keiki team, keeping up our professional front as business partners. Camilla is better at resisting than I am. Sometimes, it’s like she’s turned that part of her brain off.

Which makes me wonder if that’s what this arrangement is to her. Something to be turned on and off that works when it suits us.

Nothing more.

“We should call it a night. You need to rest,” I say, the Daddy in me coming out.

Camilla doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me.

I get up and go next to her, crouching at her side. “Camilla, honey.”

We’re the only ones here. No one can hear me. No one would see us. The only person who has had a peek into our life is Kirk and he hasn’t brought it up since the walkthrough. Why would he when I’m his endless bank roll?

“I just want it to be done,” she says into her hands.

I rub her shoulder. “Let me take you home. You need some rest.”

Camilla glances at me, and I smile at her.

She smiles back.

“Is that a yes?” I ask.

She nods, her head heavy, curls bouncing.

“Good.”

Something like gravity or magnetism pulls Camilla into my arms, her head resting on my shoulder. There she is. My baby girl. After a day of grinding and hustling, doing all the things that terrified me when starting a business, there is nothing as satisfying as this.

A phone buzzes.

Camilla’s head shoots up, her eyes wide in mine. “You should get that.”

My tongue knots.

“Right. I should.” I’d nearly forgotten. It was so much earlier in the day I got the text in the group chat from Dad that Sonia had gone into labor. I had to silence notifications because everyone has been on pins and needles all day, an almost constant fielding of questions and concerns and excitement.

We search the table of crowded documents for my phone and I find it on the very last ring, Bridget’s name across my screen. Bridget is Sonia’s best friend and nominated herself as secondary support person which meant she would be at the hospital with Sonia and Dad up until delivery. I guess that also means she’s the one dolling out the news so they both can enjoy the babies.

I answer in a hurry. “Yeah. Hi.”

“Oh my god,” she sobs into the phone. A happy sob. “It’s amazing. They’re amazing.”

I smile, a true, unyielding smile. For all the issues I’ve had with dad and my feelings of unwantedness, I can’t help the joy. “How is everyone?”

“Fine,great. Everyone’s healthy, ten fingers, ten toes. You know. Anyway, if you can get down here–”

“It’s almost midnight. Don’t they want to rest?”

“That’s what I said, but Sonia is insisting you and Nate and Abigail come down to meet them.”

Sonia is insisting. Not Dad. “Yeah, okay. I’ll get down there as soon as I can.”

Camilla’s arms encircle me from behind. I glance back at her with a nervous smile.

“Great, great. And could you do me a favor? I made an order to a sushi place near the hospital. Sonia’s starving and–”

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