Page 18 of Skylar

And though Skylar had rebuked him for it, until he knew her name and who her adoptive parents were, Aiden felt like he had no other way to think of the little girl than as his daughter.

But it was weird to think that he could pass her on the street and have no idea who she was. Willow could have played with her at her favorite fast-food restaurant, and they wouldn’t even have known who she was.

She was a total stranger.

Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

CHAPTER FIVE

The conversation she’d had with Aiden lingered in Skylar’s mind throughout the day. She’d called him after initially texting because she’d wanted to lecture him about referring to Shiloh astheir daughter.But somehow, they’d ended up having a full on conversation.

She’d gotten over her breakup with him and had even gone on to date other guys. And yet, seeing him again… seeing the man he’d become… was throwing her back into feelings and emotions she had never wanted to revisit.

Underneath the huge desire to flee Serenity and return to Vegas was the lingering desire to see Aiden again. It was a lesser desire, but the fact that it was there at all shocked Skylar. The last thing she should want was for the man who’d shattered her heart to be anywhere near her.

It was like her heart had separated the two in her mind. The person who had broken her heart was the boy Aiden had been. Who he was now seemed to be closer to the man she’d once imagined he’d become.

What was she supposed to do with that?

“Do you think there’s a chance that Charli and Blake would let Aiden meet Shiloh?” she asked her mom as they sat together eating lunch. Her dad was out at a lunch meeting with an old friend.

“Definitely.” The lack of hesitation before she responded had Skylar frowning at her.

“You don’t think they’d mind?”

“Not at all. They’ve wanted to tell Shiloh about you, and now that Aiden is back in our lives, I think they’d be okay with him meeting her.”

“Even with what he said when I told him that I was pregnant?”

This time, her mom seemed to consider her answer. “I think they’d like to meet him beforehand, to talk to him for themselves.”

Skylar struggled with Charli and Blake’s attitude toward Shiloh’s adoption. If she’d had her way, Shiloh would never have known she was adopted. However, they’d told her a couple of years ago that she was part of their family through adoption.

Shiloh had seemed to take it all in stride and unsurprisingly, she’d asked who her birth parents were. At the time, Charli and Blake had simply told her that her mother was a special person who hadn’t been able to raise her on her own.

Was now really the time to reveal who she and Aiden were to the little girl?

“I haven’t told Aiden her name or who adopted her,” Skylar said.

“Give Charli a call and see how they would like you to handle this.”

Skylar dragged a baby carrot through the puddle of dip on her plate. “You don’t think they have enough going on at the moment?”

“They do, but I think Charli would welcome a conversation with you.”

Skylar’s conversations with her older sister were few and far between, but that was because of Skylar, not Charli. She hadn’t wanted to be in Shiloh’s life because in her mind, it would be toohard to view her as Charli’s daughter and not her own if she was around her too much.

“I’ll text her and see if she has some time to chat.”

“I really think she’d love to talk to you. After all, this is your daughter going through this health ordeal, too.”

“She’s not mine,” Skylar said automatically.

Her mom stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I understand why you think that. However, she is yours. For nine months, you carried her. She is a part of you, just like she’s a part of Charli.”

Skylar had tried not to think too much about how it was herdaughterthat was facing cancer and not herniece.“I’ll call her.”

“Actually, she’s coming here in a few minutes.”

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