Page 137 of Love Without Control

I realized it was apropos to have a cardiologist named Dr. Hart, but he was one of the best in the world, as well as being very relatable.

“Paul, good to see you. Cruz asked me to come by.”

My eyes darted between them, and a bit of panic began to set in. My gaze stopped on Cruz. “Are you sick?” The words came out in a croak.

His big hand landed on my shoulder, and he crooked a half-smile at me. “No, Dad. I’m not sick, but we do need to talk. It’s a good thing,” he added at the end. “But it’s going to be a bit of a shock, and I thought…”

“You wanted my doctor here in case I decided to keel over,” I surmised, wondering what in the hell he could want to tell me that might upset me. Then an idea popped into my head, and I smiled. “It’s okay, Cruz. I’m not one of those dads.”

“One of what dads?” he asked in confusion, guiding me toward my brown leather couch. We sat, and I flashed him a knowing look.

“If you and Lehra are expecting, I would be thrilled. I know you’re not married yet, but like I said, I won’t be one of those judgy parents.”

He laughed, his mocha face flushing pink, and shook his head as Dr. Hart sat in the matching chair closest to me. “It’s not that, Dad. I promise.”

“Okay. Well, it’s probably for the best because your mother would be pissed if you told me without her here.” His mother, my beautiful Stella, was in Texas wrapping up some business so she could move here. With me. Cruz’s fiancée, Lehra, had gone with her to help. “So, lay it on me, this shocking but good news.”

My son inhaled a breath and swallowed hard before meeting my eyes with his matching ones. He was such a handsome lad, with his mother’s Latino skin tone and my blue eyes.

“Dad, Evie is back.” The words didn’t register, and I stared at him blankly. “Did you hear what I said?”

It was as if he’d spoken into a long tunnel, like the sound waves were taking a while to reach my ears. But I had heard them. I just couldn’t fathom them.

“My Evie?” I managed to say around my heart, which seemed to have risen up and lodged in my throat.

“Your Evie,” he said kindly. “Your daughter is home.”

My eyeballs hurt with the sudden flood of tears that inundated them. “She’s…” I could barely get the next word out. It was a word I’d thought of for years, a word full of hope. “Alive?” I finished with my fists clenched in my lap.Please, God. Don’t let her have come home in a coffin.

Cruz’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. “She’s alive and well, Dad. I don’t know what all she’s been through, but she seems very happy.”

I. Crumpled. The Evie-sized hole inside me began to fill, and I folded over on myself with the effort to comprehend exactly what this meant. I was vaguely aware of someone doing something to my arm, but the only thing I could process in my one-track mind was the face of my daughter. As a beautiful, loud infant. As a pigtailed five-year-old. As an eye-rolling preteen. As a lovely teenager who loved to make others laugh. And as an almost-nineteen-year-old who had disappeared and left me a shell of a man.

The vague mumblings around me came into focus.

“Doc, what’s going on?”

“Pulse is slightly elevated, but his blood pressure is actually good.”

“Could he be in shock?”

I lifted my head and answered them in a voice hoarse with tears. “I’m not in shock. I’m just calm. Because for the first time in seventeen years, I feel… whole.”

I wanted to sprint all the way to Auburn’s apartment. I wanted to run and leap in the air and shout with joy through the streets of New York, but Cruz insisted on driving me. Dr. Hart concurred. The spoilsports. I felt like forty years had been lifted off my shoulders, like I was a young man again.

Dr. Hart had ridden with us and would stay downstairs in Cruz’s apartment while my son and I went up to the penthouse. Where my daughter was. My baby girl. My Evie.

“Why is this elevator so goddamn slow?” I vented, and Cruz chuckled.

“Dad, we’ve only been in here for two seconds.”

“Longest two seconds ever,” I muttered, staring at the numbers over the door.

On Cruz’s floor, I waited by the elevator with the utmost impatience as he let Dr. Hart into his home.What the hell is taking him so long?I peeked around the corner to see my son jogging down the corridor toward me.

“Can’t you run any faster than that? I thought you were a Marine!” I called, causing him to break into a sprint the rest of the way.

“You’d make a good drill sergeant,” he said, but I was already stepping into the elevator and sliding the card Auburn had given me into the penthouse slot. Approximately ten hours later—at least, that’s what it felt like—the doors opened, and I saw my oldest son’s door.

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