Page 12 of Keep This Promise
Dear God.
“Where?” I ask quickly. “Where did we meet?”
“Las Vegas.”
ChapterFour
SOPHIE
We walk into a back room, my legs feeling like jelly, and I already screwed up. As soon as I spoke my name, I mentally slapped myself. I can’t be Sophie Pearson any longer. Eden and I both have new names and passports. Our old lives are no longer, and we are now Sophie and Eden Peterson, which I will do my best to remember from here on out.
When Zach Barrett, an employee of Cole Security, drove us out here, he explained it was imperative I be cautious of who I trust and always use my new name. However, who could blame me for this one slipup? I am gobsmacked at this entire situation.
Oh, Theo, what have you done?
He sent me to a tiny town to find Eden’s father, and I have more questions than anyone can ever answer.
Holden and I stare at each other. He is very handsome, and I chide myself for even thinking that. But his hair is dark, tousled, and the scruff on his cheeks is very appealing. I barely remember him from that night, but something familiar is in his eyes. The ones that look like Eden’s.
“I have a lot of things I want to know but no idea where to start,” Holden says, pushing his dark brown hair back. He sighs and then looks to me. “First, I need to ask, are you all right?”
“That’s a rather hard question to answer at the moment.” I spin my wedding rings and pace a little. “No. I’m not. It’s been . . . well, everything is confusing, and I feel as though I should tell you, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, after our night in Vegas, I became pregnant.”
Holden swallows and nods. “I surmised as much.”
“Right. Being a doctor and all, you’ve probably already done the math. Still, she is yours.”
“And after all this time you decided to find me?”
I didn’t. “I had no idea that I was coming here to find you. My husband arranged all of this.”
“You’re married?” he asks.
This definitely is not going well. I am mucking this up left and right. “I feel as though I should start at the beginning because I’m cocking this up.”
“Mummy?” Eden calls from the little table, where she’s been colouring in a book someone had given her. “I want Daddy.”
Of all the things she could say. I move to her, crouching and placing my hand atop hers. “I know, darling. I want him too, but that’s not possible.” I push her blonde hair back. “I need to talk to our new friend, can you colour for a bit while I get things sorted?”
Asking a three-year-old to colour for more than a minute is a losing game, but I need as much as she will give me.
“Okay, Mummy.”
“That’s a good girl.”
She runs off, and I turn back to a man I never thought I’d see again. “I can’t say much until we’re alone, but I’ll give the abbreviated version.” I rise to my feet and prepare to say three years’ worth of backstory as quickly as possible. This should go over well. “I wasn’t married when you and I met, but two months after . . . Vegas, I found out I was pregnant. My father had just died, and my mum wasn’t kind during her grief. Well, she wasn’t kind before that either. She demanded I get rid of the baby to ensure that my future husband, who she and my dad had chosen, would still go through with it. I refused. She threw me out. Theo and I were childhood friends, and he had a very serious genetic heart condition that we knew he would die from. He offered to marry me, raise her as his own, and give us a life he could never share with another. I was young and had been raised to believe a child out of wedlock was a death sentence in our circle. Theo saved me from all of it.”
“Wow, that’s a great friend, and I’m not sure what to say.”
I latch on to the first part of his statement. “He was. He was the best, and while we never had a marriage in truth, we were the best part of a marriage.” A tear forms, and I turn away. I don’t know how to go on in this world without Theo.
“I am going to assume he passed away from that heart condition,” Holden says before placing his hand on my shoulder.
I turn to look at him, my blurry vision masking his attractive face. “Four days ago, and...that’s when I came here on his request.”
“Four days?” Holden’s eyes widen.
“Yes, there’s more to this story, clearly, but I was told to follow every instruction along the way, and it led me here.”
