Page 63 of At First Flight
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I can be there with you if you decide to…but no. For all I’m concerned, Daddy Moneybags is willing to hold your hand through it all.”
Visions of Dean gripping my hand flash in my mind, and I instantly feel my core tighten.
“Did you search him?”
“Um… yeah. You were going to live with a stranger for a summer. Of course, I did.”
Biting my lips, I nod even though I know she can’t see. I don’t ask her for more, knowing that if she had thought he would cause trouble, she would have stepped in by now. Plus, my mom’s company runs background checks on everyone.
“I missed you, Ashvi.”
“Don’t you do that. He’ll get what’s coming to him. Karma knows what she’s doing.”
The front door opening and then slamming shut echoes through the house, and I realize that any quiet time I had left is about to be quickly exterminated by two of the cutest kids I know.
“I need to go. Let’s go out for drinks soon?” I ask as four little feet pound up the stairs, sounding like a herd of horses.
“You mean that?” Ashvi asks, her voice full of eagerness. The two of us never really got the chance to head to a bar and cut loose like most women in their twenties. I went away for college, and then Prescott happened.
“I do. But maybe local? I don’t want to have to call a cab from an hour away.”
“You got it. Let me know the next night you have free, and I will make time for my baby bird.”
A giggle escapes just as two little heads pop around my door and peek inside. I quickly end the call with Ashvi, promising her my next available night, and sit up with my arms open wide.
“Hey, cuties. Have a great time with my mom today?” I ask them, ignoring the way Dean’s shadow falls into the bedroom, his large frame leaning against the doorjamb.
His dark eyes dart over to the open letter resting on top of the duvet and then flick back to me before he smirks and exits farther down the hall.
If it weren’t for the bouncing kids chattering around me and shouting about their day, I’d probably curl into my pillow and squeal like a teen who just found out her crush checked the yes box on her love note.
I am in so much trouble where Dean Harrington is concerned.
Chapter Fourteen – Dean
Two Days Later
The hotel room in the Knoxville Lodge owned by my best friend, Talon, is quiet in the way that luxurious, expensive places always are. Too quiet. Thick curtains covering the windows, walls meant to keep the world out. The most perfect, polished silence anyone could ask for.
And I loathe it.
I’m sitting against the upholstered headboard, the rustic lamp casting a pool of light across the folders I left resting on the nightstand. Notes I’ve read over three times and still can’t recall what they’re about. None of it is sticking. I keep eyeing the same sentence, rereading it and hoping it may click.
I’d left Coral Bell Cove in a hurry when Talon’s wife went into labor. His voice rattled through the phone, full of worry, asking for my help. Talon was estranged from his family, so he didn’t have anyone to turn to. He needed me there. So I drove straight here, eight hours of silence, my thoughts clouded with memories of my own life, of the kids, and Lila.
By the time I arrived, their daughter was just being born. I stood in the hallway of the hospital, the sound of her first cries echoing through the building, her tiny voice piercing the air like a beautiful melody. An overwhelming feeling swelled within me, but it wasn’t just for Talon or the baby. No, it was because of something I hadn’t fully realized yet. I missed Oliver and Evelyn, God, I missed them, but more than that, I missed Lila. I missed her presence in my life in a way that made everything else feel incomplete.
I had a flash as I stood there, looking at the new family formed in front of me. An image so clear and sudden that I froze. It was of Lila in that same hospital room, giving birth to our child. A son or a daughter, I didn’t know which, but the vision felt so right, so undeniable. The idea of Lila holding our child in her arms didn’t scare me in the least. It wasn’t even just the physical act of it—no, it was the future that flashed before me. A future with her. A family. Something that suddenly felt like the most natural thing in the world.
I caught myself standing there, still as stone, my chest tightening with emotions I hadn’t been prepared for. I hadn’t let myself think about it, about what we might be, what we could be. But now, with the cries of a newborn in the background, I realized that I wanted it. I wanted to build something real. Something lasting. Something with her.
My mind pulled back to the present, but the weight of that thought clung to me, pressing deep into my chest. As I held the baby in my arms later that night, looking down at her tiny face, something shifted inside me. This wasn’t just about Oliver and Evelyn anymore. It wasn’t just about being a father figure to them.
It was about Lila.
She was the one I could imagine waking up next to every day. She was the one I could picture sharing all of this with. And the thought of it filled me with a calm certainty, like I’d been waiting for this moment my entire life.
