Page 87 of Dirty Little Secret
Telling Kane that I hadn’t been entirely truthful when I’d told him I loved him would be a start. I was too broken as it was to know how to give my love to him, but I was going to fix that. I just needed time, and I prayed he would be patient with me.
I wouldn’t tell Fox the same thing. Mostly because I had loved Fox from the moment I found out I was pregnant with him. That love had never died. It gotten buried under grief, guilt, and remorse, but it had never been extinguished.
Another doorbell and another shout from Taylor told me something strange was happening and that I should go see what the hell it was. “Coming,” I finally shouted back to her.
“Thank God!” came her exasperated reply. “I’d like to get some damn sleep, Zandy. I didn’t get home until five this morning, unlike you who slept half the day yesterday and all damn night. You can deal with the bombardment from now on.”
The overwhelming smell of flowers hit me as soon as I opened my door. Turning the corner to go into the living room, I found at least a dozen vases filled with assorted flowers all around the room. On the kitchen table there were boxes of what I thought must be candy. And a stack of pink envelopes, too.
Going over to the first vase, I pulled off the card. It read:To Zandra, the mother of my child, the light of my life, you will always be in my heart.
There wasn’t any signature, but I knew they were from Kane. I knew that everything was from Kane. The stack of envelopes drew me to them. On the front of each one,Happy Mother’s Daywas written.
Opening the first one, I saw that Fox had handwritten a little note inside:Happy first Mother’s Day Mom. I wish I could’ve spent it with you. But we have many more to come, and I will spend each one with you. Love, Fox.
All nine of the other cards had similar notes in them, each one written by my son. He wanted a future that included me in it, of that I was sure. And I wanted a future that included him, too.
But how could I ever make myself into someone who didn’t turn into a basket case on occasion?
When things got hard, I lost it. No one’s life was perfect, and I didn’t expect mine would never get hard from time to time. How would I combat my inner demons to be the mother my son needed me to be?
How would Kane take it when I confessed that I had said the words, “I love you” to him without really meaning them?
He would probably hate me. He would call me a liar. He would tell me that he didn’t want anything else to do with me, and he would tell me to get the hell out of his and his son’s life.
Fox was still only Kane’s. I had no legal right to my son. And I never would. I’d signed that right away before I’d even given birth to him.
Putting the last pink Mother’s Day card back into the matching envelope, feeling my elation disappear as those negative thoughts kept coming, my whole body jerked when the doorbell rang again. Something flashed through me.
A sense of destiny.
It was weird, and I shook my head to send the odd sensation away as I walked toward the door. I didn’t bother looking through the peephole. I figured it was a delivery person with more flowers or something like that.
Opening the door, I found Fox and Kane there. Both wore black suits with blue ties and white shirts, along with broad smiles. They both looked so beautiful and precious to me.
Fox tugged the hem of my blouse. “Hi, Mom.”
Caressing his cheek, I said, “Hi, Fox.”
Kane didn’t say a thing. But when he started going down on one knee, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands. That action spoke louder than words, and I couldn’t believe what he was doing.
Pulling a ring out of his pocket, he held it up to me. “Zandra Larkin, you are the mother of my son. You are the reason for my happiness. You gave me a life worth living. Now let me give you one, too. Marry me and become my wife and Fox’s mother and stay with us forever, the way you were meant to from the very beginning.”
Blackness closed in around me from every side.
This cannot be real.
