Page 140 of Stolen Kiss

“Well, hell,” was all she said when I was done.

I let out a small laugh. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

“And you’re sure Elodie is yours?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. Elodie was mine. Not only did she have my smile, but Jensen wouldn’t lie to me about this. I trusted him.

“What are you going to do?”

I looked out the window. It was a surprisingly sunny day out today. “I want to be in her life.” That had never been the problem. “I just don’t know how to be with Jensen. I don’t know if I wanted to be with him because I love him, or because I wanted to be in her life so badly…”

“Do you love him?”

I nodded, even if she couldn’t see. “Yeah. I love him.”

“Did you love him before you found out?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is. From what you’re describing, it seems this man loves you, too.”

“But how do I get over the fact that he kept something so big from me at the start of our relationship? I’m justified in feeling angry toward him.”

“Ah. Now I see. And yes, you are justified to feel angry. Hell, if it were me, the man wouldn’t have his balls.”

I let out a surprised laugh over that. “Nadir.”

“What?” she asked. “It’s just the truth. But you’ve always been a little more level-headed than me. I’m guessing his balls are still intact?”

“Okay, let's not talk about Jensen’s balls.”

She made a small noise over the line, and it almost sounded like a laugh. “Okay. In all seriousness, I don’t want you to let something as temporary as your anger get in the way of a lifetime of happiness.”

I closed my eyes, my heart pinching. I rubbed my chest. “I know,” I said softly.

“I never had children of my own. I never wanted them.”

“I know.”

“Good. But, for what it’s worth, I do love you like my own daughter.”

My lips trembled.She had never said that to me before, though that wasn’t surprising, considering she wasn’t the most affectionate person out there. But I never questioned it. Never questioned her.

“I love you, too,” I told her wetly.

The last time my mom ever said she loved me was the night before her death. She was on her last remaining days at the hospital. We’d all known it.

It wasn’t like her death had been unexpected. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer eight months before. She tried to fight it, but the progression of the disease was just too far along.

What made it worse, my mom had been fit her entire life, and she never even picked up a cigarette. A cruel twist of fate was all it was.

But we made a habit to never go to sleep without her telling us that she loved us and that we loved her, too.

She died in her sleep that night. She was only thirty-seven.

Nadir couldn’t replace her for me. I knew it, and Nadir knew it, too, and she wasn’t trying to. But this was as close as I’d felt to maternal love since my mom. I guessed, in a way, I still wasn’t over my mom’s death.

I didn’t want Elodie to go a day without knowing how much I loved her.

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