Page 63 of Seventeen Years Ago

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I said flatly.

“Steven, I know something happened. What did you learn that has you so upset?” she asked.

“That...that he had a child twenty-three years ago and I never knew.” That was a huge piece of my bad mood. I still haven’t been able to accept the fact that there is family out there that I never knew about. That Michael never told me about.

“Oh my. How did you find out? Did she come looking for him or something?” she questioned.

“No. I was given a letter that my brother had written. It was to a woman, and he mentioned their daughter.”

“That sounds simple enough. Just find the woman and then you find your niece.”

I chuckled. “Nothing simple about this, Aiza.”If I go looking for her, I will end up spending my life in prison in a foreign country.

“Let me help. Maybe two heads are better than one. I do a lot of research for Reesa so I am pretty good on the internet,” she offered.

“Aiza, I don’t think they want to be found,” I stated. “And sometimes things are supposed to be left buried. It just brings up things people want to remain forgotten.”

“How do you know unless you ask? Think about me and you. You thought I’d hate you if I knew the truth. The total opposite happened,” she said.

The opposite of hate is love. Is she trying to tell me that she loves me? That would be a total fucking nightmare if she did. Bennett Stone would hunt my ass down and probably put me six feet under. He’d warned me to stay away. I just couldn’t. I might not have had sex with her, but breaking her heart wasn’t much better.

Breaking my own sucks too.

But just knowing that she might love me gave me a new sense of hope. Someone once told me with love all things are possible. I was starting to believe that, because just having her here was already having an effect on me. I was feeling slightly better. Talking too much about what she can’t fix won’t help any.

“I already know the truth. It’s not going to help anyone heal.”

Aiza asked, “May I read the letter?” I didn’t respond and she said, “Please, Steven. I promise not to judge you or Michael.”

She had never broken her word to me before. “Aiza, I am trying to protect you from this. It’s not good,” I said.

Aiza said, “I don’t need your protection. I need your love.”

Not as badly as I need yours.

“You have that. But Aiza, I don’t deserve yours. You are too damn good for me.”

“Don’t you dare say that. We are both just trying to be the best we can be. No one is perfect, not even if they appear to be. It’s what we bring out in each other that makes us stronger.” She leaned over and hugged me. Then pulled away. “I think I’ll wait to kiss you. After the shower,” she smiled.

“Sorry. I should've waited to tell you I love you until then,” I said, knowing the booze odor lingered on me.

“No. There is no wrong time to tell someone you love them. There’s just one missed opportunity. I'm glad you told me. I needed to hear it. Now we know how each of us feels, we just need to decide where we go from here. Are you going to ask me to leave? Send me back to Tabiq?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I want you to stay.”

She smiled. “Good. Because I don’t have a hotel room.”

No matter how long she stayed, I wasn’t having sex with her. She remained a virgin this long, then she was going to stay one until the honeymoon.Fuck.I had spent my life keeping my distance from the woman. I traveled halfway across the world for a meeting and ended up falling in love and never feeling as alone as I had since I returned home. How quickly she became my first and last thought each day. I would’ve waged my entire business once upon a time, that I would remain single till the day I die. All of that had changed.I want to marry this woman. I want to spend the rest of my life showing her how happy she makes me and making her happy in return.

Reluctantly I said, “I have a spare bedroom.”

She blushed and said, “We can discuss that later. Right now, I have one last question.”

“What is that?”

“Do you love me enough to let me read your brother’s letter?” she asked.

“I love you enough to tell you the entire story, including how I came into possession of the letter,” I replied.

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