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"I'm going to get myself a glass of whiskey. Would you like something?"
"I'll have whatever you're having."
"Basil Hayden good for you?"
I nodded.
She took her time and put a glass in front of me, and then collected her daughter's books and set them aside on the coffee table. She sat down, took a sip of her whiskey, and sighed.
"Long day?" I asked.
She nodded. "You know, full-time job, single parent. It's a busy life."
"How old is Flora?"
"She turns four in a month."
No way she was mine.
"Did you think she could be your daughter? That I lied about the IUD?" she asked on a laugh without humor.
I didn't answer. What could I say? Yeah, I'd been thinking exactly that.
"What about Flora's father?" I had to know.
She looked at me quizzically and drank some more. "Flora isn't my biological daughter. She's my friend Yasmine and her husband Derek's."
I stared at her for a long moment. "But she calls you 'mum’?"
She smiled then, that maternal smile I saw in so many mothers, well, except Caitlyn.
"Derek and Yasmine were in an accident when Yas was eight months pregnant. They…well, Flora was born. They had me down as her guardian. I adopted her. Derek's parents live close by, but they're old, and they couldn't raise a little girl. Regardless, I'm her mum. This is what Yas and I had planned for if anything happened to either of us. We wouldn't let our kids go into the system, you know."
She was raising her friend's daughter, working full time—this was no fucking gold digger.
"How did you end up in New York?" I had so many questions, and until she told me to fuck off, I'd keep asking, burn away some of that curiosity I'd been carrying for years.
"My professor in London recommended me for a job at HSS, that's the Hospital for Special Surgery. Yas was here with Derek, so I took the job and…then Flora came along. So, I stayed. I got my Green Card through work last year, which was an immense relief." She was different than before, I realized. Six years ago, some of the calm was a façade but not anymore. All of this was her.
"Claudio and Renata speak highly of you."
"Luisa is such a courageous kid. She's going to be back to normal soon…maybe she'll always have a small limp, but in a few years, no one will notice."
I remembered how sad she'd looked when she left Montana, how lost, and confused. Isha now seemed happy, content. All things I was not.
"Isha, I want to apologize for how I treated you." I didn't want to look at her when I spoke; the shame felt too big. But I sucked it up and raised my face, stared into those expressive gray eyes of hers…formerly expressive. They gave little away except serenity now.
"Thank you," she replied.
Thank you? I expected her to call me a few names and tell me I was an arsehole. I didn't expect her to calmly say, sure, thanks. The subtext was clear: Is there anything else? If not, get the hell out.
"It doesn’t matter that you slept with Ace or whomever; I did you wrong."
She set her glass on the coffee table. "I have no reason to lie to you. So, here is the truth, Rowan. You were the first man I had sex with."
It shouldn't have felt like a punch in the gut, hearing that, but it did.
"So, Ace lied." It wasn't a question. Deep down, I knew that, too. It had taken me a few years, but I'd gotten there. And, yet, I hadn't confronted my brother, didn't want to admit that my own blood had lied to me, and I'd treated an innocent so horribly.
