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I was fine with everything we’d planned until it came to changing the nursery walls. My heart had felt bruised watching some of the most poignant memories from my time with Grace being harshly erased with the sweep of a rolling brush. However, although the design had held significant memories for me, Layla had no such attachment to them, and as they were in her room, it was only right I let my daughter choose.
Moving on took strength, and going forward with a new relationship, I wanted to consider Harper’s feelings, and ten weeks after our first date the décor had all been done, and we finally made the shift to living openly together in Harper’s newly decorated room.
“Does this mean you’re my new mommy now?” Layla asked again when she saw both our clothes hanging in the closet together.
“What do you think, Baby? Hasn’t Harper always been like a mom to you?”
“I suppose,” she scowled with a knitted brow, “but she’s really my mom now because you live in the same bed.”
Her comment about living in the same bed made me chuckle because my desire for Harper was almost insatiable and life in bed with her sounded idyllic. The more time I spent with her, the deeper my feelings became. I missed her when I was without her, and like it is with any new relationship, the time we were alone together never felt long enough.
Another shift with all the changes that had happened was how I felt when I looked out toward Grace’s final resting place. I no longer had the same dark angry feelings about it. Instead my emotions were more melancholic and affectionate. This comparison was something I’d have considered inconceivable before I fell for Harper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
For four months we managed to keep our relationship out of the press, until one day Layla drew a picture of her family in school. The picture was of a man, a woman, a child, and a dog. Labeling the picture Mommy Harper, Daddy, Spot, and me, naturally her class teacher, Ms. Bell, gently challenged this, but when Layla remained persistent her teacher called us in for a meeting, concerned about my daughter’s perception of her family.
When we put her right on the subject and told her that Harper and I were in a long-term relationship, and Harper was indeed a mother to Layla, we never thought for one minute she’d blab her mouth to someone else who immediately sold our story to the press.
For the following week, my daughter couldn’t go to school due to her class teacher’s loose mouth, and we were under siege at home, as helicopters invaded our privacy overhead and media vans blocked the driveway down to the house.
Poor Harper was painted as a gold-digging money grabber who had put herself before my child, which pissed me off because it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Derek, my manager, and the Public Relations team felt the best way to head them off was to be up front with the media. Following this it was decided we should do a short TV talk show interview as a family. Harper readily agreed and I felt dreadful she had to face this to defend her position.
This was a huge step for me, because publicly airing my relationship with Harper was a declaration of my commitment to her and Layla, and most poignant evidence I had moved on from Grace’s death.
“Cole Harkin, you are one dark horse,” the talk show host gushed in a patronizing tone, like she knew me. “How long has this been going on?” she enquired, directing the question to Harper and me.
“How long has it been, Baby?” I asked, smiling and prompting Harper on the studio couch like she was born to do this. I directed the question to her, as I wanted people to know Harper as I knew her. She wasn’t a puppet who only spoke when she was directed, my girl was strong and opinionated, and I wanted them to hear what she had to say.
“Obviously Cole and I have always had a good professional relationship since Layla was a baby. We’ve always done a lot of activities together, and sharing the same home, we’re very comfortable with each other. Over time we’ve become great friends, but I guess romance began to blossom about a year ago.
“Who made the first move?” the interviewer asked, sitting forward on her chair, looking keenly from one to the other of us.
“I did, of course,” I said, because to my mind it was me. I’d kissed her in the kitchen once and looking back there had been several near misses to something more. “I overstepped the Christmas Eve before.” Harper absentmindedly placed her hand on my thigh and I looked down at it and back up to her. I smiled.
“I think in fairness, when we both realized how attracted we were to each other, it was a very awkward time. Neither of us were willing to make the first move because of concerns about the impact on Layla.”
“Okay, but Cole has told us he eventually did. What did you think, Harper? I mean, Cole is your employer—”
“Was. I was her employer. Harper is in a different role now, we’re a family,” I corrected.
“Actually, Cole, I don’t mind answering this because it was part of the reason why it’s taken us so long to get together. The attraction between us started a while before this… maybe about two and a half years after Grace had passed, but Cole was still grieving and I wasn’t about to act on my feelings.”
“So you waited it out?”
“I guess we ignored it for a long time. I was naturally resistant and wondered if the feelings we had were due to us living so closely together, but once we realized this wasn’t an infatuation, or a case of familiarity being the key, we stopped fighting our feelings.” I concluded.
“Are you happy?” The interviewer asked, directing her question to me.
Turning to look at Harper, I smiled adoringly at her and my heart clenched for having such an amazing second chance. “Look at her. Of course I am. She makes my heart race, but this woman is beautiful inside and out.” I reached up and brushed her hair over her shoulder, so I had a better view of her slender neck. “She makes me very happy… we’re very happy. It’s crazy because Grace’s death shattered me, and I was so devastated I never expected anyone could make me feel the way I do now about Harper. I suppose I never expected to find a love like this again.”
“What about you, Harper? It must be difficult to know you weren’t Cole’s first choice?”
My fists immediately balled in my lap and Harper instinctively knew the interviewer’s remark would rile me. Her hand slid over mine, tamping my rising temper.
“What kind of a question is that? No one has walked in our shoes. In my opinion, you don’t choose to love someone; you are stricken. Harper has seen me at my worst, and I don’t think she’s experienced me at my best yet, but I know for sure this girl loves me no matter what. It wasn’t a conscious decision to love either of the two women I’ve loved. I believe it was fate that we found each other.”
“Fate?” the interviewer scoffed and glanced at the studio audience.
