AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Noah, I haven’t spoken to Megan at length in a few weeks. We’ve been playing phone tag. I can’t help it if she feels there’s something wrong with us.”
“You think that?”
“I didn’t until Memorial Day weekend. You’ve been acting like an asshole to me.”
“Me? What about you with this little stunt today?”
“You’ve been hiding things from me; you got drunk, you fucked me and took off when your phone rang. You haven’t been the Noah I know and love. I forgot to remind you Megan was visiting. I hardly think that constitutes me being so terrible.”
I watch him work his jaw and rub the back of his neck. I know he is thinking about what I just told him, I can almost see the wheels turning in his head.
“You’re right. I’ve been detached lately. I want to talk to you about why but I’m not sure it’s a good idea with Megan here overnight.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not waiting anymore. Just tell me already.”
He reaches into his desk and removes the letters I previously read. I bristle with the knowledge that I invaded his privacy.
“These two letters are from someone I thought I would never have contact with again.”
My eyebrows go up in surprise. “Who are they from, and what do they say?”
He hands them to me, and I open them up as if it’s my first time. I know what they say, but I can’t tell him that. I look at the girly script and pretend to read through them.
“Who’s Rory?”
“Rory, or Aurora, is my daughter.”
My jaw drops as I try to process the information; he just told me. How can he have a daughter and not have told me?
“What? A daughter? How, how old is she and why haven’t you told me this before?”
“Vivian, Rory’s mother, was together with me when we were in our late teens. We were high school sweethearts. We had a passionate love affair into the summer after our senior year. I was heading off to Stanford, and she was attending USC. I got her pregnant.”
He stops talking so he can let that sink in. My straight arrow Noah got someone pregnant.
He continues. “I wanted to marry her. I would’ve transferred to USC to be with her, and we could’ve lived together. We would have worked it out. But her parents were livid and said she would take a year off college to have Rory and then go. Our marrying was out of the question.”
“They forbid you to marry?”
“Yes, and worse, my father cut me off. He said if I wanted to go to Stanford, I would have to pay for it. So, I enlisted in the Marines to spite him. The Barton’s, Vivian’s parents, worked on her that first year. Telling her how horrible I was to leave her. By the time I came home for Rory’s birth, Vivian hated me and said if I truly loved her, to let her and Rory go. I wanted the best for my daughter and I agreed to cut off contact.”
I place my hand over my mouth. “You gave your child up?”
“Not parentally. I’m still her father.”
“Of course,” I mutter.
“Lucian was able to get pictures of Rory every so often to send to me. He maintained a friendship with Vivian, then she left Boston, and I had no idea where she was. For years I thought about Rory. Of course, I finished my military tour, went to Boston College four years later and got my degree.”
“So how did you find Rory again?”
“I didn’t. She found me. Vivian was back in Boston living with her family. Her father died, and Rory found information for Lucian. She contacted him and he led her to me. Rory has been accepted to NYU and will be starting in the fall. She graduated high school early. I want a relationship with her.”
“Noah, you could’ve told me this from the beginning, I would have understood. Why didn’t you tell me you had a child out there?”
“I didn’t know if she would ever be a factor in our lives. I met her; she looks just like her mother but with my eyes.”
I could picture a young woman with Noah’s gorgeous sapphire blue eyes.
