Page 64 of After-Hours Heir

She didn’t know what she was going to do with that man.

But she did know that she loved him.

She didn’t know if there was anything to learn from her parents’ marriage. From the mistakes they had made. Her father in marrying a woman who was never going to love him as much she loved herself. And her mother in not being able to recognize who she was.

Were they the same? Had she fallen in love with a man who could never love her back with the same intensity?

No. Christos had intensity.

It was real. In fact, it was so terrifying that he couldn’t face it. That was the real issue. It wasn’t that he felt nothing. It was that he felt everything.

She had chased him down. She had come here. And she wasn’t going to stop.

She picked her phone up.

Kid: I wish you would talk to me.

She wasn’t sure if he would respond. Her heart beat in her throat while she waited.

Baby: I don’t know how.

Kid: Only because you never talked to anybody. You already told me you don’t have any friends. You don’t have any practice with it. Maybe that’s what this has been all along. Let’s practice. You can tell me. Anything.

She wondered if she’d pushed him too hard. If she’d overplayed her hand.

Baby: I’ve never told my story to anyone.

Kid: It’s important. If it’s what you think is going to stand between you and your own child, then it’s important.

If it’s what you think is going to stand between you and me.

She didn’t type that.

Baby: I told you when my mother died everything fell apart. It was worse than you can imagine. When my mother died my father lost himself entirely. He fell into a gambling addiction. He was drinking. He was deeply in debt, and he could not care for me. He heard about a man buying boys.

Her hand came up to her mouth. And she watched in horror as he continued to type.

Baby: For hard labor. They took us to different places, had us work in fields, in factories. The factories were the worst. Hot and inhumane. People died. Children. Working long hours. And there was no one to ask after them. No one to investigate their deaths. I don’t even know where their bodies went. But not me. I didn’t let it kill me. I didn’t let the long hours kill me.

There was a long pause.

Baby: I didn’t let the loneliness kill me.

A sob rose in her chest, and holding her phone close, she got out of the bed. She walked out of her bedroom. She wasn’t dressed. She didn’t care. She walked through the halls. She didn’t know where anything was in this house. She pushed open one door and found an empty room. Then another.

When she arrived at the end of the hall, she saw light filtering beneath that last door.

She opened it, and there he was, sitting in a chair by the fireplace. “Christos,” she said.

He turned to look at her, his eyes hollow.

“I wanted to be near you,” she said. “We can talk in person.”

“I don’t know how to talk about this,” he said.

“You’ve been through a really terrible thing.”

“It was a long time ago. I survived it. But it did change me. And I don’t think there’s any way to change back. Even if I wanted to.”