Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
You set me on fire inside, Ezra Stern.
“We need to talk,” Aiko says from the door.
“Talk to Chaz.” I lift my head, refocus my attention on the laptop and try again.
“Chaz is not the father of this baby.”
I do look at her then. “Oh, so you didn’t fuck him the last three weeks? Was I mistaken about that?”
Color floods her pale cheeks and she drops her gaze to the floor. “Are you going to condemn me for something we agreed on?”
“Absolutely not.” I shut my laptop and give her a level look. “But you can’t condemn me either. You want to have your cake and eat it, too.”
“I want you, Ezra,” she says, swallowing hard. “I didn’t want to end our relationship. I wanted an open one.”
“Again, cake. You know me, Ko. What would ever make you think I’d want that? I don’t care that you slept with Chaz.”
“Maybe that’s what hurts most because it’s killing me that you slept with Kimba as soon as my back was turned.”
“Your back wasn’t turned. You left,” I say, slicing a hand through the air. “With him. We broke up and agreed to tell Noah when you returned. Don’t try to re-write history because the truth is suddenly not as convenient.”
“History is re-writing itself, Ezra.” She walks deeper into the office, one hand on her stomach. “And there’s nothing convenient about an unplanned pregnancy at nearly forty on the cusp of the biggest opportunity of my career. I didn’t ask for this either. You were there that night. I didn’t fuck myself.”
“I know that.” I expel as much of the frustration as I can on a long breath. “If this is my baby, you know I’ll support you, but we won’t be together.” I look at her directly so she can see the finality on my face. “Not again. And not just because of Kimba. I hadn’t even seen Kimba when we broke up. You and I ending things was the right thing to do, for all of us. It still is.”
“But it hasn’t happened.” She crosses the room, presses her palms to the desk and leans forward. “It hasn’t happened because Noah doesn’t know. Our families, our friends don’t know. When Noah comes home, we tell him he’s going to have a little brother or sister and he’ll be ecstatic. Things go back to normal.”
“I don’t want normal. I want Kimba.”
Hurt shows in her sharply drawn breath, in the tears that fill her eyes right away.
“Ko,” I say, deliberately gentling my tone. “I told you before you left that I wanted one person I could love for the rest of my life. That person is Kimba, and I know it seems soon to you, but I’ve known her since we were babies. Even when we were separated, I never stopped knowing her.”
“If I ask you a question, will you answer honestly?”
“Always.”
“Did I ever even really have a chance?”
I give the question the consideration it deserves and force myself to be honest with her while still being as kind as I can. “Probably the best chance anyone has ever had. If you’d said yes when I asked to marry you, I would have found a way to keep my distance from Kimba when our paths crossed again.”
“You couldn’t have just been friends?”
I glance past her toward the kitchen, the mudroom, and flash back to that night when Kimba and I first made love. The wild sounds we made. The desperate craving that hung in the air. That absolute long-sought rightness of being inside her for the first time.
“No, I don’t think I could have been just her friend, even though I fooled myself that I could have.”
“When did you fall in love with her?”
I feel the cold metal around my finger again. Smell the freshly cut grass in my back yard. Hear the glass breaking on the rocks.
“I was six years old.” I chuckle humorlessly and touch my empty ring finger. “And again when I was seven. Eight. Nine and ten. I think I fell in love with her every day for the first thirteen years of my life, and as soon as I saw her again, my heart just remembered.”
She watches me, her face pinched, but some semblance of acceptance finally entering her eyes. My cell phone buzzes on the desk, breaking the poignant, painful mood.
“My appointment is tomorrow,” Aiko says, turning to leave. “First thing.”
I check the screen and answer right away. “Mom, hey.”
“Hey! You said you needed to speak with me urgently. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, it’s quite urgent. If you ever checked your messages, you’d know when your son needs you. Noah told you to call?”
“When would I have talked to Noah?” she hedges.
“Okay. Never mind. I’ll deal with that later. I have a question for you.”
“All right.” Even though she says it, I hear the caution in her voice.