Once the game is over, I kiss my son goodbye in Mae’s arms—she and Nathan are looking after him for the night—and rush to the dark parking lot. My sweats immediately become soggy from the pouring rain and rolling thunder—another summer storm. The sky is an endless stretch of darkness above me, and the moon hangs limply, half of it disappearing as a thick, grey cloud wisps over it, plunging me into even more night.
It’s then that I feel the trickle of blood on my neck, and I rub at the small cluster of cuts with my palm.
The team’s medical staff wanted to patch me up after the game, but out of fear that I’d miss my flight, I declined their help, so I’m currently sporting a few bloody wounds. I’m going to need to sort them out in the airport bathroom. Luckily, they won’t need stitches or anything.
I’m frustrated when my strides to my car are interrupted by my phone ringing in my pocket, and after yanking it out, my stomach churns until it feels like it wants to shrivel up and die inside of me.
Zara Scott.
I don't have the time for this today.
I knew it was coming at some point—after Leo’s hospital visit, it was inevitable—but out of all the days, today? Really?
“Hello?”
“You’re in breach of your contract,” she snaps, and I flick my eyes up in a roll. “I’ve been getting emails, calls and texts from different reporters, asking if I’m Leonardo’s biological mother.”
She doesn’t even know he doesn’t go by that name on a regular basis; it’s just sad.
“Why would I wait three and a half years to tell someone about you, Zara? I haven’t said a word. There’s no desire to.”
The hospital staff thought otherwise, though.
She releases a short breath of disbelief. “Well—”
“Well nothing. I think you’re actually the one in breach of your own contract, because you agreed to relinquishyour guardianship ofLeo,and forgot to remove yourself from his hospital files. So if anyone’s to blame here, it’s you.”
She huffs. “Okay, well, what am I supposed to do now? I’m being hounded. This could ruin me.”
“Do the same thing I have to do, Zara. Ignore them.” And with that, I cut the line. I could have said more, could have told her that it’s not nice now that the shoe is on the other foot, but I have no need to berate that woman. She has her life, and I have mine. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know anyone under the name Zara Scott, because she’s not Leo’s mother. Never was.
With my bag over my shoulder, I hop in my car. I'm cutting it close, so need to get a move on. However, as I’m pulling out of the lot and peeking through the wipers that thump on the windshield as they wipe, the flickering streetlights barely doing anything to light the road in front of me, my eyebrows furrow because I spot an old red Honda turning in, the bumper slightly dented and scratched, one door handle missing.
Is that…?
There’s no denying whose it is—unless she sold the car, which was something Flo said she wouldn’t do. She loves that rusty hunk of metal.
My feet slam on the brakes, and I lurch out of my car and step out in front of the Honda. They stop, then honk, and wait. More waiting. It’s deathly silent. But after a few moments, a long-legged, wild-eyed woman steps out,and suddenly everything makes sense again. Becauseshe’sstanding in front of me.
“Evan Fucking West!” Flo yells over the pounding rain. “I almost hit you with my car!”
“You’re driving in the dark, trouble,” I say with a smile of disbelief.
She steps closer, her yellow knitted cardigan soaked, water droplets dribbling down her slender jaw and neck. She’s chuckling as she says, “You were worth the freak out.”
I never thought much about love before Flo came along. It wasn’t something I craved, because I’d accepted I would never have it, not authentically, at least. But somewhere in the two months my nanny was here, I fell for her. Fell so hard I know I’ll never be able to get back up. It’s effortless with this woman. I don’t have to pretend or try to be something I’m not.
And now she’s in my arms, I’m never letting her go.
“You came back,” I mutter.
“You can’t fire me that easily.”
“I don’t want you as a nanny, Flo. I want you as more.” Pulling back and bending my knees a little so we’re eye level, my palms hold her face captive. “I love you. I’m so in love with you.” Shit, I had a whole speech planned and it’s all gone out the window. My brain has turned to mush. “You have no idea how fucking happy I am that you’re here.”
“I got your voicemail.”
“My voicemail?”
