Her father wanted to meet her.
"My father?" She had looked fascinated, eyes huge. "Where is he?"
She had told her little girl that he had been away for a while and now he was back.
"How come he went away?"
"He did not know about you."
"You didn't tell him?" Zoe had given her a curious stare.
"No. He went away before I found out I was carrying you inside my tummy."
"Why didn't you tell him? Were you mad at him?"
She had forgotten how smart her daughter was.
"A little bit. But I had no idea where he was." She reached for Zoe's small hands. "And I was scared. I had you growing inside my tummy and did not know what to do."
"Did it hurt? When I was growing inside your tummy, did it hurt?"
Trust the child to think about something like that, she mused.
"Not really. I would get sick all the time, and some things tasted really awful."
"I'm sorry, Mama."
"Oh, honey." She had broken down and hauled the little girl into her arms. After a while of rocking and silence, she asked the question. "Would you like to meet him?"
Zoe nodded. "Is he that man that came to the bookstore? The one with the dark hair and pretty face?"
Abby smiled despite the fact that she wanted to weep. "How observant of you. Why do you think it's him?"
She had looked solemn. "He looks like me." She pointed to the dimple on her cheek. "He smiled, and I saw it. And we have the same eyebrows."
Abby brushed a stray curl from Zoe's forehead and let out a shaky breath. "You're very clever, sweetheart. Yes, that's him. He wanted to meet you, to get to know you."
She watched her daughter's expression carefully, searching for any hint of fear or excitement. "If you'd like, we can all sit down together soon. Only if you want to, though."
"I want to, Mama. When?"
Abby felt the pain twisting her heart. Deep inside her, she had wanted her little girl to hesitate and felt ashamed. Her brother was right. She had to start thinking about Zoe and push aside her resentment towards Kincaid Tyrell. It wasn't about her.
"Very soon."
*****
He tried working, but that wasn't happening. Oh, he pretended. In the last month or more since he had taken over and attempted to try and salvage the publishing house, he had made incredible strides.
The board was now singing his praises, and his parents were shaking their heads at how quickly he had accomplished what he set out to do.
"It only proves what we always thought. You're a genius." His mother had told him proudly.
He had gotten rid of the top-heavy management team and brought in some new blood. In the process of going through the changes, he had discovered three incredibly good manuscripts. Two were going to be turned into movies.
He had also made physical changes to the place, cosmetic work, changing the drab into the cheerful. The publishing house sat on a prime piece of land, underdeveloped and overgrown. He had hired a team of landscapers to fix that. The result was stunning.
Benches were strewn along cobbled walkways, beneath oaks and redwood trees. A fountain trickling ice-cold water led to a meandering path that he had decided to call 'A Walk Through Shakespeare's Life.'
