“That’s on me, everything we missed. I know that. I left to protect you both and you did right to protect her from our world. But, Cat…Dio. I should have, I wish so damned badly that I’d been there.”
“I know. I wish you’d been there too. Both of us. Together.” My own tears blur the photos until they’re awash in beautiful sunny hues. The girl and the summer and the daughter and what we might still be. “If you hate me for lying to you?—”
He shakes his head, violent and immediate. “No. Absolutely not.” His voice fractures and then steadies. “I’m angry at the world that made us choose to do what we did. Not at you.” He glances down at the locket again, a broken smile cracking wider. “Livia.” He tastes it. “Ourlittle girl.”
Our little girl. It lands like a benediction. Finally, after all these years, it’s all real.
He drags the heel of his hand across his eyes, then lifts the locket on its chain and kisses the rim, careful as glass. When he finally speaks, it’s raw. “Where is she?”
“County Down. It’s a lane with no name and a cottage with blue shutters. I’ll take you.”
“Not take.” His palm cups my cheek, thumb catching a tear. “We’ll go together.”
I nod, because there’s no world where I don’t. The relief is a physical thing, my entire body lighter by a war I’ve been carrying alone for so long.
We could finally be a family. A real one. Not what passed for mine. I dare not hope for it for fear it’ll elude me somehow.
Matteo pulls me into him, not with hunger, but with something better. He fits his mouth to my hairline, to my temple, to the corner of my mouth. His kisses are gentle, grateful, stunned. “Thank you,” he whispers against my skin. “For keeping Livia safe. For keeping a part of me alive when I didn’t deserve it.”
I lean into him until the shaking stops, reveling in his strength, his solidness. The hell I went through, it’s finally over. When I can draw in a breath without trembling, I take his phone from the desk and hand it to him. “Call the jet.” My voice is steady now. “But change the destination.”
He smiles through the ruin of the last five minutes, soft and fierce all at once. “County Down.”
“County Down,” I echo, and button my shirt back up over the blossom, the name and the locket, not to hide them, never again, but to carry them where they belong as we go find our daughter. Together.
CHAPTER 46
MY HEART STOPS
Matteo
County Down smells like rain and soap and something older than both, peat and endless patience. Leo rolls us down a hedged lane no GPS would ever find, then stops at a white cottage with blue shutters and a yard held together by roughhewn stone walls. As our car approaches, an old tawny goat bleats from behind a gate like it’s been left in charge.
Noreen, I assume, meets us on the stoop before the engine dies. Cat’s great aunt on her father’s side is small and wiry. She looks to be in her early seventies with a gray braid as thick as a rope and eyes that have never once lost an argument. Standing at the top of the steps in a cardigan the color of moss and boots for work, not show, she eyes me suspiciously. After one long look, I can already tell she’s decided I’m trouble.
Observant.
“Inside,” she says to Cat, in lieu of a welcome, and it’s not an invitation.
We follow her through a warm kitchen that smells of tea and toast and the kind of safety you can’t buy. I understandimmediately why Cat chose this woman and this place to safeguard our daughter.
Daughter. The word echoes through my mind, still completely unreal. I have a daughter.Wehave a daughter.
Strewn across the kitchen table is a mess of crayons, a mug of daisies, and a paper sun with too many rays. My throat tightens.
Noreen angles her chin toward the back door. And I see her. Livia. My heart stops as a copper-haired little girl in yellow wellies flashes past the window, chasing two goats and an older girl with pigtails. Laughter drifts in. I feel the incredible sound in places I didn’t know were empty.
“That’s Aisling with little Livia. She’s our neighbor.” Then Noreen turns her gaze away from the girls, hands braced on the sink, eyes narrowed in my direction. “You handed me a child wrapped in secrets,” she says to Cat, voice clean as a blade, “and I raised her in truth. I love that little girl fiercely, and I won’t let any harm come to her. So don’t you dare bring your lies to my doorstep.”
Cat flinches, then straightens. “I won’t,” she whispers. “Not anymore.” Her fingers find the locket at her throat. “That’s why we’ve come. He’s her father.”
Those eyes, sharp as knitting needles, spear me. “Name?”
“Matteo Rossi,” I answer, palms open. “I?—”
“I don’t want the curriculum vitae of your sins,” she snaps. “I want to know if you’ll make more of them.”
“No,” I reply immediately, and it’s the only word I have that feels big enough. “I won’t.”
