“Is everything okay?” I asked, but something inside me said things weren’t okay. Coming forward, I pressed a hand down my tie. I always wore a suit to the office, even if no one was here. I wanted to be professional for my staff if anyone was working after hours. “Who’s this?”
Again, I’d definitely seen her before. I started to bring that up, but then Billie was looking at the girl.
My wife was also wrestling with her hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked, and Billie started to speak, but the girl stepped forward.
“Hi, Mr. Johnson. I mean, LJ. I mean, Lance. I mean…” She huffed, and when she glanced at my wife, my heart thudded. Something was going on here, and it was making both this girl and my wife uncomfortable.
“LJ, I want to introduce you to.” Billie paused, glancing at the girl, and, when she did, my wife’s eyes crinkled in the corners for some reason. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Honey, I want to introduce you to your daughter.”
My… what?
Blinking, I focused on the girl, whose face was currently red. I stared at Billie. “What are you talking about?”
“Babe, this isyour daughter.”
My… daughter.
“She found us. Found you,” Billie said, and she was beaming at the girl now. “She spotted us at the airport when we firstarrived home. She followed me to the store. Thinking you were with me I think?” she asked, and the girl nodded. She squeezed the girl’s arm. “Babe, this is your daughter.”
She kept saying that, that this girl was my daughter, but that didn’t make sense.
“I also saw you at a country club,” the girl went on to say. “After I realized you weren’t with Billie, I did some digging. You posted a picture while playing golf and tagged your location.”
I did do that, and I blinked again when the girl took out her phone. She brought up one of those genealogy apps. In fact, it was the same app that I’d recently registered with. Both Billie and I did, for fun. We wanted to know more about our heritage.
“I got an email that my father registered on this app,” the girl said.
Her father.
“That’s you. You’re…” She paused, then looked at Billie. Billie nodded at her. Like my wife was her strength to push on. The young woman faced me. “You’re my father.”
I’m her father.
I stared at the girl’s phone, then the girl. I followed the lines of her face and features that did look like mine. In fact, she looked a hell of a lot like my sisters just, well, tan. It was a natural tan, like she was a mixture of races. Maybe Black or Latinx.
“You’re my…” I paused, then glanced at my wife. It was as if she was my strength now, and when she nodded again, smiling, I faced the girl. I blew out a breath. “You’re my daughter.”
My daughter.
“Lady,” she said, and I blinked again. She laughed. “My name is Lady. My parents were obsessed withLady and the Tramp.”
Her parents. Her father. I’m her…
Lady put out her hand in a way that held nothing but confidence now. It was like she was just waiting for permission. I put my hand in hers.
“Lady,” I said, my mouth dry. “Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands for a moment.
We shook hands for a long time.
Lady’s full name turned out to be Lady Belmont. She sounded like royalty and her background wasn’t far off. Apparently, she was adopted into a very esteemed family as an infant.
“Your mother?” I asked her at one point. She and I were sitting in my office now, but I wasn’t behind my desk. We sat on my leather couches, and she continued to blow my mind. I not only had a child, but an adult daughter who I had no idea existed. I swallowed. “Your biological mother, I mean?”
Lady told me her name, and, though I remembered her, we’d only hooked up the one time. It’d been at a party before I met Billie. I threw so many parties back then. I remembered Lady’s mother was just as beautiful as Lady, but had rich, dark skin and the ability to captivate a guy from across the room. She had that night.
