12. Declan #2
Two weeks in, I'm walking Maeve around the bookstore while Zola handles a customer. The baby's fighting sleep, squirming and fussing, but she settles when I hum something low and tuneless.
"You're good with her," Zola says once the customer leaves. She's sorting through a box of new arrivals, pulling out books and checking them against an invoice.
"She's easy."
"She's not." Zola glances up. "She screams for two hours straight sometimes. Won't sleep unless someone's holding her. Has a specific cry for every possible need and I still can't tell them apart half the time."
"Sounds exhausting."
"It is." She pulls out another book, frowning at the cover. "But she's—she's everything, you know?"
I adjust Maeve, feeling her weight go slack as she finally gives up and falls asleep. "You're doing a good job with her."
Zola scoffs. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
"You show up. You hold her when she cries. You keep her safe." I meet her eyes across the space between us. "That's what matters."
She stares at me. Something cracks in her expression—vulnerability showing through the armor she wears.
Then she looks away. "I should finish this inventory."
But her walls are a little lower. Her voice a little softer.
I'm getting somewhere. Slowly. Carefully.
The house feels colder every time I go back. Bianca's there more often now, making pointed comments about where I've been spending my time.
"You're never here anymore," she says one evening, standing in the doorway of my office with her arms crossed. She's in another expensive dress, another attempt to get a reaction.
"I have work."
"Work." She laughs, sharp and bitter. "Right. Work."
I don't look up from the ledger I'm reviewing. "Did you need something?"
"I need my husband to actually be present in our marriage."
Our marriage. The words are ridiculous. This was never a marriage—just a business arrangement that neither of us wanted. She knows it as well as I do.
"Then you should have married someone who wanted you."
Her face flushes. "You're a bastard."
"I am." I finally look at her. "But you knew that when you said yes. Don't act surprised now."
She storms out. I hear her heels clicking down the hallway, hear her bedroom door slam hard enough to rattle the windows.
Good. Maybe she'll finally realize this isn't going to become whatever fantasy she's built in her head.
Stellan calls five minutes later and I complain about Bianca. I hate having her here, more than before. "You're pushing her."
"She's pushing me."
"Same thing." He sounds amused. "How's the situation with Zola?"
"Better. She's—she's warming up."
"Good. Keep that momentum." A pause. "We need to figure out the annulment situation soon."
I know that. I need her away from me so I can focus on Zola. But right now I can't think about that, can't plan beyond tomorrow's visit to the bookstore.
"I know. Just—give me time."
"You've got it. I'm covering for you." Stellan's voice is steady. "But Declan, you need to move forward. Can't stay in limbo forever."
I know that too. Know that eventually I'll have to tell Zola I'm married, have to figure out how to get out of it, have to actually build toward something instead of just existing in her orbit.
But right now I'm just trying to prove I'm worth letting back in.
One day at a time.
Three days later I show up with lunch and find Zola behind the counter looking like she hasn't slept at all. Maeve's screaming in the office—that high, desperate sound that means she's been at it for a while.
"Rough morning?" I set down the food and move toward the office without waiting for permission.
"She won't stop crying." Zola's voice is ragged. "I've tried everything. Food, diaper change, walking, rocking, singing—nothing works."
I lift Maeve out of the crib. Her cheeks are soaked, her little fists waving. But when I tuck her against my chest and start walking, humming that same tuneless melody, she gradually quiets.
Not immediately. She fights it, squirming and huffing. But eventually her cries taper off into hiccupping breaths, then soft sounds, then silence.
"How do you do that?" Zola's standing in the doorway, watching us with something like wonder.
"No idea." I adjust Maeve carefully. "Maybe she just likes me."
"Everyone likes you." The words slip out before she can stop them. Then she stiffens, like she's said too much.
But I heard it. That slip. That admission that she used to like me too.
"Not everyone," I say quietly.
Her expression shutters. "You should eat before the food gets cold."
She walks away before I can respond, leaving me standing there with a sleeping baby and the ghost of what we used to be.
But it's progress. Every conversation, every moment she lets me stay, every crack in those walls she's built.
I'm getting closer.
By the end of the second week, I've learned that Zola now drinks her coffee black when she's stressed.
That she reorganizes shelves when she's anxious—a side of her I used to never see because she'd bury herself in work.
That she talks to Maeve like the baby understands every word, reading her stories in voices that make me want to smile.
That she watches me when she thinks I'm not looking.
I've learned that Maeve loves being tossed gently in the air, that she laughs when you blow raspberries on her stomach, that she grabs onto my finger and won't let go like she's afraid I'll disappear.
I bring her a set of stacking cups one afternoon. Bright colors, easy to grip. Maeve immediately knocks them over, delighted by the noise.
"She's going to drive you crazy with those," Zola says, but she's almost smiling.
"Good. She should have fun."
"You're spoiling her."
"Someone should."
Zola looks at me. Really looks at me, like she's trying to see past the surface. "Why are you doing this? Really?"
Because I'm in love with you. Because seeing you makes me feel alive for the first time in eight years. Because I'll take whatever scraps of your life you're willing to give me.
But I can't say that. Not yet.
"Because you need help. Because Maeve's a good kid." I meet her eyes. "Because we're friends, remember?"
Friends. The word sits wrong between us, too small for what we were and too big for what we are.
But Zola nods slowly. "Right. Friends."
Then she turns back to her work, and I stay with Maeve, stacking cups just to watch her knock them down again.
That night Bianca corners me in the hallway. She's been drinking—I can smell the wine on her breath, see it in the loose way she's standing.
"Who is she?"
I keep my expression neutral. "Who's who?"
"Don't play stupid." Her voice rises. "You're gone every day. You come back smelling like—like vanilla and coffee and someone else. So who is she?"
"None of your business."
"I'm your wife!"
I almost laugh. Like she hasn't been supposedly cheating on me—not that I care. Bianca is just clinging to me for the status when I've always made everything perfectly clear between us.
"On paper." I start to move past her but she grabs my arm. I look down at her hand, then up at her face. "Let go."
"Not until you tell me what's going on."
"You want to know what's going on?" I pull free, stepping back. "I'm visiting an old friend. That's it. Nothing that concerns you."
"Everything you do concerns me."
"No." I keep my voice flat. "It doesn't. This marriage is an arrangement. You have your life, I have mine. Stay out of it."
She looks like I slapped her. "You're a cold bastard."
"Yeah. I am." I walk toward my office, done with this conversation. "Go to bed, Bianca."
"I hate you!"
"Good. Join the club."
I close the office door on her shouting, leaning against it and breathing through the frustration. Stellan's right—we need to handle this soon. Need to get the annulment moving before Bianca decides to make things complicated.
But first I need Zola to trust me again. Need her to let me all the way back in.
Then I can figure out the rest.
My phone buzzes.
Stellan: How's it going?
Me: Better. She's softening.
Stellan: Good. Keep pushing. We'll figure out the marriage situation.
I close my eyes, thinking about Zola's almost-smile when Maeve laughed today. Thinking about the way she didn't pull away when our hands brushed reaching for the same book.
Thinking about the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn't watching—like maybe she remembers too.
I can do this. I can be patient. I can prove I'm worth a second chance.
Even if it takes forever.