Chapter Eleven
The next day, I email my birth mother.
I tell her I’m happy to have found her. I tell her that I’ve had a good life and that I understand why she couldn’t keep me. I tell her I’d like to meet her and that I’ll be in Nashville next week, and possibly longer than that.
Kade and I still haven’t made any official plans together yet, but it’s hard to imagine leaving him. I know he feels the same way. Within two short weeks, my life has somehow weaved itself around his in a way that feels almost disconcertingly ... stable. Permanent. Everlasting. I can’t bring myself to analyze any of it yet. Instead, I try to work on my book.
Two hours later, my heart almost jumps out of my chest when I receive a reply.
“Kade,” I gasp. “She wrote back.”
He’s walking into the room with two glasses of sweet iced tea. He sets them on the table next to where I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop. He’s wearing a pair of worn jeans that are frayed at the cuffs and he’s shirtless and barefoot. He sits down next to me and pulls me onto his lap. He’s so in this with me, it’s making me reliant on his devout interest and his empathetic support. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that. Having always relied only on myself when it comes to all the emotions that go along with being adopted, it’s very addictive to have him so incredibly invested . “Read it to me.”
So I do.
My Dearest Stella,
I can’t begin to thank you enough for reaching out to contact me. It’s such a comfort to me to know that you are happy in your life.
When I received the phone call yesterday I knew immediately that it was about you. It’s so brave of you to search for me. I’ve thought of you every day and I’m so sorry that we were separated. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing for you so that you would have a better life. I didn’t give you up because I didn’t love you. I will always love you.
I dated your birth father for two years in high school. When my parents found out I was pregnant I was sent to my aunt’s house in North Carolina. The decision was made by my parents to give you up for adoption and I had no means to care for you without their support. When you were born, I went to a hospital in Charlotte. You were so beautiful and so tiny and the short time I was able to spend time with you was very precious to me. I had no contact with your father during the pregnancy because my parents wouldn’t allow it but I was able to let him know that he had a daughter. After that, I didn’t speak to him for a long time. He called me out of the blue around four years ago. It was nice to talk to him. He told me that he had moved to Houston soon after you were born. He was married and ran his own small tax accountancy firm. He did not have any other children at that time. I haven’t talked to him again since then. He’s a good man and I know he cares for you.
You have a brother named Samuel. He’s 19 and he’s wonderful. He’s a student and a talented musician. He didn’t know about you. But last night after the phone call with Mr. Clancy, I told him about you. If you’re willing, he would also like to meet you.
I work as a book editor. When I’m not working or spending time with Sam, I like to read, write, walk and spend time with my close friends. I have a sister who’s two years older who also lives in Nashville and maybe one day you could meet her too if you’d like. She and I have always been very close.
I know I can’t go back and change things. I’ve thought about you every single day and I have always prayed that you are safe and would have a good life.
This letter will be a lot to take in. I’m so grateful that you made the effort to reach out to me. If you’d like to, I’d very much like to keep this communication open. I’d love to learn more about you and your life and I’d love to get to know you.
Your loving birth mother,
Madeline
P.S. Please take your time to decide, but if you would like to call me, I’d love to talk to you. And I would love so much to meet you, Stella. My phone number is 615-490-1122.
After reading Madeline’s letter, I cry my heart out and it’s a very cathartic experience. Kade closes my laptop and puts it aside. He holds me for a long time, his arms secure around me, smoothing my hair, kissing my head, crooning sweet words to me, until the hitching of my breath evens out and my tears, finally, dry up. Like that particular well is now no longer needed.
“It’s good to let it all out, honey.”
“There’s such a sense of relief to know that she didn’t give me away because she didn’t want me. She gave me up because she loved me.” That simple revelation fortifies me and grounds me in a way that’s very hard to explain. All the insecurities that undermined my belief in myself that have somehow lurked like sticky shadows behind my entire life, have shifted. Like a cloud has moved away from the sun, revealing the world and its possibilities in an entirely new light.
“I can imagine you never stop loving a baby that was a part of you for nine months,” Kade says. “It must have been excruciating to wonder all those years about where you were and whether or not you were okay.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way. That maybe they missed me.”
“Of course they would have.”
“I used to wonder if they ended up getting married and having lots of other children together and then lived happily ever after without me. It’s strange to think that they never even saw each other again.”
“Sounds like her parents were hell-bent on keeping them apart.”
“I wonder why.” It’s a question I’ll ask her. It’s amazing: I can ask her questions . I have so many. “It’s nice to finally know at least a part of the story.”
Kade’s brawny arms are wrapped around me. We’re sitting on the squashy leather couch in the writing room with the sun streaming in through the old-glass windows. He’s gorgeous, all lion-like masculinity and sculpted, inked muscles. The sun paints his hair with edges of deep gold. The stubble of his beard is dark but with diamond-touched glints of blond and red. It makes me wonder what color hair our children would have. Maybe one would have brown hair, one blond and one red. With eyes of blue and green.
I’m so grateful to have him here with me. Because he cares . He’s done so much already to transform the things that hurt me into memories and yearnings that are so much easier to bear. He catches my tears with his fingers and licks one of them, like he did that very first night, as though he’s saying, This pain is mine now. It’s ours. It’s inside me too. I’ll help you carry that weight until it can’t hurt you anymore.
Somehow, by fiercely believing in me and supporting me and also by enlightening me with the kind of pleasure that’s intensely emotional, Kade has freed me. His enthusiasm, his patience, his advice, his steady presence and his magical body have opened my soul.
“Kade?”
“Right here, baby girl.”
“Thank you. For helping me with this. And for being here for me.”
His voice is deep and husked when he says, “It’s all I want to do. It feels like that’s what I was put on this earth to do. To be yours.”
“I love you.”
His blue eyes take on all kinds of depth. “I love you too, my sweet little unicorn darlin’. You’re the one.”
I hold his face and I kiss his mouth. Our kisses turn slippery and greedy.
All I’m wearing is a light cotton nightie with nothing underneath. Kade lifts me and lays me back on the couch and I need him. Something in me has broken open and I need him to fill me and anchor me. I fumble with the button of his jeans and he frees himself and— oh my God, I’ll never get used to how huge and hot and perfect he is —I slide my fist along his growing length, swirling the moisture at the tip. He pushes his thick cock inside me, feeding himself into me inch by star-studded inch. I grip his shoulders as he drives deeper, using his own moisture to wet my pussy, pulling out then pushing deeper as my willing body goes wet and begins to accept his gigantic, rigid length. He stares into my eyes as he thrusts. Everything about him is so full of total devotion. He drives harder, and deeper, working a hot, sweet rhythm with his big, relentless body that takes me to the highest peak and tips me over its brimming edge. The silky spasms of my body squeeze his big cock, pulling lusciously until he groans and comes in flooding throbs, filling me with his lustrous heat.
“ Fuck, I love you so much, baby ,” he groans as he comes.
He’s a life-changing, magical gift and he’s mine.
Please, please be mine.
And so my relationship with Kade Tucker gains momentum. It wraps itself around me and becomes one with my life in a way I don’t know how to slow down. I don’t want to slow it down, of course I don’t. I want to lean into it. I’m in love with him. And he’s in love with me. There’s nothing to doubt or question.
But two and half weeks is a very short amount of time to meet the person who feels like he is and always will be the love of your life, to lose your virginity to him, to spend the entirely of that two weeks in his bed clocking up your tally of orgasms like nobody’s business, and to go on tour with said love of your life who also happens to be a world famous rock star with tour buses, insane fans, a crazy ex and a handful of over the top houses.
It’s a lot.
And I’m tired tonight.
We arrive in Austin, where he’ll play two shows. Kade’s condo is a four million dollar “crash pad” in the heart of the downtown area that looks like an extremely upmarket converted barn on the penthouse floor of one of Austin’s high rises.
“I don’t know if I could ever get used to all this,” I say, as he sets our bags down.
“Get used to all what?”
“This.” I gesture to the view and the furniture and the bar, with its rack of gleaming glasses hanging overhead and the lights of the city twinkling below us like a million stars. I feel unsettled, because I’ve made arrangements to meet with my birth mother and her son— my brother —when we get back to Nashville. The whole scenario is exciting but also nerve-wracking. My stomach keeps doing funny little curls. “What am I going to wear?” I open my small suitcase that was supposed to last me a weekend or, at a stretch, a week. “My black dress again, maybe.” I definitely didn’t pack for my brand new lifestyle.
Kade takes out his phone and makes a call. His eyes are on me and they’re full of smug mischief. “Rox, hey. Yeah, I need you to set up a shopping spree in Austin’s best department store ... what?” He laughs. “No, it’s for Stella. Tomorrow, yes. She needs an entirely new wardrobe ... yes ... okay, text me the details in the morning and let me know where we need to go and when. We’ve got four or five hours to kill in the early afternoon. Good. Thanks, Rox.” He ends the call.
I’m glaring at him. “No. You’re not—”
“Oh yeah. I’m taking you shopping.”
“Kade. I told you—”
“Gage just texted me and told me another one of our investments quadrupled overnight. I’ve got money burning holes in my pockets. And there’s nothing I’d rather spend it on.”
“I don’t want you spending more money on me.” I’m in a mood. I don’t know why I’m feeling so surly tonight. It just feels ... uneven. “Maybe I want to take you shopping. Did you ever think of that?”
There’s an alert amusement in him, at my tone. He walks over to me, tipping my chin with his fingers until I’m gazing into his blue eyes, sort of petulantly. “What’s wrong with my girl? She’s stressed out because something life-changing is about to happen and she’s feeling it. Luckily for her, she’s got me. I’m going to hold her hand and everything is going to be fine because she’s not alone and whatever happens I’m going to be there for her.”
“You know what your problem is?”
He grins down at me. “What’s my problem?”
“There’s no trope for you. You’re a hot, low-angst rock star billionaire. It’s too easy.”
He smiles, but there’s an edge to it. “I’m just a star-crossed lover who knows what he wants. Besides, angst is overrated. I’ve been mired in it my whole life, for a lot of reasons. There’ll be more than enough angst along the way as we fight for our happily ever after. Always is. It’s called life. And I’m not a billionaire. I might be if I hadn’t given a lot of my money away.”
“To who?”
“I have a foundation that gives to different charities that are doing a good job. Building schools in other countries. Fighting child cancer. Providing college funds for kids who can’t afford it. That kind of thing.”
Well, hell. He’s not only a hot, low-angst rock star, he’s a good person. Which I already knew. And I’m being grouchy for no reason. “I’d like to do that too one day. I mean, not on the kind of scale you are, obviously. But it’s really nice of you.”
He shrugs. “Seems a shame to hoard all that money when it can help so many other people.” He walks over to the bar. “You want a drink, honey?”
“Just water. Thanks. My stomach feels funny. I think I’m just nervous about all this meeting-my-birth-mother-after-a-lifetime-of-wondering-who-she-is stuff.”
“Understandable.” He opens a bottle of chilled water and pours it into a glass. “You sure you want me to come with you when you meet her?” We’d made arrangements to meet at a restaurant downtown that has a private balcony that overlooks the river. “I can wait outside if it would be easier. I can understand if it’s something you want to do by yourself.”
“Of course I want you there,” I tell him. “If you want to be there.”
“I’d walk through fire if it would ease your mind, baby girl. I’m here for you. You know that.”
I do know that. He’s become my (dirty talking) rock and my (very orgasmic) best friend. I’m still adjusting to the magnitude of all that.
Maybe I’m crazy for giving him every piece of myself, and so quickly. So irrevocably.
Maybe I’m setting myself up for a fall with this beautiful, dreamy man with houses and tattoos and a kindness that has dug into me with a ferocity I can’t bring myself to question. There’s hardly any conflict, no enemies-to-lovers gauntlet, no fake boyfriend ruse. Just the kind of fall that feels epic and, if he decides to walk away, like I would never, ever recover. It’s scary to even think about. Everything about him is too damn good. I just wish I didn’t have this feeling that something is going to try to come between us. That it can’t be this perfect without bumps in the road.
Kade reads me easily, like always. He walks over to me and he carefully scoops me into his arms. I think about protesting but he’s so strong. So warm. He carries me into the bedroom and he sets me down on the enormous bed. “My baby’s got the blues tonight. I can’t have that. I’ll give you a few minutes to get ready for me. Then I’m going to give you the best massage you’ve ever had and ease all your troubles away.”
God, I really do feel tired. And that sounds too good to refuse.
Just then, my phone buzzes in my bag. I fish around for it and pull it out.
Theo.
The engagement ring I sent back must have arrived.
“It’s Theo,” I say, because I feel like maybe I should answer it. He’s called me every day since I left Princeton and I haven’t returned any of his calls. I’ve known Theo for several years, first as an acquaintance then as a friend, and I dated him for six months, so I do actually want to make sure he’s okay about everything. And I don’t need to feel bad about that. I also don’t need Kade’s permission. “I’m going to answer it.” But then, in the interest of peacefulness, I add, “All right?”
Already I can detect the pissed-off edge. And a subdued hyper-awareness. “Go right ahead.”
“You don’t need to stand there and listen if you don’t want to.”
“I’m good.” Leaning one burly shoulder against the wall, not budging an inch.
I wouldn’t mind Kade not listening in and overanalyzing every detail of my conversation but I know there’s no way in hell he’ll leave me to it. Now or at any other time. So I answer the call anyway. “Hi, Theo.”
“Hey, Stella. Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering my calls? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s good. I’ve just been really busy. I’m in Austin.”
“You’re in Texas ?” Like he can’t understand why anyone would want to go to Texas.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing in Texas?”
“I’m, uh—” Where to start? “I’m traveling. I’ve never been here before so I decided to come check it out.” Not entirely the whole truth and nothing but the truth—which Kade is, of course, acutely aware of. He’s watching me, one hand shoved loosely into the pocket of his well-worn jeans. His black shirt is rolled up at the sleeves, exposing his tatted, hair-dusted, muscular forearms. He’s wearing a thick leather belt with its sexy cowboyish belt buckle. He looks gruff and crazily... hot . He could be standing there posing for a Western-themed photo shoot. I sometimes forget how gorgeous he is. I’ve almost gotten used to it. But right now, despite the scowl, he’s nothing less than dazzling.
“How is it?” Theo asks.
“It’s good. How are you, Theo?”
“I’m fine. I got the ring.”
“I’m glad it got there safely.”
“So I guess you haven’t changed your mind yet.”
This is sort of awkward. Especially while being eagle-eyed by a possessive alpha rock star. “No.”
“I really wish we could get together again and talk things through, Stella. Everything feels so abrupt. I really care for you. I was hoping you might give me another chance.”
“I care for you too, Theo. As a friend. But not more than that. I’m sorry. I’ve ... met someone else.”
“What?” Theo goes quiet for a few seconds. “When?”
“After we broke up. In Nashville.”
More stunned silence. I don’t want to hurt Theo even more than I already have but I also don’t want him to think there’s any chance of us getting back together. And Kade is ... well, Kade. If I don’t make it crystal clear to Theo that I’ve very thoroughly moved on, it’s probably unfair to both of them. “Wow, that’s really ... fast,” Theo says.
“Yeah. It just sort of happened. I wasn’t expecting it. But he’s really good for me, Theo. I know you’ll find someone perfect for you too.”
“I thought you were perfect for me.”
This is harder than I thought it was going to be. “You’ll find someone even better.”
“I was thinking maybe I could come see you, Stella. I wasn’t expecting Texas but, hey, why not? I’m just ... well, not ready to admit defeat yet. I could come down to Austin and we could talk everything through and—”
“No.” That would definitely not end well. “Theo, it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s over. I’m sorry. I’m with someone else now.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Is it serious? I mean, you only just met him. Who is he?”
“No one you know, Theo.” Actually, that’s probably not true. There was a time or two on the way to the movies in Theo’s car when the radio was tuned to radio stations that would have played Kade’s band’s songs. Maybe we even listened to one. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
“Stella, are you sure you’re not just, you know, sowing some wild oats or whatever this is? This isn’t like you at all.”
It’s true this isn’t like the old me at all. But I’ve changed. This is the new me. The real me, the one that was always waiting for my moment to break free. “Theo, I have to go now. But you take care, okay? I’m glad we could talk.”
“If you ever change your mind ...”
“You’ll be the first to know. Goodnight, Theo.”
“You’re still the prettiest—”
I end the call and set my phone down on the bedside table.
I look up at Kade, who’s still watching me. “I guess you’re mad at me now?”
“I’m not mad at you. Although if he’d said one more word about how pretty you are I might have had to take the phone and set a few things fucking straight.”
“You heard that?”
“I heard everything. I don’t mind fighting for you, baby. I’ll do whatever the fuck it takes.”
“You don’t have to fight for me, Kade. I choose you, okay? You know that. I told him what he needed to hear and now it’s done. I can’t control or change anything that happened before I met you. Just like you can’t.”
“I know, darlin’.”
I could slice through the tension in the room with a knife. “There’s nothing else I can say about it. And I don’t have to justify breaking up with my ex—again—as gently as I could.”
“I’m going to give you a few minutes to get ready for me. Then I’m going to come in and show you why you chose me. And who you belong to.”
“I already know both those things.”
“Even so, phase ten of the enlightenment process is a fairly intense one.”
He’s almost making a joke. “There’s a phase ten?”
“Oh yeah.”
Soon after I get into bed he comes in. He sets some things on the bedside table but I’m too comfortable now to open my eyes. I don’t bother wearing anything to bed anymore because he peels it off instantly. And I like being skin to skin with him. He’s warm. “Are you still mad?” I whisper. “You’re not going to take it out on me, are you?”
“Sure am.” He eases me onto my stomach. He warms some lotion on his hands then smooths it onto my back. “No one can make my girl feel as good as I can,” he murmurs. “You’re mine .”
He starts massaging me with his strong hands, working the muscles in long, careful strokes. I moan as he finds a knot of tension and works the deep tissue.
“Oh, that feels so good.”
Kade’s thorough fingers work the tension from my body, until I’m so blissed out I can hardly move. Then he glides lower, over my ass, roving intimately. He massages my thighs, dipping between them to rub my pussy. Of course I’m wet for him. Because he’s made of magic. He lifts my hips, opening my legs. He leans over me and licks me from behind, eating into my pussy until I’m messy from his greedy mouth and simmering with desire for him.
“ Mine ,” he growls.
Then his tongue finds the secret cove of my ass and he plays it. I squirm because it feels so intimate but he holds me with his unbreakable grip, insistent. His tongue licks and prods as his fingers tease my clit in playful, pinching pulls. A warm current of pleasure builds, between the place where his fingers glide and his insatiable, exploring tongue.
God.
The lick of his tongue is replaced by his slick fingers as he lifts my hips higher and mounts me, the thick girth of his giant cock pushing between the saturated, delicate folds of my pussy. With one smooth, forceful thrust, he drives all the way to the hilt and I moan because he’s possessing me so fully, so outrageously completely . The slick friction of his big, ridged cock as he fucks me feels too good. The pleasure of him is the only thing I know. I hear a low buzzing noise and Kade touches something to my clit. A smooth, vibrating hum takes over my entire being. His fingers rub the slippery pucker of my ass as he fucks me deep and hard and the vibrator warms the pleasure into something otherworldly. I come so hard I lose myself. I shatter into a million stars of pure, raw bliss.
He does it again. And again. Until the pleasure touches on something spiritual. And wildly emotional. I’m floating. I’m coming. I’m his vessel. All I can do is receive him and all the crazy pleasure of him and his thick cock and his warm, pumping cum that floods and spills. He thrusts into my highest orgasm, working the ebb of my pleasure all the way to the end.
When he finally pulls out, I’m boneless and spent. Beatifically used. I whimper softly as he wraps himself around me and kisses me, whispering low, husky words as a deep, soothing sleep overtakes me.
“ That’s my girl. I’m here now. I’m yours and you’re mine. I’m going to take such good care of you. I love you .”
We arrive at the place where I’m going to meet my birth mother and my brother for the first time. We’re in Kade’s McLaren 720S Coupe (he pointed out), which is basically like riding in a spaceship. We pull into the parking lot and he parks near the door.
I can’t bring myself to get out of the car.
“Just remember that you’re the most dazzling girl in the world,” Kade tells me. “They’ll fall in love with you the minute they meet you. Just like I did.”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“That thing where you say exactly what I need to hear exactly when I need to hear it and you’re going to make me cry if you keep doing that because you’re ...” I don’t know how to say it except to be honest with him. “... everything.”
He leans close to my ear. “I really want to fuck you.”
I gasp a little. “Kade.”
“I want to eat your pink pussy and raw dog you like nobody’s business.”
“ Kade .”
He laughs at my expression. “Is it working?”
“Is what working?”
“Relax. Think about all the things I’m going to do to you later and how good it’s going to feel. Now cowgirl up and let’s do this. This is what you’ve been wondering about your whole life and it’s going to be better than you ever expected. Let’s go.”
He’s right. I can do it. We get out of the car and I take a deep breath and stare up at the building we’re about to enter. I’m holding Kade’s hand for dear life. He gently tugs on my hand. “Come on, sweetheart. You’ve got this.”
I’m wearing a cute white dress with three-quarter sleeves and a short flouncy skirt, and suede ankle boots. Kade took me for a ride in the Lamborghini he keeps in Austin, then on a shopping spree, where a team of personal shoppers basically brought me the entire store to try on. Kade sat by the windows scrolling on his phone as they trotted me out in outfit after outfit. Don’t ask me, he told them. To me she’d be gorgeous in a paper bag. Give her everything she wants . Four hours later, he’d bought half the women’s department for me, despite all my protests. So I ended up with an insanely killer wardrobe that’s ten times the size of the one I left behind.
“Whatever happens,” I tell him, “I want to say thank you for being here for me. I’m so happy I met you and I’ve had the best two weeks of my life.” I don’t know why I’m confessing all this right now, like I’m about to jump off the side of a ship and I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim.
He laughs softly and leans in to brush his lips against mine. “You’re going to be fine. She’s as nervous as you are.”
We go inside and we’re led up the stairs and shown into the private room Kade reserved, with its tables and its outdoor heaters and its view of the river. Only one table is occupied. The one that’s closest to the railing.
Two people are sitting there and they both stand up when they see us come in.
A woman and a tall, good-looking young man.
God, my heart is going a mile a minute.
As I get closer, I can see that the woman ... looks like me. And so does her son. I mean, it’s not surprising, but I wasn’t expecting them to look this ... familiar . She’s in her late-30s but she looks younger than that. She looks like one of those people you might see riding a bike along a vineyard path in France. I don’t know why I say that, but she looks slim and fit and sort of glamorous in a low-key, natural kind of way. The happiness in her very-green eyes is edged with a sorrowful depth. Her hair is exactly the same color as mine, a little shorter and differently styled. I might be two or three inches taller than she is.
Her hand flutters up to cover her mouth and there are welling tears in her eyes.
I stand in front of her and she drinks in the sight of me. No one has ever looked at me the way she’s looking at me right now. Like she is infinitely, desperately happy to see me. “Stella,” she whispers.
She hugs me. It’s a hug that I feel all the way down to my bones. I hug her back and we stand like that, hugging each other, crying silent tears and feeling this connection for what it is: a bond that was broken but never really went away.
After what might be several minutes, we pull back and she holds my face in her hands and smiles through her tears. “I can see him in you. Oh my gosh, it’s so good to finally see you.”
“It’s good to see you too.” We both laugh and use the tissues we’ve both brought to wipe away the tears.
“Stella, this is your brother Sam.”
Sam smiles sort of cheekily at me and I love him already. I feel this connection too. Instantly. He could be my twin if he wasn’t six inches taller and a few years younger. “Hey, sis. Wow, you look like me.”
“Hi, Sam,” is all I can manage because this gambit of emotions is crazily intense. I’m laughing, crying and my soul feels like it has doubled in size. Most of all, there’s an outrageous sense of relief . I’ve found them. I don’t have to wonder or search anymore. I no longer have to feel like a piece of myself is missing. Because here they are.
Sam leans down to give me a gusto-filled hug. “I’m not surprised my sister is dating a rock star, but Kade Tucker? I like it. Judging by her genes, it’s a good match. You’re a lucky man,” Sam grins.
“Don’t I know it.” Kade holds out his hand to shake but Sam hugs him too and then Madeline hugs him and even if she’s a little bit starstruck by him, it’s me she wants to stare at and talk to. It’s my hand she wants to hold.
So we sit and we order drinks and we spend the entire afternoon talking. Madeline and I have a million cautious, careful questions for each other. And over the course of the afternoon, she answers all of them.
My adoption caused a wound in her family that never really healed, she tells me. It created a rift between Madeline and her mother that only grew wider as time went on. Madeline never forgave her parents for the decisions they made for her when she was seventeen years old, even though she knew they thought they were doing the right thing for her. Madeline’s mother and father both died of lung cancer and had been smokers, a habit they couldn’t kick even when they got sick. “All our lives were touched, and haunted even, by the idea that you might not be safe, or loved, or have the life we all hoped you would.”
It’s heavy information.
“None of us were ever the same,” she tells me. “We all carried you with us every single day. It was the not knowing that was the hardest. It unraveled each of us in our own way.”
“I wish it hadn’t,” I say. “I wish I could have told you I was okay.”
“Me too,” she whispers. “We all made so many mistakes. We all wished we could rewind time and fix them.”
I carefully ask her about my birth father.
“His name is Jack Vane. I met him when I was fourteen. God, I just fell for him so hard. We dated for two years. He was handsome and fun, but also quiet. He was perceptive and kind, but he also had a ... I don’t know, a coolness. An edge. There was something sort of separate about him and even though his family didn’t have a lot of money, he had an exotic aura to him, like royalty in exile.” She laughs lightly. “I don’t know why I say that. He was a special person. My parents could never see that, though. Or they didn’t allow themselves to. His parents were working class, with five children. Mine were country club members—not that Jack or I could see why any of that mattered—and we lived, I guess you could say, on opposite sides of the tracks. My mother was concerned about what people thought. She felt a lot of social pressure and she didn’t want anyone to know I was pregnant. She wanted me to have it ‘taken care of’ but it was the one thing I was able to stand up for. I absolutely refused. I wanted you to have a life, even if I couldn’t be a part of it. So she made arrangements for me to go to her sister’s in North Carolina because she lived alone and no one knew me there. I could have the baby and give it up for adoption and then return home and finish high school and no one would ever know. I would move on and find someone else eventually and I wouldn’t have to live with my mistake, that’s how my mother saw it. She didn’t think Jack was good enough for me. They thought he would drag me down. They refused to tell him where I was, even though he camped out on their doorstep for several days, demanding answers. He loved me. We loved each other. It should have been his decision too. And mine.”
“Yes. It should have.” I hold her hand as she wipes her tears.
She contemplates me with green eyes that are so much like my own. “I wish so much that we’d fought harder, Stella. I wish I’d been stronger. I’m so sorry.”
“You were so young,” I say, understanding how hard that would have been. To try to stand up for themselves. I can’t even tell my parents I want to take a semester off, even though I’m twenty-one and fully independent. I know for a fact that if I’d been in a similar situation when I was seventeen, I would have felt powerless to defy or overrule my parents’ decisions. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. And I’ve had an amazing life.”
“Promise me you’ll always trust yourself. And fight for the things you want most. My parents made those decisions for me. And I let them do it. It’s my greatest regret.”
“I will,” I promise her, and I feel the resolve forge into place . I will.
“Your father proved them wrong, though.” She smiles sadly. “That’s why he called me all those years later. To tell me he ran his own tax accountancy firm. It’s small but successful. He’d gone all the way through law school and he’s doing well for himself. I think he wanted to prove that, if only to himself. He said he was married but he’d made the decision that he didn’t want more children. He didn’t feel like he deserved them.”
It makes me sad, that he would have felt that way.
“I called him,” she says.
“You did?”
She squeezes my hand. “I googled his office and I called him after we emailed each other. I wanted him to know that you’d made contact. I told him I was meeting you here today. I invited him. He said he might try to come. But he wasn’t sure.”
Wow.
“He was very happy to hear that I’d found you,” Madeline says.
“He was?”
“Yes.”
We’re both crying again. “H-how is he?”
“He said he’s okay. Business is good. He’s divorced now.”
“Oh.”
“He asked a lot of questions about you and I told him everything I knew. We both cried. We both said we wish we could rewind time. But we can’t. And now that I’ve met you, Stella, I wouldn’t want to. Look how beautiful you are. Look how wonderful your life has turned out to be. I wouldn’t want to change anything for you.”
It’s true that I can—maybe now more than ever before—fully appreciate everything my life has been, and in a different, deeper way. I’m grateful. For every single thing.
We talk until the sun gets lower in the sky and the conversation turns to lighter topics. Her house and her life and her job as a book editor. When I tell her I’m writing a romance novel—and I don’t even gloss over that part, I just tell her everything—she’s excited. She edits nonfiction but when she reads for pleasure, she reads romance. It’s her favorite genre.
As we talk, it’s strangely and instantly comfortable. I tell her everything she wants to know, without holding back. It feels uncannily like I’m talking to myself . What we’re finding is that we’re very similar people.
We talk about Sam and his studies at Vanderbilt, where he’s studying music.
Turns out he plays the double bass and the bass guitar. “No kidding,” Kade grins.
So the two of them talk music and Kade asks him for his number, saying maybe they can get together sometime and play together.
Sam looks like someone just offered to fly him to the moon. “My number’s easy to remember. 615-565-6565.” We both key it into our phones and exchange numbers and we make plans to see each other again.
Just then someone else arrives. A man. The hostess is showing him to our table.
He’s tall and dark-haired. He’s good-looking. In his late thirties.
Madeline gasps lightly but even before that, as he gets closer, I know who he is. Because the shape of his eyes is exactly the same as the shape of mine.
He looks at me, then Madeline, and for a few seconds all we can do is gaze at each other, taking in the similarities and the family resemblances, which are crazily obvious. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “I’m Jack.”
“I’m Stella.”
Jack hugs me and there it is again, that desperate relief. In me, but even more in him. “I’m sorry I’m twenty-one years late.” It never really occurred to me that they would have missed me as much as they clearly have. But I can feel it now. “Are you okay?” he asks me. It’s a layered question with caverns of deep emotion behind it. Jack, my birth father, immediately strikes me as a complex character who’s had a difficult life. I realize part of that difficulty may have had something to do with me. Maybe I can try now to ease some of it—and maybe I already have.
Jack is introduced to Sam and Kade. We sit and talk for a while. Jack and Madeline are fascinated by me and also by each other. It’s been a long time and there’s too much to say to say it all tonight. But we don’t have to.
We have time.
It gets late and we hug some more and cry some more. We make plans to keep in touch and we say goodnight.
And just like that I become a fully formed human being. There are no more shadows, no more dark, empty questions to haunt my thoughts and my dreams.
I make a decision. To forgive them, if there’s anything to forgive. To live fully and whole-heartedly, like maybe they never quite managed to do. Because of me, or because of decisions they made that they could never undo.
I decide to stop second-guessing who I am and what I want.
I’m in love with Kade Tucker. I’m going to write a kick-ass romance novel. And I’m going to live exactly the way I want to live.
I decide in that moment to become a hundred percent me .