8. Addie
Chapter eight
Addie
This is bad news. I think as Luna slides down the front of my body and stands on her feet again. I’m coming to understand that by accepting my grandfather’s terms, which include working with Hayden, he would likely come to learn about my daughter eventually. But I didn’t think that moment would come mere seconds after I learned about their partnership in the first place.
“Mommy, who are these men?” Luna asks shyly, retreating behind my leg. She hasn’t done that since she was really little, so I can tell she’s picking up on some of the unwanted tension in the room.
“They’re just friends, baby,” I tell her. “Just run along up to your room. I’ll be right there. We’re almost finished here. Right?” I glare at Hayden.
He seems oblivious to my stare. However, he’s glancing at my child with similar intensity.
“Uh, right. Yeah.” He takes one hand out of his pocket, rests it on his chin, and grazes his lips with his finger.
“Go on,” I pat Luna lightly on the behind to encourage her to do as I say, which she does.
My heart is racing as I brace for the impact of whatever he’s going to say next.
“So, you . . . you have a daughter,” he whispers.
I pick at a new callous caused by the paintbrush that was in my hand for hours before their arrival.
“I do.” Eventually, I make fierce eye contact with him again.
He looks at the opposite corner of the room, and I can see his jaw clench. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I scoff—I’m embarrassed that I’ve been caught with egg on my face. But I’m also enraged that he feels like I owe him an explanation.
“If I remember correctly, you told me you never wanted to see me again after your father died.”
Talk about a dark day. I never thought I’d come back with a tail between my legs. I still remember how he screamed at me, demanding that I leave and never show my face again.
Fighting through tears, I say, “What was it that you called me again? Oh, yes. A drama-craved harlot.” I point my finger in the air. “That’s it.”
He sighs and throws his head back. “I’m sorry. I never should’ve . . .” he’s stumbling on his words, “I never should’ve said that.”
I cross my arms and narrow my gaze. “Feeling guilty now?”
“But, you—” His lips curl in, his eyelids fall, and his head tilts.
Oh, hell no. Clearly, he still doesn’t believe in my innocence over his father’s death.
Adjusting his vintage tie, Steven clears his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a call to attend to.”
I’m not sure if that’s a lie or not, but I wouldn’t blame him for just wanting to escape. He likely doesn’t know what the hell we’re talking about, after all.
“I never went to any reporters,” I declare with confidence. “I wouldn’t do that, Hayden.”
“Oh, no?” He stands and smacks his strong hands on the desk.
“Then who did, Adriana?”
Nice touch. He knows how much I hate my full name.
“Hell, if I know! But I can say for absolute certainty that it wasn’t me.”
Hayden bites the inside of his cheek. “After all these years, you still just won’t admit it.”
My throat feels dry in frustration. “Why won’t you just believe me?” Suddenly, I’m that same young girl standing outside his giant mansion. Scared, pregnant, and alone.
But this time. This time. He can’t be the one to tell me to leave.
“I think you should go,” I finally proclaim.
But instead of starting to walk out, he takes a seat again.
What the hell? “I’m not going to just let you stay here in my home and continue to accuse me of something that I had nothing to do with, Hayden.”
He doesn’t respond for several moments, and he instead rests his elbow on the arm of the chair and glares at the fingers he’s rubbing together.
“How old is she?” he asks.
I rub under my eyes. “Excuse me?”
Those treacherous yet irresistible green eyes blink up at me. “I asked how old she was. Your daughter.”
“Oh.” Internally, I’m deciding whether or not I should lie.
“Addie,” he persists.
Fuck it. “She’s seven.”
Then, he sits up and leans against the large wooden desk. “Is she mine?”
I feel faint, like I could projectile vomit at any moment. But defiantly, I answer. “No.”
He sniffles. “I saw her green eyes, Addie.”
My arms rise and then fall with heavy slaps on my thighs. “So? Plenty of kids have green eyes, Hayden. You don’t have personal dominion over them.”
His head turns slightly, and his nose raises in the air. Then, I’m left to stare directly into the carbon copy of Luna’s eyeballs.
“Whose is she then?” he asks with a bite of malice.
My nostrils flare as I answer, “Mine.”
“Addie.”
“What?” I’m not going to back down.
“Unless you’re worthy of Biblical scripture, I think we both know that you didn’t have some kind of immaculate conception.”
“Maybe not,” I quip. “But that doesn’t mean that a woman can’t go to a clinic and register to have an anonymous sperm donor knock her up.”
“Yeah, okay,” he responds matter-of-factly.
“What?” His cockiness is grinding my gears.
“We both know that isn’t something you would do, Addie.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Maybe years ago, but not anymore.
“I know you always wanted to be a mother. But not like this.”
Before I can say anything else, Steven walks back in with his phone in his hands. However, as soon as he catches onto the conflict that is still transpiring, his mouth goes flat before he disappears just as quickly as he appears.
Shit. Part of me wishes he stayed because I’m over this conversation.
So, in his absence, I once again beg for a conclusion. “Please, just leave.”
He stands, but his jaw muscles tense, causing a ripple effect on his cheeks. “I’m only going to ask you this one more time, Addie. Is that child mine?” His voice is almost a low growl at this point.
There isn’t, but it almost feels as though there’s a sharp knife at my throat. Although that could be my own guilt , I reason.
Nevertheless, to avoid my nightmare coming true with legal proceedings and custody battles, I once again say, “No. I’m not sure how many times you have to hear that, Hayden.” I figure my best strategy is to make him feel crazy for his suspicions. “I’m sorry your life didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to.” Back in the day, he mentioned to me that he also wanted to be a father and correct the course his father set forth during his childhood.
Those words hurt him, and I know it.
Perhaps in an attempt to mask signs of his internal pain, he glances down at the ground, flicks his nose, and avoids any more eye contact with me.
“But there’s always time,” I encourage to lighten the mood in some way. “You’re only thirty-two, right? Heck! If you were a woman, you’d even have three more years before being considered a ‘geriatric pregnancy.’ And as a man, you’ve got plenty of time to father children. Look at De Niro. He just impregnated his wife again at seventy-nine. That gives you forty-seven years to catch up.”
He still isn’t looking at me.
“I hate it when you do that,” he says with bite.
“Do what?”
“Try to steam roll over other people’s feelings and thoughts. You can’t use humor or banter your way out of this one.”
Shit. I can’t remember a time my signature move has backfired so fast and so hard.
He continues, “Regardless of what you might think, I’m not an idiot. And I know what happened between us was around eight years ago. Yeah, I can do math too.”
I assume he’s referring to the quick subtraction I did between seventy-nine and thirty-two. But in any event, my heart is sinking like quicksand into my stomach, and I’m finding it hard to breathe.
“Hayden,” I manage to squeeze out.
He just holds his hand up. “No. We’re done here. Don’t be surprised to hear from my family’s lawyer soon. I wouldn’t want to make a mistake, after all.”
Mistake. That cuts me like ice.
“My daughter is not a mistake.”
With a huff, he flips the back of his suit jacket behind him and storms off.
“I—” I can’t believe this is real life. I’ve spent so many years trying to keep this secret, and within seconds, it unraveled itself.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been just standing there and looking blankly at nothing. But eventually, Luna, my purpose for living, shadows the door.
Immediately, my motherly spidey senses pop alert me to her presence.
“Mom? Who was that man?”
I’ve heard of the strange connection Liv Tyler felt when she first met Steve Tyler, Aerosmith’s front-runner, for the first time. If I remember correctly, her mother didn’t even tell her daughter that was her father, but she somehow just knew it.
I crouch down, wipe my cheek, and welcome her into my arms.
“He’s just someone from the past. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Or if he goes through with the testing, you will understand everything much, much sooner than that.
I cling to her as my mind races with possibilities of what the future might look like.