19. Zola
ZOLA
I'm locking the front door when I see him.
My hands freeze on the deadbolt, keys dangling uselessly as Declan crosses the street toward the bookstore. It's been five days since I told him to get out. Five days of silence except for one text that I deleted without responding.
Five days of Maeve crying for him. Five days of me crying in the shower where no one can hear. Five days of Naomi bringing food I can't eat while Jordan entertains Maeve because I'm too hollowed out to function properly.
And now he's here.
"Get out." The words scrape past my throat before he's even reached the door. "I don't want to talk to you."
He stops on the sidewalk, hands visible, posture careful. Like he's approaching something wounded that might bolt.
"I know. But I need you to hear me out."
"Hear what?" I yank the door open because having glass between us feels cowardly.
Maeve's strapped to my chest in the carrier, has been all day because she screams when I put her down.
She's been inconsolable since he stopped coming around.
"That you're married? That you have a baby on the way?
That you've been lying to me for weeks while I let you back into my life like an idiot? "
"I haven't lied to you." His voice is steady, measured. The same tone he used to use when he was trying not to spook me. "Not once. But I need to explain—"
"You clearly moved on." I'm backing into the store now, one hand on Maeve's back where she's starting to fuss. She recognizes his voice. Even through my anger and her exhaustion, she knows he's there. "You have a family. So leave us alone."
I move to close the door but he catches it, steps inside before I can shut him out.
"Zola. Please."
Maeve's fussing escalates into proper crying—those desperate, hiccupping sobs that mean she's been holding it together by a thread and just ran out of strength. She's been doing this all week. Crying for him. Refusing to sleep unless I'm holding her.
I'm bouncing her automatically, murmuring reassurances that aren't working, when Declan moves closer.
"Can I—"
"No." But Maeve's wails are getting louder, more frantic. People outside are starting to look. And my arms are shaking from holding her all day, my back screaming from the constant weight. "You don't get to just—"
He's already reaching for her, fingers working the carrier straps with practiced ease. Before I can stop him, he's lifting Maeve out and tucking her against his chest in one fluid motion.
She stops crying immediately.
Just—stops. Goes from inconsolable to that shuddering quiet of a child who's cried themselves out and finally found comfort. Her little fists curl into his shirt, her face pressed to his shoulder, body going boneless with relief.
The sight breaks something in my chest.
"Love, I need you to know it could never be anyone else.
" His voice is low, rough, meant only for me even though he's looking at Maeve.
"I did get married. Six months ago. My uncle was dying and he asked me to, so I did because in eight years, I never wanted anyone else anyway.
I thought to myself, what did it matter?
"But I never touched her." He looks up now, those dark green eyes hitting me with an intensity that steals my breath. "Not once. Not even at the wedding. We had separate rooms, separate lives. The marriage was just a piece of paper that made my uncle happy in his final months."
Maeve makes a small sound against his shoulder. Not distress—contentment. Like she's finally where she's supposed to be after days of being lost.
"That baby isn't mine." Declan shifts Maeve slightly, settling her weight more securely. "It's Dorian Vale's. She's been with him since before the wedding. The pregnancy is just proof of her affair."
"How—" My voice cracks. "How am I supposed to believe that?"
"Because I never lied to you." Each word is deliberate, careful. "Everything I told you was true. The marriage wasn't real. I made it clear to Bianca from day one that I didn't want her, that we'd never have anything real. She accepted that arrangement because it came with money and status."
He shifts his weight, one hand coming up to support Maeve's head where it's tucked under his chin.
"I'm getting an annulment. It's already in process." He reaches into his jacket with his free hand—the motion slow, telegraphed so I don't startle—and pulls out folded papers. "This is the agreement. Signed by both of us. She's moved out. She's with Vale now where she belongs."
I take the papers with numb fingers. Unfold them. The legal language swims in front of my eyes but certain phrases jump out: irreconcilable differences, marriage never consummated, both parties agree to dissolution.
Both signatures at the bottom. Bianca's looping and decorative. Declan's stark and precise.
"She came here." My throat is so tight it hurts to speak. "She told me she was pregnant with your baby. That you were expecting together."
"She was trying to scare you off." His jaw tightens. "Because she knew I'd never touched her and that baby was going to expose her affair. She was desperate."
Maeve's breathing has evened out. She's asleep against his chest, exhausted from days of crying for him. One tiny fist still clutches his shirt.
"I can take you to the house I had with Bianca." He says it quietly, like he's offering something. "Let you see it's empty. Never was 'our' house, really. Just a place I existed in while trying not to feel anything. But I'll show you if you need to see it."
I shake my head. The thought of going there, seeing where he lived with her—even if it wasn't real, even if it was just going through motions—makes my stomach turn.
"Did you live in…" The words come out before I can stop them, even if I can't finish them.
"I'm living there again now. But I didn't with her." Something shifts in his expression. "I moved back three days ago."
The house in Chestnut Hill. Where he cooked for me. Where I learned what it felt like to be taken care of. Where we built something real before I destroyed it.
He's living there again.
I've been so distraught for the last week that I've barely functioned.
Naomi's had to physically make me eat. Nilos even got called in to help with the inventory because I couldn't stop crying long enough to count change.
Jordan's played with Maeve for hours while I sat on the floor of the office and tried to remember how to breathe.
All because I thought I'd lost him again. Thought he'd moved on, built a life, chosen someone else.
But there's a part of me that could never let him go. That's been waiting years for him to show up. That recognized him the second he walked through that door weeks ago and thought finally.
"I'm not lying to you." Declan adjusts his hold on Maeve, gentle and sure. "The marriage was a complete sham. I was trying to end it properly—quietly—before I told you because I didn't want you to think I was still entangled with her. But then she showed up here and..."
"And?" I clutch the annulment papers, the edges crumpling under my grip.
"And I can't lose you again." His voice breaks slightly, raw in a way I've never heard from him. "I tried to give you space, tried to do this the right way, but I can't walk away. Not when you're here and there's a chance—even the smallest chance—that you might forgive me."
"Forgive you for what? Getting married after I left?" The bitterness in my voice surprises me. "That's on me. I'm the one who walked away."
"You left for me." He says it like fact, not accusation.
"Stellan told me what Nia said. That you thought you were destroying my life, that you left to protect me.
And I let you go because you asked me to and I thought—" He stops, breathes carefully.
"I thought you didn't want me anymore. That I'd pushed too hard, asked for too much.
So I did what you asked and I stayed away. "
Maeve shifts slightly in her sleep, makes a small sound of protest when she senses the tension in his body. He immediately softens, hand rubbing small circles on her back until she settles again.
"But I never stopped loving you." The words land like stones in still water, sending ripples through everything.
"I spent our entire time apart trying to feel nothing, to just exist, to get through each day.
And then I saw you on the street and it all came back.
Everything I'd been trying to bury. You were here and alive and I couldn't stay away. "
Something in my chest is fracturing. All the careful walls I built, the distance I maintained, the lies I told myself about moving on—it's all crumbling under the weight of him standing here holding Maeve like she's precious, looking at me like I'm the only thing that matters.
"Why didn't you tell me?" My voice is small, broken. "About the marriage. About all of it."
"Because I was terrified." He shifts his weight, that careful stillness he gets when he's trying not to let emotion dictate action.
"You'd just started letting me in again.
Barely. And I knew if I told you I was married—even if I explained it was fake—you'd shut down.
You'd decide you were being selfish by wanting me, that you were destroying someone else's family. You'd run."
He's not wrong. That's exactly what I did when Bianca showed up.
"I was going to tell you." His eyes find mine, hold. "Once the annulment was final and I could prove Bianca was gone. Once I had actual proof that it was done and she meant nothing. I was going to tell you everything."
"When?" I can barely get the word out.
"Soon as I could. Days. A week at most." His hand hasn't stopped that gentle rhythm on Maeve's back. "But she got to you first and I wasn't fast enough."
The papers in my hand feel heavy. Real. Evidence that everything he's saying is true—that his marriage is dissolving, that Bianca's gone, that the baby was never his.
"The baby really isn't yours?" I need to hear it again. Need confirmation.