Chapter Twelve-Remy
Mom left the moment my plane landed.
Now I’m at Carter & Cove Home Emporium, a few miles outside Roseland, New Jersey, where I just closed on the new house.
The place I hope will finally feel like home. At least for her.
I crouch down beside the miniature velvet throne where Callie’s perched like royalty, one leg thrown over the other, surrounded by pink swatches and glitter-covered samples like she’s making state decisions.
“Do you want sparkles and butterflies, or just butterflies?” I ask, holding up the options.
She tilts her head, curls bouncing, lips pursed in serious thought.
Then, she jabs a tiny finger between the two.
“Both, Dad,” she declares with all the confidence of a queen preparing for battle.
My throat tightens.
“Both it is,” I say, ruffling her soft hair. “You’re the boss.”
And she is.
All thirty-five pounds of her.
This tiny, fierce little girl has me completely wrapped around her finger, and I’m not even mad about it.
But what wrecks me—what really gets me—is what she called me.
Dad.
It’s new. And it hit harder than I expected.
Apparently, the kids in her preschool group talk about their dads. Show-and-tell stories, weekend plans, who teaches them to ride a bike or tie a shoe.
Callie didn’t want to be left out. So my mom—God bless her—gave her permission.
And hearing her say it? For the first time?
I didn’t correct her.
I didn’t flinch.
I just smiled and told her I was proud of her sparkly pink painting, because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
Now, here I am, comparing butterfly decals and castle-shaped bunk beds like a man who’s already given his whole heart away—and it’s not even a question who owns it anymore.
I didn’t plan for this.
But nothing in my life has ever made me prouder.
We’ve been at this furniture store for over an hour, picking out everything she wants for her new bedroom—her new home. It’s the least I can do after years of splitting weekends and holidays, pretending like I wasn’t aching every time I dropped her off with Mom.
Now? It’s all changing.
She’s mine. Fully. Officially. Permanently.
And if she wants a loft bed shaped like a treehouse and a dresser covered in mermaid stickers?
So be it.
I’ll build the damn thing myself if it makes her happy.
I stand, stretching my back and glancing at my phone. I look around for the sales rep.
Then, I see her.
Or rather, I feel her first—like the air shifts and every part of me goes on high alert.
Andrea Ramirez.
Walking into the store like she owns the place, sunlight catching on the waves of her hair, lips painted in her usual no-nonsense nude, one hand bracing her back—and the other cradling her swollen—fuck me, her pregnant—belly.
I freeze.
The ground tilts.
The breath in my lungs goes sharp, jagged.
Because no fucking way.
She’s glowing. Radiant.
That undeniable pregnancy glow that makes every part of her look softer and more luminous.
Her full breasts strain against her cardigan.
It’s November. Three months since I saw her last.
Her bump is prominent, though.
So, she’s not that newly pregnant—this is months along.
Early second trimester, I’m thinking.
And she’s pregnant with someone’s baby.
Someone who apparently wasn’t important enough to mention when I saw her last.
My vision blurs. I see red.
Three months is long enough for a woman to show, my inner monster reasons, and now my vision totally fucking blacks out for a second.
“Callie,” I say, my voice gravel now. “Come with me for a second, okay? You can keep picking stickers.”
“Okay!” she sings, walking slowly, already absorbed in the book I gave her earlier.
I find a sales rep and ask her to watch my little girl.
Then I walk towards where Andrea is looking at cribs, keeping Callie in my peripheral vision as I do.
I feel like a fucking bomb is ticking down in my chest.
She hasn’t seen me yet.
She’s focused on a little plush ottoman and trying to bend down to inspect the price tag—grunting as she realizes bending is no longer in her range of motion.
I stop right behind her.
“I’ve got that.”
She whips around at the sound of my voice.
Eyes wide.
Mouth parted.
Expression shifting from shock to guilt to oh-shit in less than a second.
“Remy,” she breathes.
“Hey, Andy,” I say, trying to keep my tone calm. Civil. But rage is humming through every muscle like a live wire.
She opens her mouth. Closes it.
I look her over. All of her.
Her bump.
The faint redness in her cheeks.
The subtle sheen of sweat on her upper lip from the effort of walking in heels.
“You’re pregnant,” I say, voice low.
She swallows. “I am.”
And just like that, my whole world changes. Again.