38. Goldyn
My stomach churned the longer I stared at the stuffed mushrooms on my plate. I was sure they tasted perfectly fine, yet the thought of putting anything in my mouth right now made bile rise to my throat.
If it wasn’t for Romeo’s steadying presence at my side, I probably would have thrown up breakfast on the table by now. His heavy hand against my thigh had a grounding effect, allowing me to sit here without jumping out my skin.
Despite my jumbled nerves, Chance sat opposite me, looking calm and collected, his smile confident and bright.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I haven’t been able to get you off my mind for the past two weeks. And I want you to know that even if I’m not your biological father, there’s no reason?—”
“You’re my father,” I blurted,.
Chance’s whole demeanor changed in the blink of an eye. That calm, cool, collected fa?ade he’d been rocking earlier was replaced by a stunned expression and tears collecting in his light brown eyes.
Shit.
I didn’t mean to make the man cry.
“When did you find out?” He asked, voice shaky as he stared at me.
“Just now, in the parking lot.”
Chance choked out a laugh and the sound did something funny to my chest. He sounded…relieved?
He wanted me to be his daughter?
When I glanced over at Romeo, his head was cocked, watching our exchange with a contemplative expression.
“I’m your father?” Chance’s voice was disbelieving, full of awe and more relief. “I thought…I didn’t know…I just…wow.”
He stopped trying to articulate himself and raised his elbows on top of the tablecloth, propping his face against his hands.
“You don’t understand what this means to me.”
I didn’t understand what it meant to me , either.
But Chance’s visceral reaction stirred something in me. It never occurred to me that someone could know I was their daughter—their flesh and blood—and be happy about it.
My mother really had set the bar in hell.
Because Chance wasn’t running. He looked…overjoyed. And the tears in his eyes were starting to make my nose burn.
“I’m so sorry, Goldyn.” The crack in his voice did nothing to help my shakiness.
Finding my voice, I asked, “Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I failed you.”
His bottom lip trembled and sorrow fisted my heart.
“You didn’t know about me.”
He met my eyes—the eyes I’d only recently realized looked like his—and offered me a watery smile.
“But if I did…” Chance shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please stop apologizing. The parent who knew about me decided not to be present. Don’t put that guilt on your shoulders because she didn’t tell you about me.”
Romeo squeezed my thigh when I finished talking, and when I looked over at him, a hint of a smile was flirting with his lips. He turned to look at me and the pride in his eyes calmed me. Just a little bit.
Chance blew out a breath and pulled my attention back to him. “You shouldn’t be comforting me. I—I just—I don’t know what to say. I had a hunch, but I had no idea I’d be right. At the very least, I thought I knew your mom. I didn’t know she had you —” His words broke off again and this time his shoulders were shaking as he hid his face with his hands.
When I tossed Rome a wide-eyed look, he inclined his head to the man opposite us and I got the silent message.
Sliding off my seat, I sat on the booth side of the table and wrapped my arms around Chance.
“It’s okay.”
He let me console him for a while, rocking gently until his tears ebbed and he turned to me with awe in his eyes.
“I’ve wanted a child all my life. That’s all I wanted. To be a father. But it never happened and I accepted that. But you …” Every time he got to that word, his voice grew faint and another wave of emotion overtook him.
Seconds melted into minutes before he got his bearings again. The brightness had returned to his smile, but he couldn’t stop shaking his head.
“I don’t believe this.” He touched his chin, shock still traveling over his face. “You’re mine .”
That was all it took for the first wave of my own tears to hit me.
You’re mine.
I didn’t realize I’d been waiting my whole life to hear someone say that about me until it fell from his lips.
And he sounded so damn happy about it, it made me happy too.
Everything at the table blurred while I tried to play it off, but then Rome reached across the table to offer me a napkin and the dam broke.
Tears coasted over my cheeks unchecked until I could steady my hand enough to wipe them. Chance’s hand found my shoulders, supplying wordless reassurance.
“So now we know,” I muttered, lost on what else to say.
Chance seemed to read the uncertainty in my words and quickly followed up. “We’ll take this at your pace. But I do want to get to know you, Goldyn. I want to know everything about you. I want to have dinners with you. I want to tell you about my childhood and your grandparents on my side. They would have adored you.”
Some part of me wanted those things too, but there was still a lot up in the air.
“Um,” I cleared my throat. “Did you tell Lilith?”
I still wasn’t able to scrub our confrontation from my mind.
That woman did not like me.
And technically, I was her stepdaughter. I shivered at the thought.
“She knows it was a possibility. And she’s really sorry about the way she blew up at you that day. I’ve never stepped out on that woman, I don’t know what got into her, but…”
She could be sorry all she wanted, but the hate in her gaze that day wasn’t anything I would just get over. This wasn’t about her. It was about Chance. My father .
“I’d prefer that if we’re going to build a relationship, it doesn’t include her. At least for now. That means I won’t be going to your house or anywhere she deems her territory.”
Chance looked somber before nodding. “That’s fair.”
“This is new…to both of us. If I get dodgy just know that I’m processing, not trying to punish you with my absence. This is a lot to accept after twenty-seven years of not knowing.”
Again, he nodded, his earnest eyes sweeping over my face. Was he trying to see which ones we had in common? Or was he drawing comparisons between me and my mother?
Speaking of which…
“The same way I’m not jumping to be in Lilith’s presence, I’m not up for hearing about my mom or your relationship. At least not right now. This thing is just you and me. Let’s keep it as simple as possible and see where it goes.”
“Of course, Goldyn.” Chance’s smile widened before more tears welled in his eyes. “Can I hug you?”
Instead of answering, I opened my arms and welcomed his embrace.
“I’m proud of you,” Romeo said as soon as we were back in his car.
He reversed while I stared out the windshield, still dumbstruck about the events that unfolded at lunch.
“Do you think I was too harsh about his wife?” Ugh, I couldn’t even say her name again.
Romeo shrugged. “Your boundaries aren’t harsh just because they might make someone else uncomfortable. You have every reason not to want to be around that woman, and now you won’t have to be.”
“We’ll see,” I muttered. There was always the chance she’d pull another pop up, but there was no use voicing my doubt. Dragging my eyes from the windshield to the passenger window, I peered through the dark tint at the blur of mountains and blue skies. Romeo handled every curve in the road with ease, reminding me of that first day he got stuck with taking me back to my van.
A smile tipped up my lips.
“What you over there smiling at, G?”
“How do you know I’m smiling? Shouldn’t you be watching the road?”
He scoffed and the sound made me smile harder. “I know how to multitask. Now, what you smiling about?”
Relenting, I turned my body toward him as much as the seatbelt would allow. “I was just thinking about the first time I was in your car. Back when you hated me.”
Romeo’s jaw ticked. “I never hated you, G.”
“Well, you didn’t like me either. I had to wear you down.”
He laughed dryly, not denying it.
Another quip sat at the tip of my tongue, but then my stomach groaned in protest. Thanks to my nerves at lunch, I hadn’t eaten anything since the French toast Sincere made me for breakfast.
“Can we go get something to eat?”
Romeo didn’t miss a beat. “Where?”
He slowed the car, waiting for my request.
“Lucky’s.”
All he gave was a simple nod, but it was enough to make peace settle in my heart. So much had changed since I climbed in their window. Every day I woke up showered in love I didn’t think I’d ever receive. Life with Sincere, Lorenzo and Romeo was a lot of things, but most of all it was just…right.