Chapter 11
NINA
Ithought Art would be more curious to meet his daughter for the first time. Instead, he’s so cool and detached, he could be meeting a random child.
“So this is your daughter,” Art murmurs, arriving beside me at the fence around the play area. His eyes dart between us, and he tilts his head. “She looks like you.”
I roll my eyes.
People say that, but it’s not true. Ava has my freckles, but she looks just like Art, with her golden hair and her blue eyes. And she even has an amber patch in her right eye, which the doctors described as partial heterochromia.
She’s Art, all the way through.
“That’s her,” I confirm with a shrug.
I’m trying to give Art the silent treatment. It feels like the right decision. But he keeps showing up, again and again, even if it’s just to sit with me in the break room.
Even though he’s not betraying a shred of emotion, he leans against the bars of the fence with me to watch her play.
I try to ignore how close he is. His broad shoulders brush against mine. The sharp, woodsy scent of his cologne fills my nostrils.
It feels like he’s tormenting me on purpose, popping up in my face right when I think I’ve gotten him out of my head.
Even when he bought the hospital, I didn’t expect to see him so much. Each of the sudden appearances sends an ache right through my torso and memories swirling through my mind.
The kiss only made it worse. I can still feel his lips lingering on my mouth.
The raw emotion between us. It was a side of Art I hadn’t seen before.
And the low groan, right before he released me, has been stealing across my mind at the most inappropriate moments…
My hands tighten on the bars to push it out of my head.
The more I see Art on a daily basis, the more my heart is shredded in two. Half of me wants him, and half of me wishes he’d go back to staying out of our lives.
Ava is dancing in the corner with one of the preschool teachers as we watch from outside the gate, in silence.
Silence seems to be our default state since the kiss, which is unusual for Art.
He can charm the pants off anyone, but he seems to have realized that his jokes are only making things worse.
The staff here are so much better than her previous preschool, with way more time for each child.
Each one of them was poached from one of the best preschools in the city.
Ava has been coming home with bags full of drawings and personalized journals about her progress every day.
I have to wonder how much Art has spent to get this set up so quickly.
It can’t be economical, whatever it was.
“Mommy!” Ava comes running when she sees me and launches herself into my arms.
“Hey, sweetie.” I hug her close and breathe in the scent of her hair, feeling a rush of gratitude that I get to spend time with her in the middle of the day. That, even with my crazy job, I don’t have to miss these fragile, precious moments which melt away so fast.
The pang that goes through my chest is so much deeper than it normally is. Because Art is standing right next to me as I hug our daughter, staring at us so intently that it’s like he’s realizing what it means to have a child for the first time.
This is the first time they’ve met. The first time she’s seen her father. She notices him immediately, smiling up at him from my hip. “I’m Ava. I’m four.”
“Is that right?” he smiles at her. “I’m friends with your mother.”
Ouch.
So that’s how he wants to introduce himself to his child.
I shoot a glance at him, but he’s too busy staring at Ava. At her eyes.
I cannot understand this man.
“I know that,” Ava says. She’s in a know-it-all phase at the moment, one that has immediately followed her “why” phase. She wriggles out of my arms and back to the floor, where she attempts to drag Art into the preschool.
Art looks at me as Ava tugs on his hand. I sigh. “Do you want to show him your favorite toys?”
The sight of him, in his crisp dark-blue suit, being dragged into the messy play area of the preschool, does make me smile.
Art has to literally double over in order to get to a height where Ava can talk to him and tell him about what looks like a discarded pile of blocks, but is probably a mystical castle with a moat.
Seeing Ava playing with him, not knowing how significant he is to her, sends a needle of pain straight through my heart. Why doesn’t he want to tell her?
Lily, who is waiting at a table for us to join her for lunch in the staff cafeteria, pulls me aside when she sees my face. “Does she know?”
I shake my head, ignoring the tears that spring to my eyes at the question. “He just told her he was my friend.”
“That bastard.” She puts her hands on her hips and shoots a look at where he is being roped into being a medieval king or a dragon.
”Maybe he’s right.” I brush away a tear. “What would be the point of telling her? He doesn’t want to be involved.”
Her face softens as she watches them. “If that’s true, why is he doing all this, Nina? These are not the actions of a man who doesn’t want to be involved.”
She points across to the play area, where Art is being made to wear a crown and holding blocks that obviously represent something significant from the way Ava is directing him around the play area.
He looks confused, and handsome, and softer than I’ve ever seen him. My heart flips in my chest.
I blow a stream of air between my lips.
“I have no clue what is happening, Lil. I wish I could explain what’s going on, but it’s like he’s forced his way back into my life — our lives — with no explanation, no nothing.”
I tell her about the kiss outside my apartment building.
“The unfair part is that it’s up there on the list of the best kisses of my life. And I don’t know what the hell it means.”
“Huh. That doesn’t sound super complicated to me. I think he just wants you back.”
“Without an apology? Without a single word of an explanation?”
Lily shrugs and dips a fork into her pasta salad.
“He bought a hospital for you, Nina.” She points her pasta-laden fork at where he’s still playing with Ava, chasing her around the playpen. “He made sure Ava could be here for you during the day. Most of us would see that as an apology. Even if it’s a weird one.”