26. Chloe
26
CHLOE
I lost track of the orgasms Franco gave me. Over and over, he pounded into me. As soon as we came and cleaned up, he’d start again. With our hands and mouths, we revved each other up in foreplay. He knew what I liked, and I remembered what he enjoyed.
That was the beauty of reuniting with a former love.
Not former. Current. And forever love. I hope.
It didn’t help that we shared all these lasting vows and sentiments in the heat of the moment. With the haze of lust and the deep addiction of desire ruling us as we came together again and again all night long, we weren’t thinking or speaking clearly. At least I wasn’t. He had me so sated and needy, back and forth, that I barely knew my name.
At last, when we both seemed ready to pass out for the rest of the night, we lay on our sides. Facing each other and staring into each other’s familiar eyes, we let the mood shift. Gone was the frantic hunger to fuck the night away. Now was the time to calm down and talk.
“Was he an easy baby?” he asked.
I loved that he wanted to know it all.
“Yes and no. His birth was.”
He sighed, frowning. “But you didn’t even have medical care. That was risky as hell, wasn’t it? I see all the appointments and such that Nina goes through and it seems like a lot.”
“I was fortunate with a very easy and simple pregnancy. I didn’t have many symptoms. I seldom got sick. I worried that the stress of running away would harm him, but it didn’t. He was an easy delivery and a perfectly healthy baby. My friends who were in the vet program were angels in disguise, and I’ll never forget that they helped me hide Caleb’s birth.”
He scowled. “So he doesn’t have a birth certificate?”
“He does, but…” I winced, hating that I did this. “I had it covered up with a fake one. I’m sure I can have it fixed one day and all.”
He nodded. “We’ll clear it up.”
I smiled at him. I bet he wanted to be on the certificate and he’d pay to make it so.
“I just had to go to such extremes to make sure my parents couldn’t find him. Or me. It was hard at first. Everything is digital and trackable. I haven’t renewed my driver’s license in years. No health insurance to file. Everything. It was eye opening. But I did my best for Caleb. I got prenatal vitamins. I went to health clinics for ultrasounds. It might have been risky going to a vet for delivery help, but it was sanitary, obviously. A roommate knew a doula, and hell, veterinarians deliver mammals and humans are mammals too.”
He slanted his brows, skeptical about that.
“It was the best I could do. Hiding and keeping Caleb safe mattered the most. Sometimes, I worried that my parents would try to have me killed if I had him, and fear is a hell of a motivator to hide well.”
“I hate that you went through this.”
I sighed. “It wasn’t easy, but I had to. I couldn’t give up on our baby. It was a symbol of our love, and I would never let that die. I’d rather you think I left you and hate me than let our baby suffer. Caleb was made from our love, and that’s something I’ll always treasure and protect.”
“He was a good baby, though?” he asked again.
“He was. He latched on well, but then it was hard to wean him off when I was exhausted from breastfeeding after he turned one. Like any baby, he had his difficult phases. I also looked for the older, grandmotherly kind of sitters to watch him. Never a daycare. Always paid them under the table and all.”
He smiled. “He sure looks healthy and cared for.”
“And he’s a good boy. He’s got your attitude sometimes, so tough and even cocky at times. He’ll try to push me and test his limits, but he’s got a good heart.”
“I see that already. I haven’t known him for a full day yet and I’m already proud of him.”
I framed his face and leaned in close to kiss him once. “I’m proud of him too.” I thought back to how Caleb didn’t think twice about reaching out to prevent Olivia from getting hurt.
“Single moms are tough,” he said. “My mom was mostly single since my dad passed away young.”
And his mom died just before we started dating. He hadn’t lacked for a family, though, working for Dante. He had Romeo, even Eva in the distance. I had both of my parents and lacked support and love.
“Caleb always knew he had a father, just that you weren’t in the picture.”
“Did he ask why?”
I nodded. “He asked more about grandparents at first. Why he didn’t have two pairs of them. Why he didn’t have any of them. That was about the time he asked about his dad, and I never lied. I always told him your name. I showed him the pictures I had of us.”
He smiled slightly. “I like knowing I was… there. In his mind.” Then he frowned. “But I hate the idea of his thinking I wanted nothing to do with him.”
I shook my head. “I never let him have that impression. I was careful not to set it up for him to have bad ideas of you. I tried not to tell him too much, and I think he’s so perceptive that he realized how it pained me to talk about you. He asked me many times if I missed you, and I did. I told him that I did. I think he stopped asking because he didn’t want to see me sad.”
“He didn’t assume anyone else was his dad?” He brushed my hair back as he stared at me, calm and not mad.
“No. I dated a couple of guys, just one-night flings to see if I could get over you.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t. After a condom broke and I got pregnant and miscarried, I didn’t want to even deal with another man again. I tried and failed to get my tubes tied, but I was too young.”
“Fuck.” He kissed my brow. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
I nodded. “And then when Wes came into our lives, I never let Caleb treat him as a replacement for a father. He wasn’t a father figure to him. He never paid attention to him or tried to interact with him. Wes treated Caleb as a thing that was just there in the background. Caleb never tried to view Wes as a father figure.”
“Good.”
I smiled. “Caleb always knew your name. Whenever he drew family pictures, you were there. For a while, he misspelled your name as Franko .”
He laughed a bit at that, but he sobered quickly.
“Ask me anything,” I pleaded. “I enjoy this. I want you to know everything. I feel terrible about all that you’ve missed.” Because it was so clear that he would’ve been such a good, involved, and hands-on dad. I almost felt foolish to think that I did a better job on my own now, but I stood by my conviction that I kept Caleb as safe as I could. That relying on only myself, trusting only my resources, I could ensure that he lived and thrived.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked, softly and almost with that gut-wrenching hint of sorrow. “If you didn’t happen to get a job at the A&J and work there that night when the shooting happened, would you have ever reached out to me and told me?”
“I wanted to.” I gazed into his eyes, letting him see the truth behind my reply. “I wanted to tell you so many times. I dreamed of these best-case scenarios, these fantasies of whimsical Utopia. That I’d tell you and it would be a fairytale ending.”
“But you didn’t. Not once over all those years.”
I shook my head as shame returned. “But I didn’t know how I could. I had no way to know how you’d react. If you’d be mad and turn me away. I was nervous to come near home and be by any Constella member out of the fear that my parents would find me through you, knowing how close I was to you once. It was a link I feared they’d somehow exploit.”
“I understand that, but…” He sighed and lowered his gaze.
“All those years, the last seven of them, I spent so much time and effort escaping Wes that I didn’t have the freedom to plan a visit to talk to you. I feared sending an email. A text. A call. I was trapped, and all I could focus on was getting by. Just making life tolerable, staying afloat, and praying nothing ever happened to me or Caleb.”
“But that’s no way to live.”
I nodded. “Not at all. It was simply a way to survive.”
“Not anymore.” He kissed my brow, and I smiled at his tenderness.
I dreamed of hearing those words so many times. I fell asleep imagining great scenes like this one, and now that the moment was here, that it was happening, I was tempted to pinch myself and know that I was awake and this was reality, my reality. After all the sadness and yearning for him, he was here and vowing to give me a real life. “Just surviving” wasn’t an option with him.
“But what does that mean?”
He huffed. “Were you so lost to coming and not listening to a single word I said earlier?”
I frowned playfully. “Oh, like you didn’t go a little crazy back there?”
“You make me crazy.” He kissed me softly. “In the best of ways.”
“I recall your mumbling some incoherent nonsense when you came the first time.”
His answering smile was slow and sure. I was glad that this part of him never changed, his smugness that he only revealed when he was being goofy and playful with me.
“That's how you know you’re doing it right. When you can’t talk, much less think.”
I nestled into the pillow, determined to be serious again. “What did you mean, though?”
“About what?”
“About how we could be together. How this would work.” I shrugged. “How Caleb would fit into your life.”
“We stay together.”
I raised my brows. “Just like that? Here?”
“I have a house next door. Eva and Liam do too. Tessa and Romeo are a little further out with this renovation project that never seems to be finished. I think they just like staying here too much.”
I scrunched my face. “It doesn’t get crowded?”
He snorted a laugh. “You have seen how huge this place is, right?”
“I mean…” I smirked, but it turned into a grin. “Dante and Romeo, you know. Dad and son. Then Nina and Tessa are BFFs. So with the age gaps and all… I’m guessing Nina is younger than Romeo by a bit?”
He chuckled. “It’s a little complex. But you’re not suggesting there’s a reason to worry about incest, are you?”
I laughed louder, loving how easy it could be to joke with him, to laugh with him. We used to be like this all the time. I was kicking myself for how long I fought telling him. Had I cleared the air sooner, we could’ve enjoyed this whole week.
No. I’m not doing that. I refused to call myself stupid for hesitating. Owning up to my secret took guts, and I wasn’t a fool to be nervous. With all that I’d suffered and survived, I stood by my right to be guarded when it came to Caleb.
But of course, Franco would want to protect Caleb too. Now that I’d lived here and witnessed how ruthless these men were, I knew they’d keep my life secure. Against Wes. Against my parents. Franco had my back.
“No, I’m not suggesting anything like incest.” I rolled my eyes.
“I know. I know. I’m just teasing. But seriously, there is plenty of room for all of us. My place doesn’t have that indoor pool room in the conservatory, but we’re all in and out of here every day, anyway.”
I grew giddy, excited about my future. “So, just like that, you’re saying I should move in with you?”
He furrowed his brow. “No.”
My expression fell.
“I’m saying you should marry me.”