Stay With Me (16 page)

I lay on the bed with my eyes closed and my ears intent on listening to the most beautiful sound in the world: Zoe’s breathing.

I tilted my head toward her and opened my eyes to nourish myself with her image.

She slept on her side, with her hands under the pillow and her mouth slightly open. Her cheeks were pink and a wisp of hair fell across her forehead.

How could a man want anything more?

What could be better than waking up and seeing the woman of your life sleeping next to you?

Looking at her made my heart light. I didn’t feel like anything was missing. I had everything I truly desired: my woman.

I knew exactly what I had to do. That same evening we were going to talk to Olly, and then I would never leave my girls.

Never again.

I did everything I’d planned to. While Zoe was sleeping, I washed up, waited for breakfast to arrive, and asked the waiter to set it up on the terrace. Everything had to be just as I’d imagined it.

I came into the bedroom and leaned on the doorjamb to look at her again.

17

I stretched out slowly and reached my hand out toward the left, but I felt the cold bed. I jerked and opened my eyes, and then I saw him.

Leaning with his back on the doorjamb, Andrew was staring at me with a strange grin on his lips.

Yawning, I returned his smile.

“Good morning,” I mumbled, my mouth still pasty from my slumber.

“Hey, baby.”

He was beautiful. His black hair gleamed in the sunlight and his eyes looked like two pools of crystal water.

“What time is it?” I asked, sitting up.

“Seven ten. Do you need to run?” There was uncertainty in his voice. He sounded insecure to me, human.

“I don’t need to be at the café before eleven, and Olly is going to summer camp today with Alys.” I pushed the sheets away and remained naked under his gaze. My plan was to have him come next to me and make love to him. I still wanted him. I felt a four-year-old void that had to be filled as soon as possible.

He ran his hands through his hair, breathed deeply, and for a second time that morning, my heartbreak came to mind. But what I had in front of me now was a totally different man. The wall he’d erected over the years had crumbled, allowing me to enter and if possible make me love him even more.

Slowly he came closer, reaching for a hotel robe.

“Get dressed, baby.”

I looked at him, confused. “Are you rejecting me?”

He laughed and held his arm out toward me. “Get dressed.” His tone was sweet, but it didn’t allow for any retorts.

“It’s your way of punishing me because I wanted to talk last night, isn’t it?” I asked as I put on the robe.

“Could be.” He took my hand and pulled me toward him, squeezing me tightly and kissing my hair. “Now, Zoe, let’s go have breakfast.”

With one swift movement, he lifted me into his arms, and I hooked mine behind his neck, resting my head on his shoulder.

“Now, this is how to treat a princess,” I said as I got drunk on his smell.

“I would say more like a queen.”

“So that would make you my king?”

Before he could respond, I caught sight of the terrace and it took my breath away.

The table had every type of delicacy, and there were fresh flowers everywhere. Everything was perfect.

He set me on a loveseat and sat next to me.

His eyes shone with a strange light that very much resembled happiness, and my heart fluttered.

“Andrew?” I said quietly, mustering a smile. For a moment, he was lost in his own world.

“Zoe.”

He squeezed my shoulders; he had to tell me something. I could tell from the way his lips were pursed. So I waited for him to decide to stop torturing me.

“I’ve arrived at a conclusion.” Almost whispering, he revealed, “You know, when you spend your life traveling, staying away from home, meeting a thousand people, you learn a lot of things.”

I nodded with an unsteady breath.

Andrew and I hadn’t had many opportunities to have serious discussions. We hadn’t had the time, but in the last few hours we were making up for lost time, delving into everything we’d never discussed before. That’s why I was scared.

“You learn languages.” He chuckled. “You understand that the people around you lie, and most of all, you truly understand the importance of the word ‘home.’” He wet his lips. “And I finally understand it. You and Olivia are home for me, Zoe. You’re my finish line, the closure of my circle. That’s why . . . I want to marry you. I want you to become my wife, for you to be mine forever.”

“Oh,” was the only thing I managed to say. My heart was in my throat. I felt like I was about to suffocate.

“It’s not exactly the reaction I’d hoped for,” he said, continuing to smile and looking at me as though I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Now I was truly seeing him.

“I . . .” I took his hand and looked into his eyes. “This has all been so fast that I have trouble believing it’s actually happening. But there’s one thing I’ve never stopped wanting.” I brought my lips one inch from his. “You. I want you. Forever.”

He leaned his forehead against mine. “Is that a yes?” he asked, slowly exhaling.

“It’s always been yes.”

He devoured my lips the same way he did that first time in my studio apartment. The only thing different now from back then was the aftertaste of salt. I hadn’t realized my tears had begun to roll down.

“Zoe, is everything OK?” he asked trying to dry my tears with his thumbs.

“Yes, it’s just I’m so happy.”

“I am too,” he affirmed. “Now, though, you have to eat.”

“I was thinking of celebrating our engagement . . .”

“Take a cupcake, Zoe,” he said as he pointed at my plate.

I didn’t feel like objecting. I just wanted to have him inside of me as soon as possible.

So I made him happy. I grabbed the chocolate sweet, and—

“This is my mother’s ring! How did you manage?”

“Alys recovered it. In the end, she’s not so bad.” He smiled, then redirected our attention to my mother’s ring. “The setting is the same. I replaced the diamond, and with the old one, I had a pendant made for Olly.” I started to cry again as he slid it on my finger. “You told me you’d never seen a man look at a woman the way your father did your mother. I’m telling you, look at my eyes carefully when they’re resting on you.”

“Oh, Andrew.” I threw my arms around his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby, but there’s something else.”

“Do I need to worry? Your tone has changed.”

“No, it’s that I did something I know you won’t like.”

I knew it seemed too good to be true, and the fear that something could cloud the most beautiful day of my life terrified me.

“Tell me, Andrew,” I prodded.

“I bought a house.”

I shook my head, thinking I’d misunderstood. “What did you do?”

“I bought a house.”

“For yourself?”

“No, for us.”

“A house,” I repeated.

“Not just a house . . .” He took a deep breath. “I bought your parents’ house.”

In that moment, I realized everything was falling into place.

Epilogue

San Francisco, August 7, 2018

Sitting on the porch steps of our gorgeous house, I watched Olivia dive into our new pool. Ever since we’d put it in, she spent her afternoons in the fresh water and she came to dinner exhausted.

Since I reduced my schedule at work a couple of years ago, I had fully enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with her.

I brought a glass of lemonade to my lips and smiled as I thought back to the past four years. Things had gone well, better than I could have imagined. My business was thriving, Olivia was doing well, and Andrew . . .

He’d turned out to be someone else.

In our first year together, I hadn’t managed to get to know the boy inside of him—I’d only seen the businessman and the tireless lover.

To the last point, he hadn’t changed at all. Every time was passionate and absolutely crazy.

Sex was a constant in our life. There wasn’t a corner in our house we hadn’t tried, and once every two weeks, we left Olly with Josy or Mag and retreated to our hotel suite.

Where everything had begun.

“Mommy, look!” Olivia called to me as she was about to dive, and when she resurfaced, I smiled and waved.

I remembered the night several years ago when Andrew and I entered the apartment above the café . . .

Andrew hadn’t even managed to take more than a few steps beyond the threshold before Olivia came barreling toward him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Andew, you come back!”

He returned the hug, squeezing her tightly.

“Yes, princess.” He kissed her head. “I’m sorry I’ve been away so much, but I had to take care of some things.” He shot me a nervous look and I smiled, trying to reassure him it was going to be fine.

I paid Jenny, and we agreed to talk later. Once it was just the three of us, I took charge of the situation.

“Olly, love, sit down,” I told her. “Andrew and I need to talk to you.”

First she looked at him and then at me, with an innocent gaze.

“Awe you going to eat with me and Mommy, Andew?”

Andrew nodded. “First, Mommy has to tell you something very important, though.”

Olivia sat down on the couch. “Are you going to marry my mommy?” she asked, almost causing me to choke.

Andrew struggled to remain serious.

“Yes,” I said. It was useless to beat around the bush. She was little and I had to explain it plainly. “Andrew and I are getting married.”

She clapped with a never-before-seen enthusiasm. “You’re my daddy, wight? Yo
u came back!”

She quickly got up from the couch and threw herself on top of Andrew, who had bent down on one knee, and they fell back as Olivia squeezed him tightly.

“You’re my daddy!”

“Yes, princess, I’m your daddy.” His voice broke with emotion, and I could have sworn I saw a tear roll down his cheek.

“You came back! And you’re not going away no more?”

“No, love, no.”

“I knew it! We have the same eyes, Daddy!”

They remained hugging, lying on the floor for I don’t know how long, while I looked at them with total adoration. They were perfect.

My family.

“Hey!”

I jumped up, hearing a voice behind me.

“You startled me, Alys!” I rebuked her playfully.

She snorted, sitting down next to me. “You’ve become annoying, you know that? I almost like your husband more.”

“I prefer your husband too,” I responded, raising an eyebrow.

She shoved me with her shoulder. “He’s not my husband yet.”

“Right, he’s still got time to change his mind.”

“You’re a horrible matron of honor!” she exclaimed. “Tell me, did you already talk to Andrew?”

I put the glass down. “When he comes home tonight, I’ll tell him.”

“Tell me what, Zoe?”

We both turned toward him. He was standing on the threshold of the porch door.

“Hi, Daddy!” Olly called from the pool.

He smiled and waved. “Hi, princess!”

Alys’s glance darted between Andrew and me. Then she got up and said, “I’ll watch Olivia. It’ll be better if you two go inside to talk.”

I nodded and went to Andrew, took him by the hand, and led him into the house. I felt his gaze on my back.

“Sit down, love,” I told him as I tried to control the tone of my voice.

He didn’t answer as he sat.

I got in front of him and took his hands. My mother’s ring shone on my finger, snug with my wedding band.

I took a deep breath. “You know I love you.”

Andrew nodded a bit uncertainly.

“I love everything about our life. I adore how you take care of us, I appreciate that despite all the money you have—”

“That
we
have,” he interrupted and looked me straight in the eyes.

“Of course, despite all the money we have, we haven’t changed our lifestyle. I like the way you take care of our café—”

“When are you getting to the part where you tell me you go crazy when I make you come?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m trying to tell you something serious.”

He puffed. “You know that having you this close always makes me lose my mind. And then . . . your tits!” He seemed to have received a divine illumination. “They’re enormous.”

“Andrew . . .” He was making everything more complicated. “Sometimes you’re such a child! Let me finish.”

“OK.”

“Good. I was telling you, I love and adore everything we have. But I have one regret.” He started breathing quickly, and I squeezed his hand to make him understand he didn’t need to worry. “Eight years ago, I denied you one of the most important things in a man’s life.”

He opened his eyes wide. “What, Zoe?”

“We’re going to have a baby!”

“You’re pregnant?” he asked with an expression I’d never seen on him before.

“Yes, love!”

“When did you find out?”

“I took a test this morning.”

“Your breasts . . .”

“Right!” I confirmed.

He ran his hand through his hair. “We’re going to have another child,” he said, more to himself than to me.

Then he grabbed me, pulled me toward him, and kissed me as though I were a rare delicacy. He smiled on my lips and rested his hand on my belly. “Another child.”

“Are you happy?” I asked, rubbing my nose against his.

“I can’t even begin to explain how I feel. God, I’m totally on cloud nine.”

“Me too,”

“Zoe,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He held me in his arms and kissed me.

The thing that warmed my heart most was that there among the walls of the house where I’d grown up, I felt my parents’ presence.

I hugged Andrew and smiled on his shoulder as I looked at the familiar environment and felt the joy of the memories reverberating around us. Now I, my husband, Olivia, and the baby on the way were going to continue that joy into infinity.