"Remy," I began, but he cut me off.
"You have to fight it, Luca," he whispered. He kept one arm around my lower back as he shifted back enough so that he could look at me. "I know it hurts, but running won't help. Not feeling won't help. There's no drug or drink strong enough to make us forget. There's no place far enough away for us to hide."
I hated that he was right.
"She didn't recognize me. When I stopped crying long enough to tell her who I was, she just stood there. Then she asked me what I was doing there. She thought I wanted money. She said they didn't have any,” Remy explained. He dropped his eyes again and when I pulled him back against my chest, I stroked my fingers over the shell of his ear as he continued on his own.
"They never even looked for me, Luca," Remy choked out. I felt moisture seeping through my dress shirt and knew exactly what it was. "They told people I ran away. But I didn't. Things were bad at home when I was a kid, but I still loved them. I never would've run away. I had my little brothers and sisters to watch out for. I never would've done that to them… left them like that." Remy’s sobs began to consume him as he added, "They never even looked for me. All those years I waited, and they weren't even looking for me."
My eyes stung and my throat felt tight as I dropped kisses to the top of his head and murmured incoherent words to him in the hopes that I could somehow offer comfort. I wanted to kill the people he called his parents. They weren't that. They’d lost that right the moment they’d turned their back on him.
"They didn't deserve you, baby," I whispered to him as he cried.
His agonized, harsh sobs racked his body for what seemed like hours. When he finally quieted, the front of my shirt was soaked through and I felt physically exhausted, as if I'd been the one enduring the emotional onslaught. I expected him to release his hold on me when he calmed down, but I was glad that his grip remained as tight as ever and that he made no move to distance himself from me. My insides felt stretched thin as a war raged within my brain. The idea of exposing myself any more to this man went against everything I understood about myself, but it was like he’d said—there was no place left to run.
"I love him so much, Remy," I breathed. "I just want him back."
I waited for the standard line about how I would get my son back, but when Remy did respond, he did so without any words. He leaned back enough that he could look at me. His face was wet with tears and his skin was flushed. Both of his hands came up to cradle my cheeks and I was surprised when I felt his fingertips swipe across my own damp skin. His eyes held mine as he stroked my face with the gentlest of touches.
The need to run, to escape, eased, and when he used his hands to tip my head forward just a little, I went without hesitation. His soft lips pressed against my forehead and held there for the longest time. The gentle kiss had a shudder running through me and when I let out the breath I'd been holding, the jumbled knot of sensation in my belly started to ease. He hadn't spoken any words, but he’d still managed to say exactly what I needed to hear.
That everything would be okay. That I would be okay.
When Remy ended the soft caress and began to pull back, I found myself reluctant to release him. His cheek was pressed to mine, and I could feel and hear his soft exhale of breath when he realized I wasn't letting him go. But he didn't fight me. In fact, when I began to move my mouth along the line of his jaw, the only movement he made was to curl his fingers into my hair. I knew I needed to stop because there would be no interruption this time. There would be no bodyguard knocking on the door or toddler screaming for attention. But I silenced all the warnings in my brain saying this was a phenomenally bad idea and did exactly what Remy had told me to.
I felt.
Chapter Fifteen
Remy
He gave me every chance to pull away before his lips met mine. There was absolutely nothing holding me to him beyond his loose grip on my waist. In fact, if anything, I was the one holding on to him because I still had my hands on his face. And when there were just a few millimeters separating our mouths, it was me who lifted up just a little in order to close the small distance that kept us apart.