That smile of his didn’t fade. And it hurt her—physically hurt her—to close the front door. Then force herself to walk back into her house and carry on with her life somehow.
She couldn’t say she did a good job. She sat there on her sofa and stared across the room at the bookcase where her single photo album of their time together was stored, and she ordered herself not to cry.
Over and over and over. Until she fell asleep s
lumped sideways on the couch and stayed there until morning.
It was a new day, she told herself when she woke up, cranky and sore. Dario had been seized with something highly uncharacteristic to come all this way and make declarations, but she imagined it was like a tropical sunburn. Painful, but it would peel eventually. Then disappear.
But he came back again that night. And the night after.
And every night that week.
Always after dark, when Damian was already in bed, so there could be no chance of using their son’s feelings as any kind of bargaining chip. And he always left with that same smile on his face, as if he really could do this forever.
“I think you have issues,” she told him when it continued into a second week. “I never should have gone out to coffee with you in the first place all those years ago. It set a terrible precedent. You think you can wear me down with persistence and a smile.”
The scary part was that they both knew he could. She expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. He stared at her, the thick dark all around him and his blue gaze serious.
“I don’t want to wear you down, Anais,” he told her. “You already know that I can walk away when things get tough. Now you know that I can stick around when things don’t go my way.”
“What if I want you to go away?” Her voice was so hoarse, so soft. She might have thought she hadn’t said anything out loud, but she could see that she had in the way he went still.
“Then you have to say that,” he said. “You have to tell me there’s no hope and that this is never going to change. As long as there’s hope, I can do this forever. Tell me that’s gone and I’ll never bother you again.”
And she stood there for a shuddering beat of her heart. Then another. She felt the soft breeze on her face, and curled her bare toes into the cool concrete of her front step. Everything else was the blue of his eyes, the starkness of his expression. The way he held himself, as if braced for the worst.
She should open her mouth right now and tell him there was no hope. It was the kind thing to do—the safe and smart thing to do, for everyone.
“Good night, Dare” was what she said instead, stepping back inside and closing the door.
She could feel him there on the other side. She slumped against the closed door, squeezing her eyes shut, and she could feel him there, only that flimsy bit of wood and her own determination separating them.
Anais didn’t know how long they stood there. She’d never know how long it was before she heard him turn around and go. Or how much longer she stayed where she was, before she forced her stiff, protesting muscles into a hot shower in the hopes that might stave off insomnia. It didn’t help at all.
And two nights later, she let him in.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ANAIS DIDN’T KNOW what she expected Dario to do. But it wasn’t what he did, which was walk inside as if he’d never had any doubt she’d let him in eventually and then look around, as if searching for something.
“Do you have a fireplace?” he asked.
She scowled at him. It was lowering to realize she’d expected fervent declarations, or at least a discussion of some kind, while he apparently wanted...something else entirely. Whatever that was.
“We have a little fire pit out back,” she said. “Damian likes to roast marshmallows every now and again.”
He strode past her and she found herself following, then watching in some mix of astonishment and bemusement as he set about building a fire in the hollowed-out center of the table that claimed pride of place on her small patio. It had been an indulgence, that odd little table with the built-in fire pit in its center, but she’d had some of her favorite evenings here with Damian. She had no idea why Dario’s being here now made her feel as if she ought to apologize for that.
“Wait here,” he said when he got the fire going.
And the crazy thing was, she did as he asked. She waited. She told herself she was simply standing there, waiting to see what would happen next, but it was nothing so passive. She was terrified. She was exhilarated.
Maybe she was paralyzed.
She was too many things at once and she had no idea how she could possibly survive this. Whatever this was. She’d lost Dario too many times already. How much of her was left? How could she afford to risk it again?
But she knew, standing there with her eyes on the flames as they leaped against the dark, that this had nothing to do with Damian. People all over the world shared the custody of their children, and the great majority of those children were just fine.