He Loves Me Not (The Hawthornes of New York 1)

I think that through as I study his face. “Why did this happen? Why wasn’t I given a chance to see him? I would have been at that hospital every day.”

He nods. “Your dad told me that you and V had watched your mother suffer after her surgery and through three rounds of chemo. They wanted to protect you from that.”

“They stole my chance to say goodbye,” I whisper. “I could have said goodbye to him.”

“I know it’s not the same, but I said goodbye to him.” He tears up again. “I held his hand and told him I loved him before he closed his eyes and slipped away.”

I reach a hand to cup his cheek. “Was anyone with you? Your mother? Matt?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I always went to the hospital alone. My mom was working. Matt would watch over Callum and Delia after school and on the weekends.”

It feels surreal, but there’s one thing I need to say, so I do. “Thank you for being there for him.”

“It felt right.” He exhales audibly. “After he died, I promised myself that I’d go back and see if anyone else needed a friend to visit with them.”

“Back to the hospital?”

“It was a year or so later before I could do it, but I did.” He smiles. “I’ve been going ever since. Mostly on Tuesday afternoons.”

“We met on a Tuesday afternoon,” I point out. “Had you been there before we…”

He cups my hand close to his lips to place a soft kiss on my palm. “I had just left the hospital before I headed to Rolly’s. That’s my usual routine.”

“Really?”

“George told me that if he were granted a miracle, he’d take me to Rolly’s Pub on my twenty-first birthday for a beer.”

I tear up again.

“Matt and I go there every year on our birthday. We order beers and toast George.”

I nod, not finding any words.

“Fate brought you to me the day we met, Bianca,” he says quietly. “I think George had a hand in it too.”

I move closer to him. “I think so too.”

Roman stares into my eyes. “I love you. I think I fell in love with you that day.”

“I love you too,” I say through a veil of tears. “We were destined to be.”

“You’re damn right we were,” he growls before he takes my mouth in a kiss.

Chapter 52

Bianca

“Mom?”

I know the instant that my mom turns to face me that her heart has broken. She looks just as she did the morning she told Vivi and me that our dad had died.

It was a rainy Wednesday. I was late getting ready for school when she appeared in the doorway to our bedroom with reddened eyes and shaking hands.

She sat us down on my bed and explained with a tremor in her voice that our dad would never come home.

His funeral service was just a few days later.

Vivi doesn’t remember any of it. I recall fleeting images of a dark wood casket, pink flowers, and a hymn that my mom sang along to.

Not many people were gathered at the cemetery when he was lowered into the ground. I was given a flower to place in his grave, but I wanted him to remember me always, so I threw a picture that I had drawn on top of his casket.

It was of the four of us on a sunny afternoon with blue sky on the horizon.

I glance down at the sight of his grave now with the perfectly cut grass and the headstone that my mom had placed here a year after his death.

It was right before she married Thurston.

“Bianca.” My name escapes her in a whisper.

I hold out my arms to her because I need her to know that I understand. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, Mom.”

She rushes across the grass with her heels digging into the ground. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Baby.

She hasn’t called me that since he passed away. She hasn’t held me this close in years.

“I think about him every single day,” she confides in me before she kisses the center of my forehead. “His smile, Bianca. It could melt ten feet of snow.”

I step back to study her face. “I could have handled it, Mom. I could have said goodbye.”

She scratches her chin. “We talked and talked about it. He didn’t want you to hurt anymore. I didn’t want that either.”

I’m not a parent. I can’t put myself in her shoes and assume I would know better.

I can only go by what Roman said to me this morning when he was leaving my apartment.

He held me close as we were tangled around each other in my bed. Our bodies were still aching from making love at dawn.

He looked me in the eyes and told me that forgiveness heals. He forgave his dad for leaving and Elizabeth for walking away from her daughters.