“Is that right?” she asked her daughter.
“Uh-huh,” confirmed Ava Grace with a resolute nod. “And you know Mr. Mopples, Mama. When she gets an idea in her head, it’s hard to get it out again.”
“I know Mr. Mopples.” Laire nodded at Ava Grace, kissing her forehead before lowering her to the floor and taking her hand to lead her back to bed.
She might have missed it if she hadn’t looked up just then, but Erik’s eyes sparkled with humor and tenderness, longing and . . . and . . .
“Time for bed,” murmured Laire, swallowing over the lump in her throat.
“Good night, Oscar,” said Ava Grace, waving at Erik as Laire pulled her into their room. “See you at breakfast.”
“Good night, Ava Grace,” said Erik, then added, so softly that Laire might have imagined it as she closed the door, “Good night, darlin’.”
***
Erik stood in the hallway, staring at their hotel room door, his feet waiting for the message that they should start moving, but it wasn’t forthcoming. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He was afraid if he walked away, he’d never see her again, never see them again.
Although she wasn’t married—news that his heart had received with such profound relief and joy, he hated himself for it—she’d certainly moved on from him fairly quickly. If Ava Grace was four, as he guessed, Laire would have become pregnant with her about a year after she dismissed him in her father’s hospital room.
It hurt, desperately, to imagine her with someone else. It hurt worse to imagine her married, for however short a time. It made Erik realize that all these years, he’d still thought of her as his, even though he had no idea where she was, or with whom.
Then again, seeing Laire and Ava Grace together thawed and lifted his heart in a way he never could have guessed. His reunion with Laire on the roof, and the subsequent words they exchanged in the hallway, had been fraught and upsetting, but he still wouldn’t trade a moment of it. He’d longed for a glimpse of her for years, and no matter why she’d pushed him away or how badly it had hurt, it fed his soul to see her again. And the moment Ava Grace had appeared, little spitfire that she was, she’d unwittingly defused the insurmountable tension between them.
He grinned, thinking about her sweet, sleepy face as she told her mother that Erik was a grouch. Man, but she was something. A fearless little beauty who should have her daddy wrapped around her finger.
. . . which made him flinch, his lighter mood instantly darkening.
So where the fuck was he? A kid like that deserved to have two amazing parents looking after her, raising her, loving her, giving her the best of everything.
Come to think of it, he wondered, how was Laire affording this hotel stay?
As he started walking back down the hall, he thought about the clothes she was wearing tonight: a designer jacket and jeans, trendy boots, and one of those fur scarves that every woman he knew was wearing this season. Her circumstances had certainly changed from six years ago, but how? Maybe her ex was paying some decent alimony and child support.
Well, that’s the least the fucker can do for abandoning them.
Or maybe, he thought, climbing the stairs to the third floor, her husband died, leaving her and Ava Grace taken care of, but alone.
He winced at the thought of Laire losing her husband and Ava Grace losing her father. Although his jealousy toward this unknown man was sharp, he didn’t wish that kind of loss and heartbreak for them.
Slipping the old-fashioned key into his door lock, he turned it and stepped into the dark, quiet room, instantly aware of the fact that Laire’s room was directly beneath his. He had a sudden, ridiculous urge to lie down on the floor and press his ear to the boards, just to see if he could hear her, to fall asleep feeling connected to her the only way he could.
“Stalker,” he whispered, closing the door, crossing the room to the desk and opening a bottle of bourbon he’d pilfered from Utopia Manor. He poured half a tumbler and threw it back, cringing at the burn before filling the glass again.
He turned on the desk lamp, which bathed the room in warm light, and shrugged off his parka, putting it over the back of the desk chair.
Taking his glass to the balcony, he opened the doors and stepped outside onto the icy platform.
Where has she been all this time? And with whom?
Where was Ava Grace’s father? Was he still in the picture at all?
He had so many questions, but as he took another sip of bourbon, they faded, and older questions resumed their place in his mind: Why did she break up with him? And had she ever loved him at all?
The final question loomed large and hurt most, and he swallowed back the remainder of the alcohol in his glass as he stared out at the sea, ruminating.