“Am I your favorite?”
“My super duper favorite, but I need you to make me a promise,” he says. “I need you to promise me that you’ll stop growing up so fast.”
“How do I stop growing?”
“Well,” he says with animation. “I guess I’ll have to stop feeding you.”
I giggle, “You can’t do that! What if I get hungry?”
“What are we going to do then?”
“I don’t wanna be little forever though. I wanna be great big, just like you.”
“Just like me?”
“Yep! Just like you because you’re my favorite thing in the whole wide world,” I tell him and then lean over to kiss his nose.
“You’re my favorite too, princess pie,” he tells me and then gives me a kiss on my nose as well. “So I guess I won’t starve you. Here,” he says, taking the rubber spatula out of my hand. “I always get the first lick.”
I laugh when he licks some of the pink frosting.
He hands it back to me, saying, “Enjoy,” and I begin licking the strawberry icing.
I take another bite of the strawberry as my heart aches at the memory of the last birthday I had with him, and get back to the next name on the list.
ASHER CORRE
I stare at the letters and begin scrambling them.
SHORE RARE C
HERO CRASER
I take a bite of cheesecake and continue. I know this is nonsense. I’m not even sure what I’m trying to decode, but it makes me feel better than doing nothing.
I continue to stare at the letters.
“My little princess pie,” he says again as I lick the frosting. “My little Elizabeth Archer.”
S O RE
A H E R C R
“Oh, my God,” I murmur and then unscramble the letters.
ARCHER
My pulse picks up as I stare at the letters that spell my last name—his last name. I then look at the remaining letters.
S O R E
Tears prick my eyes and my hands tremble.
I take another lick of the sweet frosting, and he ruffles my hair with his hand, continuing his doting, saying, “My little Elizabeth Rose Archer.”
R O S E
ASHER CORRE
ROSE ARCHER
“Oh, my God!” I blurt out as I lurch off the couch, covering my mouth with my two hands. My heart beats rapidly as I stare down in shock at the notepad where my middle and last name look up at me. This can’t be a coincidence.
It’s him!
And suddenly, I can hear his voice so clearly.
“My little Elizabeth Rose Archer.”
“Declan!” I holler, grabbing the notepad and running across the penthouse.
I sling the bedroom door open, waking him up when it slams against the door jamb.
“Declan, it’s him! It’s him!”
He leaps out of bed, still half asleep. “What’s going on?”
“It’s my dad!” I cry out. “Look!”
I show him the notepad, and he takes it from my hand.
“What am I looking at?” he questions at the paper that’s filled with so many names, and I point to ASHER CORRE.
“That’s him! The letters in that name spell ROSE ARCHER.”
“Who’s Rose?”
I look up at him, tears streaming down my cheeks, and I can barely breathe when I tell him, “Me.”
He stares at me, confusion etching his face, and I claim without a shred of doubt, “My name is Elizabeth Rose Archer, and that man is my dad.”
“THERE’S A LISTING for an A. CORRE in Washington,” Declan tells me from behind his laptop. “Gig Harbor, Washington. There’s no more information.”
“In Washington? Is that him?”
“Only one way to find out,” he says. “I had the plane scheduled to take us back to London, so I’ll have to wait until morning to call and get it rescheduled.”
Adrenaline intoxicates me, putting my body on high alert. My heart pounds, begging me to strap on my shoes and run across the country to get to my dad because waiting seems like an impossible feat. I pace the room, and when that dulls, I pack my bags, and when that’s done, I get on Declan’s computer and search every social media site and people-finder database to see if anything pops up.
Nothing, aside from what Declan had found. City and state. That’s it.
The night drags on, testing every ounce of patience in me. Seconds feel like hours and hours feel like years, and after an eternity, the sun rises. Declan is beyond demanding when he calls to reschedule the plane, and I feel sorry for the poor sap that’s on the other end of the line. He barks his orders, and when he hangs up, tells me, “Grab the bags.”
“We’re leaving now?”
“Yes.”
We move at lightning speed as we get all our belongings together, but it’s still not fast enough for my growing anxiety. Thank God for his private jet, because the flight takes less than four hours. Once we’re settled into our hotel suite in Tacoma, I ask, “Now what?”
“Now we need to find a way to get his address.”
“How far is Gig Harbor from here?”
“Twenty minutes or so. Not far,” he tells me.