e’re early, we’re way too early. We’re supposed to be there at ten, it isn’t nine thirty yet.”

Laura Roberts was fretting.

They were walking up the seafront beside the Victorian pier. Nate had driven his Aston Martin, leading, with Laura and Victor in the Rolls following him.

Nate drove on his own. He had too much on his mind; he didn’t want company on the trip to Somerset especially not his parent’s company, not that day.

Laura was in a state and Victor was actually visibly nervous. Victor, Nate found upon arrival at his parent’s home that morning, was coming along as well. This intention was stated in a tone not to be denied.

Nate would have denied his father but he had no desire to waste the precious time to do so. Therefore Victor was along for the ride.

“We left too soon. We should walk on the seafront for half an hour, get a cup of tea. It’s rude to be early, Laura worried, preferring to focus on her rudeness at being early than the fact that she was about to face the woman whose life her two children had all but destroyed.

Nate didn’t care much that they were early nor did he care if it seemed rude. He wanted to meet his daughter and he wanted to see Lily. He’d lost eight years and if Lily’s demeanour the day before was anything to go by he was facing the battle of his life. He was set on starting straight away, he wasn’t about to wait half an hour nor have a cup of fucking tea which he never drank anyway.

They walked by the Royal Pier Hotel and the short street that led to Lily’s terrace was a few paces away. Nate suppressed the urge to lengthen his strides and leave his lagging parents behind.

“What’s that little girl going to think? How did Lily tell her about Nathaniel? How could she tell her? What kind of words can you use for something like that? How is she going to react?” Victor blustered, not expecting a response to any of his rapid fire questions then he finished with the dire prediction, “We’ll have to find a psychologist.”

Victor was beginning to sound like Laura, Nate thought with annoyance.

Then Nate couldn’t think at all for, when they were only two doors down from Lily’s house, he heard, “Daddeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

Flying toward him, her arms wind-milling wildly, her black hair streaming out behind her, was a beautiful little girl, her face alight with delight, wearing a pretty, sky-blue sundress.

A beautiful little girl that looked exactly like Nate.

Nate stopped dead because she didn’t. She ran headlong into him, her head slamming painfully into his stomach, her arms flying around his hips to hold him in a fierce, tight hug.

At her touch, Nate felt something in his chest squeeze uncomfortably as one of his hands settled automatically on the soft, dark hair of her head, the other on her shoulder.

“Oh my God,” Laura breathed.

“Tash! What are you… oh.”

Everyone’s eyes turned to Lily who’d come running out of the house after her daughter. She stopped at the sight of them and her lips stayed parted in surprise.

“Oh my God,” Victor breathed.

Lily wasn’t wearing a pretty anything. She was barefoot, her face free of makeup and she had on a pair of faded, battered, what appeared to be army trousers and skin-tight, lilac camisole that showed her thin shoulders and arms.

It also showed slight purple and yellow marks around her upper arms, bruises that looked like they were made by a set of hands, bruises that could only have been caused by Victor.

Regardless of this she somehow, to Nate, looked unconsciously, undeniably beautiful.

Before anyone could say another word, Natasha’s head went back. Nate’s hand dropped from it and she looked up at him, her dark eyes, his dark eyes, dancing merrily.

“I’ve been watching for you all morning. It seems like for… eh… ver! I thought you were never going to get here!”

Apparently, however Lily broke the news, she’d done it well.

Natasha’s head jerked around so she could look at her mother but she kept her arms firmly around Nate’s hips.

“Look, Mummy, Daddy’s here,” she told her mother unnecessarily.

At the sound of her calling him “Daddy”, Nate felt that uncomfortable squeeze matched by a slice through his gut.

Lily’s stunned gaze slid from the early arrived crowd and then her face melted into a smile as she looked at her daughter.

“I can see that, baby doll.”

Nate was staring at Lily’s soft smile, feeling her endearment to her daughter, his daughter, their daughter, wash over him when Natasha’s head came back around and she looked at Nate.

“Mummy told me last night you were coming,” she informed him.

“Did she?” Nate murmured.

Natasha nodded gaily. “Yes, she told me she found out you were alive and you wanted to meet me straight away.” Then she took her arms from around him, held them out at her sides and announced, “Here I am!”

Nate stared in fascination at the beautiful child he and Lily had created. She was, quite simply, not to be believed. Her eyes were sparkling, her heart was open and the sunny smile never left her gorgeous face. It was clear to anyone that she was happy to see him, beyond happy, she was thrilled.

He had no idea what to say or do. Never, not once in his entire life had he been so uncertain of his next course of action.

Luckily, Natasha was not so uncertain.

She leaned into him. “Who are they?” she whispered loudly.

Nate looked around at Laura and Victor, who he had, while seeing and touching his daughter for the first time in her life, entirely forgotten.

He saw Laura had tears shimmering in her eyes. Victor was standing absolutely still, his chest puffed out with the effort he was making at holding back tears.

Nate settled his hand on the nape of his daughter’s neck. He found it strange, how small it was, tiny and fragile, and felt a protective urge settle in him that was beyond his control, should he ever wish to control it, which he never would. He guided her closer to his body, moved to her side and out of the way so she could fully see her grandparents. He looked down at her as she leaned trustingly against his side. This he found strange, this unquestioning trust, strange and something else, something extraordinary.

“These are my parents,” he answered her.

Natasha’s expressive eyes rounded with surprise and her head again jerked back to her mother and again her body stayed in contact with Nate’s.

Nate followed his daughter’s gaze and saw that Lily hadn’t moved but she had been joined by a funny-looking man with a shock of black hair, black eyes, a pointed, black goatee and a supremely rounded stomach. He stood with his hands on his hips, his feet planted so far apart he looked in danger of toppling over and he had an expression on his face so fierce, Nate was surprised the man hadn’t turned Nate to stone.

This, Nate thought correctly, must be Fazire.

Nate’s thoughts were interrupted by his daughter breathing the word, “Grandparents,” in her mother’s direction. Her voice sounded like someone had just bestowed a rich and untapped diamond mine on her as a gift.

At the sound of the catch of Laura’s breath, a catch that heralded tears, Natasha’s head swung back around. As if sensing innately that Laura needed it, Natasha disengaged from Nate and walked forward then ran the last few steps and threw herself, luckily less forcefully, at Laura. Her arms closed around Laura’s waist and she proclaimed, “Nanna!”

Immediately Laura burst into tears and Victor looked away, not willing to be unmanned in front of an audience or at all, for that matter.

Nate saw a movement to his side and turned to see Lily joining him, standing too far away for him to touch her. She was watching this meeting with a strange, benign expression on her face but held her body rigidly as if waiting for something to attack.

When Nate would have spoken, moved toward her, caught her attention in some way, Natasha tore from the embrace Laura was now giving her to hurtle herself at Victor and give him one of her fierce hugs with a cry of, “Granddad!”

Victor immediate dropped into a crouch and pulled the child between his legs, hugging her just as tightly as she was hugging him.

Lily allowed this for a moment and then she called to her daughter, “Tash, honey, come inside. I’m sure your, um… they would all like a cup of tea.”

Natasha pulled away from Victor and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Do you want tea?” she asked him, her head tilting enquiringly to the side.

Victor didn’t speak, likely couldn’t speak, he just nodded.

She pulled free of Victor and half-danced, half-skipped back to Nate whose hand she grabbed.

“Great idea, Mummy.” She quirked a smile at her mother and Nate’s body stilled at the sight. His daughter’s smile, that familiar smile, was the only thing it appeared she’d inherited from her mother.

She had Lily’s endearing, quirky smile.

Natasha continued. “While you make tea, I’ll show them my bedroom!” She said this like it would delight and surprise them beyond their wildest imaginings.

Natasha pulled Nate forward with her hand tugging at his and Nate walked toward the house. Lily fell in step behind them, not, he noticed, beside them.

As they drew nearer the house, Fazire still stood with hands on hips and with a ferocious expression firmly affixed to his face.

“That’s Fazire, he’s our special friend,” Natasha made the introduction happily. “Stop scowling Fazire,” she warned him, her voice bossy, loving and teasing at the same time. She dragged Nate right passed the other man who did not move an inch. Then Natasha whispered, “Don’t mind him, he’s been in a really bad mood for at least a week.”

Of that, Nate had no doubt.

They entered the house, Lily’s house, through the vestibule and an inner, lovely, stained glass door. Natasha pulled Nate directly to the stairs as he glanced around to get a sense of Lily’s home.

“I’ll get the tea,” Lily murmured, walking by them but not looking at them then she said sternly, clearly making it an order, “Fazire, you can help.”

Laura and Victor were standing in the entryway and Fazire walked, or rather stomped in behind them. He slammed the door and then carried on stomping down the hall, forcing Laura and Victor to jump out of his way, following Lily who had disappeared at the back of the house.

Natasha was tugging at Nate’s hand, already two steps up the stairs and Nate looked at her. With one look at her excited, open, expressive face, he smiled at her.

Her face shifted somehow when she caught his smile and then she smiled back and said, “Mummy said you had a pretty smile. She said it was the most handsome smile she’d ever seen in her life. She said it made her belly do somersaults.” She bestowed this information on him without any idea of the enormity of its meaning or its effect, even though behind them Laura gasped. “Come on!” Natasha urged excitedly.

She marched up the stairs, pulling him behind her but he barely took two steps when he abruptly stopped.

Hanging above the bottom stair he saw a picture.

The hall itself was painted soft beige with just enough peach to make it warm and inviting. The woodwork looked freshly painted in white but the wood of the banister and stairs had been refinished and was gleaming. The wood floors of the hall were also redone and those, and the stairs, had a muted beige carpet runner.

This would have been cultured and classic however it warred with a set of fairy lights, each light surrounded by a delicate, muted peach daisy, woven artistically through the rails of the banister giving it an offbeat feel. The only other adornment of the room was, every few steps, a picture in black and white in the same exact frame depicting the same subjects.

“My goodness,” Laura breathed, looking at the first one.

In it Lily sat in a wicker chair that had been placed at the front of the house. She looked thin and wan and had a rug thrown around her legs but she was smiling tiredly, almost valiantly, at the camera. She held a bundled, tiny baby carefully, as if she was fragile and as if the baby was the most precious thing on earth to her.

The next photo was the same except the baby was older and Lily was standing instead of sitting, holding the baby on her slim hip. She was looking down at Natasha, her long hair tucked behind her ear and she was again smiling. In the photo Natasha was gazing up at her mother, her chubby baby arm extended, her tiny fingers touching her mother’s cheek.

The next photo was more of the same, this time Natasha, a toddler and standing and Lily was crouched down and pointing to the camera, obviously calling the child’s wayward attention to it. Again Lily and also Natasha were smiling.

Each few steps was another and another, eight in all, the same photo but different. They were all of Lily and Natasha in slightly different poses, none of them rehearsed, none of them formal and in all of them Lily and Natasha were smiling.

Nate noted that Lily had cut her glorious red-gold hair from the length it used to be when he first met her, well passed her shoulders, to the length it was now, just brushing them, sometime when Natasha was five.

“Those are my birthday pictures except the first one wasn’t taken on my actual birthday because Mummy wasn’t home from the hospital yet. Fazire takes them. My Gramma Becky taught him how. She was a photographer,” Natasha informed them authoritatively as they hit the landing and she tugged him along through one of the middle of four doors.

Upon entry to his daughter’s room, Nate was momentarily stunned speechless rather than regularly so.

The room was painted in the pinkest pink he’d ever seen. He didn’t know such a pink existed. He thought that it might be a slightly better world if it that particular pink didn’t exist.

“Well,” Victor said, staring around him and struggling for something to say, “this is… er, pink.”

Natasha giggled. “I know.” She let go of Nate’s hand and started dancing around the room. “Mummy said I couldn’t have the pink I wanted because it was too shocking.”

Nate found himself wondering what was more shocking than the pink Lily had agreed.

Natasha skipped to a set of shelves while Nate glanced around. There was a small desk with spindly legs that was painted white, a matching wardrobe and chest of drawers. The centre of the room was taken up with a double bed with an intensely frilly, intensely girlie coverlet and it was festooned with ruffled toss pillows and stuffed animals. At the end, curled in a circle, was a fluffy ginger cat that completely ignored their arrival and continued existence.

Natasha gestured to the shelves.

“These are my books which Mummy used to read to me and now I read to her,” she bragged happily then lifted her hand to point to a shelf higher up, “and these are my bears which Miss Maxine gives me every year for Christmas. They’re special bears she has made ‘specially for me.”

She danced over to the cat and picked it up with a hand in its middle. The cat, obviously used to this, let its entire enormous, fluffy body go limp so that it was doubled over in her small hand.

“This is Mrs. Gunderson, my cat,” Natasha announced. “Fazire thinks it’s a silly name and not nearly nice enough for an animal of such a dignified breed. Mummy calls her Gunny. Mrs. Gunderson doesn’t sleep with me because I move around too much, she sleeps with Mummy.”

Natasha cradled the cat as she took them on the rest of the tour of her room which should have been short, considering there wasn’t much to it. However she seemed bent on introducing them to every item that had even the most minute meaning to her which was most of it. Then she stopped, dropped the cat, which made a quick getaway, put her hands on her hips, much like her friend Fazire, and looked around.

“Well!” She threw her arm out dramatically. “That’s my room. Now I’ll show you Fazire’s. I love Fazire’s room.”

Without being given an option and entirely unable to stop themselves in the face of her exuberance, they trooped out into the hall again. Laura and Victor glanced speculatively at each other and then at Nate as Natasha guided Nate by pulling at his hand. She walked to the front of the house and threw open Fazire’s door with a flourish, dropped Nate’s hand and skipped in.

Looking around he noted it was unlike any room he had ever encountered, especially a man’s bedroom. It was painted the deepest, darkest aubergine and was all but filled with an enormous bed covered in a satin coverlet which, instead of standard pillows, had a pile of turquoise-coloured round ones with buttons in the middle. Strangely it had a framed, signed poster of a baseball player on one wall and a bookshelf entirely covered, indeed exploding with books on another.

Natasha jumped on the satin coverlet and stated a question to which she expected only one answer, “Isn’t this a great room?”

Laura said quietly, “Are you supposed to be jumping on the bed, my darling?”

“Oh, Mummy doesn’t mind,” Natasha answered, still jumping. “Or at least she’s given up telling Fazire and I to quit.”

Laura’s startled eyes turned to Nate at the very idea of the big, round man jumping on a bed. Nate found himself biting back laughter at his daughter’s easily announced incongruity and his mother’s startled gaze.

Unlike Lily, who seemed to have worn down over the years, losing her dazzling joie de vivre, Natasha was flourishing. She was bubbly and sparkling and obviously very, very happy.

Nate was, quite frankly, awed by all that Lily had created. His daughter, the welcoming house where all its occupants had their own space that was exactly like they wanted it, brimming with their personality (considering Fazire’s room, however, Nate had his doubts about Fazire’s personality). It was overwhelming that his thin, delicate Lily could have made something so wonderful against such odds.

Interrupting his thoughts, Natasha threw her legs out and expertly, clearly having much practice, landed on her bottom then bounced off the bed.

“Now! Mummy’s room!” she announced, grabbing Nate’s hand and forging out the door.

“I don’t think –” Laura started, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of intruding on Lily’s privacy but Natasha wasn’t listening.

“I don’t like Mummy’s room much. Mummy says she’ll get to it though, ee… ven… chu… ah… lee,” she sing-songed the word she obviously heard often as she walked to the back of the house.

Natasha threw open another door and dragged him inside and it was almost as if he’d entered another home altogether and not a very nice one.

The room was tidy and the bed was made. Other than that, there was nothing good about it.

The walls had been stripped of wallpaper but never re-plastered or painted, some of the old paper left in places. The bed was old, the mattress lumpy and all the furniture scarred, mismatched and in disrepair. The wardrobe door hung open drunkenly, exposing the clothes shoved inside the small space, shoes lined up underneath it that didn’t fit in the closet. There were books piled on the bedside tables and on the floor which was old, unfinished planks without even a throw rug to cover them.

There were no pictures on the walls or any ornamentation or decoration in the room. The only thing Nate could see was a big picture frame on the battered dresser, in it the Lily he knew from eight years ago was hugging a dark-haired man while a woman with white-blond hair hugged Lily from behind, her head on Lily’s shoulder.

The cat strolled in, jumped agilely up on Lily’s bed, sauntered to her pillow and curled up again for another nap.

The room was devoid of personality, not a room you’d want to spend any time in and, somehow, utterly sad.

“Now do you want tea?” Natasha asked, blissfully ignorant of all the room said about her mother’s sacrifice, again tilting her head with her question and then, without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Nate’s hand again and tugged him out of the room.

As he passed his parents, Nate could see his own stricken thoughts at the sight of Lily’s room openly expressed on their faces.

“Nathaniel –” Victor said in a low voice as Natasha pulled him passed.

He was saved from answering when Natasha turned her head to look over her shoulder at her father.

“Nathaniel,” she said to him, “I’m named after you.” She continued to tug him down the stairs. “Mummy said ‘Nathaniel’ is the name of a gentleman, a good name, a strong name. She really likes your name,” she finished when they’d walked into the lounge.

“Tash, what are you filling their heads with?” Lily asked her daughter softly as they entered, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

The lounge was again painted in a soft beige, this with bright yellow tinge. The furniture was nice but obviously inexpensive and bought for comfort and with a view to lasting. Lily stood by the fireplace looking out of place even in her casual clothes. The likes of Lily didn’t worry about her furniture’s durability. The likes of Lily stood comfortably in opulent throne rooms.

Next to her was Fazire who had his feet planted apart but now his arms were crossed on his chest and resting on his protruding stomach. He still looked madder than a bull and had his head tilted back at an unseemly angle so he could stare down his nose at them even though he was barely an inch taller than the petite Laura.

Everyone stared at each other and no one said a word.

“Tea!” Lily said loudly, sounding desperate and jumping for a tray on a low table in front of a sofa.

Nate noted, distractedly, the teapot was chipped.

He also noted that she had not made him tea, which he did not drink, but automatically, and without a word or a glance in his direction, handed him a mug of black coffee.

This he did drink.

The significance of this gesture, of his daughter telling him stories about her mother speaking of his smile and his name, hit Nate with the strength of a train.

Lily wasn’t lost to him as he feared, nor was she shattered like she looked.

She was simply broken.

And broken he could fix.

He watched her closely and then he smiled.

She’d put on a muted rose-coloured cardigan which had a thin, lilac ribbon embroidered with flowers running one side of the buttons. This was done obviously to cover the bruises on her arms.

She busily made tea as if her life depended on it, performing this task with the finest of hostessing skills. She distributed the refreshments, taking a coffee herself and stepping back to stand beside Fazire.

Once she settled into place, everyone stared at each other again.

Moments passed and no one said a word. The silence became uncomfortable. Then it became excruciating.

Laura gazed worriedly at Lily. Victor gazed assessingly at Fazire. Fazire glared at everyone in turn. Natasha looked expectantly from one adult to the other.

Then Fazire opened his mouth, sucked in an enormous breath that should have evacuated the air from the room and was clearly about to speak when, sounding slightly hysterical, Lily shouted, “Photo albums!”

Fazire’s mouth clamped together with an audible clacking of teeth and he glowered at Lily who had denied him whatever grand statement he was about to make.

“Photo albums,” Lily repeated, slamming her cup awkwardly on the mantel which also held a variety of framed family photos. “Fazire takes tons of pictures. You can catch up on Tash through Fazire’s photos.”

“What a lovely idea,” Laura said softly but Lily didn’t look at her, in fact Lily was studiously avoiding looking at anyone and had been since they entered the room.

“I’ll go get them,” Lily offered and practically ran to the door.

“I’ll help,” Nate said, putting down his mug, intent on having a moment alone with her, the first moment they’d had alone in eight years.

Lily stopped, whirled and stared at him wearing an expression of horror mixed quite liberally with fear. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could utter a word Fazire spoke.

“I’ll help,” Fazire declared, also moving to put down his tea.

Nate straightened and looked at the bizarre man. “I said I’ll help,” he noted in a low tone.

“And I said I’ll help,” Fazire returned, clearly not reading nor not wishing to read Nate’s warning glance.

“Let Nathaniel help,” Laura courageously entered the burgeoning fray.

Fazire’s angry stare swung to Laura.

“Let Daddy help,” Natasha said, bouncing up on the sofa and looking at them all with bright eyes, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Fazire doesn’t like climbing all those stairs anyway. He usually floats up and he can’t do that while you’re all here.”

Natasha settled on the couch equally oblivious to the horrified look her mother was throwing her way or the surprised ones her father and his family were aiming at her.

“Fine,” Lily bit out, breaking everyone out of their shock at the little girl’s strange words. She turned her eyes to Nate and, he noticed, she had carefully schooled her features. “Nate?”

Without waiting for his response, she spun again and stamped out of the room.

He followed her slowly up one set of stairs where, he noted, she paused to close the door to her bedroom, and then up another.

There were several more doors off the next landing and she walked into a room that was obviously used for watching television. A large, plush corner sofa took up most of the comfortable space. The room also had several sets of inexpensive but stylish connecting shelves on which were lined with books, ornaments, more framed photos and an enormous collection of photo albums. Nate noted vaguely that in all the money he’d paid his interior designer, his penthouse still seemed cold and uninviting. Yet Lily, who had no money, created a home that was warm and welcoming.

She immediately walked to the shelves and pulled out an album.

“You take this.” She turned and handed him the album.

He took it reflexively saying, “Lily, we have to talk.”

She grabbed another album and completely ignored him.

“And this.” She extended the book to him and he accepted it.

“Lily.”

She yanked another album free from the shelf.

“And this.” She held it toward him but he didn’t take it. Her eyes still on the shelves, she jerked the album at him to indicate he should grab it but he ignored her.

“Lily, we need to talk,” he repeated.

“Okay, I’ll take this one,” she decided magnanimously, tucked it under her arm and turned to grab another.

Nate walked to the sofa and threw the albums on it. Then he went to the door. This he closed. Firmly.

She froze, one hand ready to take out another album, and she stared at him.

“What are you doing?” she enquired.

“We’re going to talk,” he told her, striding back to her.

She turned smartly back to the shelf.

“Alistair says we can’t talk. Alistair says that we should talk through our solicitors. Alistair told me to tell you whatever you have to say to me you should say it through him.”

She had started obsessively piling her arms with albums.

Nate reached her, placed his hands on her shoulders, gently pulled her away from the shelves and then divested her of the albums and dropped them on the deep seat of the couch. This he did without her resistance mainly because she was stunned into immobility.

He faced her. “We’re done talking through solicitors,” he informed her.

“Alistair says –” she started, her body going rigid as if girding for attack.

“I don’t care what Alistair says,” Nate cut her off.

“Well I do.”

“We need to talk,” Nate patiently repeated himself.

“We’ve nothing to say,” Lily retorted, breaking out of her statue-like stance and starting for the couch to retrieve the albums.

As she passed him Nate caught her by the elbow and halted her. She tilted her head to look at him, her eyes beginning to fire.

“Nate, take your hand off me.”

He ignored her and kept his hand where it was. He was not about to let this opportunity pass.

Suddenly he said quietly, “Thank you for naming Natasha after me.”

She blinked at him. Then she blinked again.

He took advantage of her momentary confusion. “Thank you for making her so lovely,” he murmured softly.

Her mouth dropped open.

Then he said what he’d been wanting to say for twenty hours.

“I thought you left me.”

Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes closed down and she pulled her arm free.

“We’re not talking about this,” she stated flatly.

Nate went on. “I came home and you were gone, everything was gone. I thought you’d left me.”

“Why on earth would I leave you?” she snapped, obviously not wanting an answer and her body noted she’d dismissed the subject. It did this by moving toward the sofa but he caught her again and gently pulled her back toward him.

Her eyes moved to his hand on her arm. “Nate, I asked you not to touch me.”

She was trying to twist her arm free but he kept his hand there, just above her elbow, far away from the bruises.

“I thought you left me,” he said again, needing her to hear it, needing her to understand it.

“You said that already,” she clipped, tilting her head back and there was definitely fire there now, it was mingled with weariness, but it was there.

This pleased Nate. It pleased him very much.

“Jeff must have taken the note, if I’d known –”

She interrupted him, making a sharp, frustrated noise in her throat. Giving up on freeing her arm, she decided simply to move her body away from him and took a step back.

He didn’t allow this either. His hand slid down her arm and before she knew what he was doing, his fingers laced in hers and her drew her closer.

She shook her head, her hand pulling at his saying, “It doesn’t matter now, it was a long time ago. It’s over.”

She was staring at the couch, staring at the albums, clearly wanting to carry on with her task.

Nate continued, determined. “My secretary was ill, I had a temp. She lost messages.”

Lily shook her head again, equally determined to ignore him.

“I moved, we were moving, I’d bought a new flat. I hadn’t mentioned it because we were too busy with…” he paused and went on, “other things. I was going to tell you that night I came home, that night you left.”

She tried to tug her hand free, her head no longer shaking from side to side but jerking. If she put her hands to her ears at that moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

He tightened his hand in hers. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have returned your calls.”

At this announcement, her eyes flew to his, her head stopped swinging and his other hand went to her waist.

Nate finished. “I would have flown to Indiana to be with you. Lily, I’m sorry about your parents.”

She looked into his eyes and he saw the sorrow flash in hers, whether it was at his desertion or her parents loss or both, he did not know but at the sight of it, the strength of it, he felt it settle somewhere deep within him.

Then her eyes cleared and the shutters came down.

“Thank you, Nate,” she said carefully, with studied politeness. “Now, are you finished?”

“No,” he said calmly, watching her closely.

The shutters flew open again.

“Well I am,” she snapped, “no more talking!”

She again tried to jerk her hand free but he tugged it gently but forcefully and at this unexpected pull, she came forward on her toes falling into him. Her hand went to his chest to break her fall. He felt it where it touched him, searing through his shirt like a brand and his other arm immediately closed around her waist.

“No more talking?” he asked, his tone, as well, deceptively polite.

“That’s right. No more talking,” she agreed, struggling to pull fee.

In a flash, he decided to play a dangerous game, to take a risk, to move ten steps forward before the door in front of him was even opened the barest crack. He could, he knew, slam right into it. Or it could open at the last minute and let him enter.

He weighed his options in mere seconds and took the risk

“All right, Lily,” he replied gently, “we were never very good at talking.”

And then his head began to descend slowly toward hers.

As he came closer, she arched her back against his arm to get away from him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

His hand released hers and stole around her, creeping up her back to press between her shoulder blades and bring her back to him.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Nate answered.

“You are not!” she snapped, her voice filled with surprise and anger.

“Yes,” he stated implacably, “I am.”

His hand went up further, slid along her neck into her soft hair to hold the back of her head. Her body came into contact with his, her breasts brushing his chest, her hips a whisper away and he fought the urge to crush her against him.

“Take your hands off me!” she cried.

He dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers.

“No.”

Still struggling, she demanded, “Let me go!”

Against her lips, he said, “This time, Lily, I’m not letting you go.”

And then he kissed her. The minute his lips pressed against hers she froze in his arms not trying to struggle but keeping her body perfectly rigid.

His lips coaxed and teased but she didn’t react. She stayed still and motionless and entirely unresponsive.

Nate wasn’t buying it and he wasn’t giving up.

He ran his tongue across her lower lip but her lips didn’t budge.

“Open your mouth,” he demanded boldly.

She shook her head, her hair sliding against his arm.

His other arm tightened at her waist bringing her into full contact with his frame.

“Lily, open your sweet mouth. Let me taste you again.”

She made another noise in the back of her throat, this guttural with some emotion he could not decipher. He decided to take this as a good sign.

“No?” he asked softly, his lips still on hers.

She didn’t move.

Undeterred, he tried another tactic.

He slid his mouth across her cheek to her ear.

“Do you know,” he murmured in her ear, kissed her there and he felt her still body turn rock solid, “that I remember everything. I have this… ability,” he flicked his tongue against her earlobe, “and I never forget anything.”

She kept her body completely controlled. One hand was flattened against his chest pressed between them. Her other hand was at his waist putting pressure there to push him away.

He moved to rest his forehead against hers, his nose along hers and his hand slid from the back of her head to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.

“I remember everything about you,” he told her, looking into her eyes, those remarkable eyes hadn’t changed, hadn’t faded, with their pale blue irises ringed in midnight. “All these years they would torment me, those memories. The sound of your voice, your laughter, the sight of your smile, the feel of you pressed against me while you slept.”

She shook her head, her forehead rolling against his, both of her hands pushing against his chest now to get away. Her eyes were filled with fear.

Nate kept going. “I thought I lost you but I never forgot, couldn’t forget. You were so sweet, incredibly sweet. The taste of your mouth, the taste of you between your legs, your hands on me, your mouth on me, the feel of you underneath me tightening around me when you came.”

Her lips parted, in shock at his words, he knew.

And he didn’t care.

“That’s it,” he whispered encouragingly and he kissed her again, his tongue sliding inside.

She fought for a second then she gave in with a soft moan. He felt a searing of triumph as her hand at his chest slid up and around his neck, her other arm went around his waist and she held him fiercely there as if she’d never let him go. Her head tilted one way and Nate’s slanted the other and her tongue touched his.

And she tasted exactly as sweet as he remembered.

Sweeter.

He deepened the kiss as she leaned forward and fit her body into his just as she used to, wriggling to get closer, press deeper, like she wanted to be absorbed. His arm tightened at her waist as his hand did the same at her jaw, holding her head tilted to his. He felt his body harden with need, eight years of need as eight years of yearning filled the kiss, surged through his frame, heating his blood to that familiar fever that he never felt for anyone else. A fever that was only for Lily.

He groaned into her mouth and she shivered as she accepted it, her hand sliding into his hair to hold his head to hers.

The kiss was desperate and wild with eight years of longing and he was completely lost in her.

But she was not lost in him.

The kiss had proved to him that nothing had changed in Lily, except one thing.

She was a mother.

With mother’s ears and a keen mother’s sense.

She tore her lips from his and turned half-stunned, half-passion-filled eyes to the door.

Slowly, Nate followed her gaze.

And in the doorway stood Natasha staring at them with wide-eyed wonder.

Then Natasha’s face split into an exquisite, gleeful smile and the little girl broke into a run.

Before Lily could disengage from his arms, Natasha slammed into them, throwing her arms around both their waists and burying her face in the spare space between them.

That moment for Nate, who had never had such a moment in his entire life, was so profound it nearly brought him to his knees.

But he had to remain standing to support Lily and Natasha who were both leaning into his body and his arms.

The hand Nate had at Lily’s face dropped to the back of his daughter’s neck.

Lily’s head lifted from her sober contemplation of Natasha, the girl still pressed at their sides. He noted, when he looked in Lily’s startling blue eyes, she’d had time to get herself under control.

She looked him right in the eyes and whispered fiercely, “This doesn’t change anything.”

He shook his head and smiled down at her, knowing she was wrong.

Softly, still shaking his head, Nate informed her of this important fact, “You’re wrong, darling. It changes everything.”