“What’s happening, Nora?” Sylvie’s mouth trembled as she gazed up at me with limpid fear in her eyes.
“I don’t know, sweetie.” My voice shook, probably only intensifying her worries, but I had a horrible feeling in my gut. “Let’s get you dressed.”
I had gotten her into the bathroom and she was brushing her teeth when I heard Aidan yell, “Over my dead body!”
Sylvie whimpered as my eyes grew wide.
What the hell was going on?
“Let’s hurry up, sweetie.”
“Nora?”
“It’s okay.”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Aidan roared.
“Don’t you talk to her like that!” Cal yelled back.
“This is my home. Get the fuck out!”
“Not without Sylvie.”
I felt her little hand curl around mine, bringing my startled gaze down to her. “Clothes on, Sylvie,” I whispered, hurrying her into clean underwear, jeans, and a sweater.
The yelling continued from the front of the apartment but I couldn’t stay in the bathroom with her forever, and I hated that Aidan was out there with no backup for whatever the hell was going on.
Holding tight to Sylvie’s hand, we hurried back out to them to find Aidan still in a face-off with Cal and Sally. “What is going on?”
Cal turned to me, his expression pleading. “Unfortunately, my new boss wants me over in San Francisco a few weeks earlier than we’d planned. Sally and I are leaving in ten days and that means Sylvie is too. We thought it best to come get her now, so we can adjust as a family for a few days before we head to the States. We have to talk with her school and get her transferred to a local school over there. It makes sense if she’s with us while that all happens. Most of her things can be sent for once we’re over there.”
“No!” Sylvie shouted immediately.
Cal’s face fell. “Baby—”
“No!” She ripped her hand from mine and fled. Her bedroom door slammed shut behind her.
Incredulous and furious, I shot her father the dirtiest look in my repertoire. “Don’t you think a little warning would have been nice?”
“We didn’t get any warning—” Sally began but I cut her off.
“I meant for Aidan and Sylvie. You couldn’t have picked up a phone and called Aidan to explain? I’m assuming you found out about this before this morning?”
He nodded.
“When?” Aidan bit out. The muscles in his biceps bulged with tension as he held them across his chest, as if trying to contain himself.
Again, Cal wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Yesterday morning.”
“You dirty bastard.” Aidan moved for him but I gripped his arm to halt him. “You knew about this at the meeting with our lawyers yesterday?”
When Sylvie’s dad didn’t reply, Sally sighed, as if we were causing a fuss for no reason. “We knew that you would try to stall everything and we don’t have time for that, Aidan. It was best to do it like this.”
“It was callous to do it like this,” I retorted.
“This is really none of your business.”
I glared at her. “This man and that beautiful little girl are my business.”
“Aidan, please,” Cal said, his expression seeming genuinely remorseful. “You’re right. This wasn’t the best way, but none of this is going to be easy on Sylvie. I thought it was better to rip the Band-Aid off. I’ve been weak, too afraid to ask for what’s mine. But she is mine and I want her home with me. Now.”
At Aidan’s continued silence, Sally threw her hands up. “For goodness’ sake, she belongs to Cal. Legally. We will call the police if we have to.”
“Sally,” Cal warned.
She huffed. “It’s true.”
He seemed to plead with her to be quiet. “This is her uncle, not her goddamn kidnapper.”
“Just give me today with her,” Aidan said, the words hoarse. I stepped closer into him, hearing the pain in his voice, even if these selfish assholes were too deaf to hear it.
“I wish I could, I do, but we’ve got too much to get done. And it’ll be hard no matter when we do this. Let’s get it over with. And anyway, you travel all the time to California. You’ll see her soon.”
Fury threatened to explode out of me. “You can’t even give him one day to say goodbye to his kid?”
“Not. His. Kid,” Sally enunciated coldly. “Now move out of our way or,” she held up her phone, “I will call the police.”
When Cal didn’t say anything to stop her this time, I reluctantly stepped aside and guided a rigid Aidan out of the way too.
Cal strode by us, his cheeks flushed, whether with embarrassment or anger, I couldn’t say. His bitch of a fiancée marched at his back, throwing me a smug look I wanted to wipe off her face. How could it be that Sylvie was going to be raised by that cow?
Powerlessness held me immobile, unable to say anything to soothe Aidan, who I think had disappeared too deep inside himself for me to reach anyway.
“No!” I heard Sylvie sob. “Daddy, no!”
“Tell me what you want to take with you, darling,” Sally said in a surprisingly placating voice. “You don’t want to leave anything behind you love.”
Uh. What about her uncle, you stupid asshat!
“Daddy, no, let me stay,” she cried so hard. Tears burned my eyes, my throat so tight, it was painful.
A few minutes later Cal walked out of the room with a tearful Sylvie in his arms; a far more subdued Sally followed with a small suitcase of Sylvie’s in hand.
“Uncle Aidan!” Sylvie shrieked and struggled to get out of her dad’s arms. Visibly distressed, Cal lowered her to the ground and she threw herself at her uncle.
Aidan caught her in his arms, holding her so tight, his eyes closed in obvious agony. Sylvie clung on fiercely, begging him not to let her go. “Shhh, baby girl, shhh,” he said, voice trembling. “It’ll be okay.”
But nothing he said could quell her tears and after five minutes of Cal quietly asking her to come back to him, her father lost his patience and hauled her out of Aidan’s arms.
“NO!” she screamed, holding her arms out to Aidan as Cal strode away. “Uncle Aidan! Nora! Uncle Aidan! Nora! NO!”
I sobbed, looking down at my feet, unable to watch, wishing I couldn’t hear that little girl scream all the way out into the hall.
And then to my absolute horror, I heard Aidan cry out and looked up in time to watch his knees give way. I reached for him, falling to my knees too, wrapping my arms around him. He fell against me, one fist curled tight in my shirt, the other in my hair, and I listened to him struggle to breathe through the tears he’d tried so hard to hold back.
I called in sick to work after all, but it wasn’t to spend a bittersweet day with two of my favorite people. It was to take care of one of them.
Devastated was too underwhelming a word for how Aidan felt. I was devastated for him. The remembered sounds of Sylvie’s pleas would pierce through our silence, making me wince every time, and I could only imagine that sound was on a constant loop in Aidan’s mind too. Grief and exhaustion from having so little sleep the night before hit him and he passed out on the couch.
While he was out, I called in sick and set about looking through his fridge and cupboards to see what I could make him to eat when he woke up. Finding the ingredients to make a quick pasta salad, I thought about Sylvie’s bedroom as I worked. All of her things would have to be packed up and I’d rather I be the one to do it than him.
My eyes flew over to him every ten seconds, like I was afraid he’d disappear too. His large, long body was sprawled out on the couch as he slept. A big, strong guy who worked out five days a week and was one of the most potently masculine men I’d ever met.
It gutted me to see him knocked down like this.
As I chopped tomatoes, I began to seethe, wondering what the hell could be wrong with a person that they’d be so selfish as to cause the scene that I’d witnessed this morning. I worried for my sweet girl growing up with a man and woman as selfish as Cal and Sally. It wasn’t that I was blind to the truth. Sylvie was Cal’s daughter and it was his right to raise her. But I hated how it was always on his terms. He was too busy with his career to be around much when she was younger, but now that he’d finally decided to grow up, he demanded his parental rights—to hell with how much of a wrench it would be, not only for Aidan but for Sylvie.