As I sit staring at the fancy flocked wallpaper I can’t rid myself of the urge to talk to someone. My first reaction is to call Ireland but I already know she’s off with Easton, and the last thing she needs is to sit and listen to my misery. But if I’m honest with myself, it’s not her voice I want to hear. Swallowing down my apprehension, I grab my cell and dial a number that’s been ingrained in my brain since I was a kid.

My heart pounds as I wait for the call to connect. I convince myself that no one will answer.

“Hello?” Her soft and gentle voice has tears stinging my eyes immediately.

“Mom,” I whisper.

“Summer? Thank goodness you’re okay. Where on earth are you? We haven’t been able to get hold of either you or Ireland. We were beginning to get worried.”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Ireland’s nana was taken into hospital. She’s going to be fine, but her mum wanted to let her know.”

“I’m glad she’s okay.”

“Where are you, young lady?” Her tone brings everything to the surface.

“I’ve…I’ve been so stupid, Mom. I’m so sorry,” I wail.

“Shhh, …it’s okay, baby. Calm down and you can tell me all about it. I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.” Her encouraging words don’t quite hit the spot because at this point I’ve no idea if this can be fixed.

“I’m…I’m in London.”

“As in, Ohio?” she asks sceptically.

“No. London, England.”

“Why?”

Sketchy memories of our wedding assault me and I sob to the soothing sounds of my mom on the other end of the phone.

“I got…”

“You got,” she prompts.

“Married.”

“WHAT?”

I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips because this whole thing must sound utterly ridiculous.

“I met a British guy at work in Vegas and we got…married. I moved here with him but…”

“But?”

“I’ve just found out he’s been lying to me.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a hotel,” I sob.

“Oh, baby. Why didn’t you tell us you’d met someone?”

“It was all just so fast, and I didn’t—” I trail off, not wanting to say what I’m thinking, “think you’d care,” I whisper, in the hope she won’t hear.

“Oh, Summer. That is so far from the truth. Of course, we care.”

“But—”

“I know things haven’t been…right. But we’ve been under a lot of stress, and you suddenly moving across the country hurt us. I can’t lie about that. But we still care, of course we do. I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’ve no—” My words are cut off with a hammering on the door so hard I’m worried it’s going to come off the hinges. My heart jumps into my stomach. “Shit,” I whisper. “He’s found me.”

“SUMMER! OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR.”

“I think you might be right,” Mom says in my ear. “Go and talk to him.”

I nod, although she’s no idea I’m agreeing with her.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” I whisper as I listen to his booming voice calling out to me.

“You go and talk to him. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“Anytime, baby. No matter what happens, I’m here and always willing to listen.”

Her words cause more tears to drop. “I love you, Mom.”

“Go and sort your man out,” she says before we both hang up and I’m left staring at the door that’s rattling on its hinges.

“Summer, I will take this door down if you don’t open the fucking thing,” he warns, and the apprehension that was just filling my stomach flows through my entire body.

I stand, my knees weak, and I’m almost at the door when there’s an almighty crash. It flies open and I’m flown back onto my ass.

“Fuck, are you okay?” Harrison asks, falling to his knees beside me.

Shaking my head to allow me a few seconds to register what the fuck just happened, I watch his face drop.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry. Shit. Fuck.” His hands gently cup my cheeks as his eyes run over me, looking for any injuries.

“I’m fine,” I whisper.

When his eyes eventually make it back to mine, they’re dark and full of concern. “I’m so fucking sorry, Summer.” Helping me from the floor, he walks us over to the edge of the bed. I’m too desperate to hear what he’s got to say for himself to respond.

He drops his gaze to his lap for a few seconds as he thinks. Sucking in a slow breath, he turns to me, his expression a mixture of dread and regret.

“I never meant to keep them from you, Summer. I just…” Raising my eyebrows for him to continue, he lets out another breath. “You mentioned me having kids waiting for you, and you were in such a panic about moving here that I couldn’t possibly tell you about them. I thought it would be what sent you home. I couldn’t risk losing you. I stupidly thought I could tell you later, but as each day went by, it got harder and harder to bring them up. I was trying to protect you all. Those two mean everything to me. Plus, I needed to think of them. I needed to know you were happy here before introducing you all. Rebecca has put them though so much already.”

“You think that I wouldn’t have understood that they need stability in their lives? You think I wouldn’t have agreed to be introduced to them slowly? Jesus, Harrison, what do you think of me?”

Dropping his head into his hands, he lets out a frustrated groan. “I fucked up. I know. I already hate that I have a past that’s affecting our future. I hate the shadows that fill your eyes whenever you think about Rebecca and my previous life.”

“You lied to me, Harrison. You’ve kept the most important part of your life quiet for weeks. You kept everything that showed they existed locked away, telling me they were storage rooms. What else haven’t you told me?”

“Nothing.”

“If there is anything, then now’s the time to tell me.”

“You know everything. I promise.”

His eyes urge me to believe him, to trust that the person sitting in front of me is the person that I believe him to be. Everything in me wants to trust him, but hiding those two from me is so massive. The rational part of me knows I’d be crazy to let this go, but as I stare into his dark, pleading eyes, all I want to do is believe him.

“Do you have any idea how it felt, opening the door to them?”

“No, I can’t imagine.” He sits looking defeated for a few seconds before he jumps up and starts collecting the few things I have scattered around the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you home, where you belong.”

“Harrison…No, I—”

“I’m not going home without you. I know you’re not going to forgive me just like that. But I won’t leave you here.”

“I’m not ready to go back yet,” I admit quietly. I’ve got too much to process right now. “What are you doing?”

“If you’re not leaving this room, neither am I,” he says as he toes his shoes off and gets comfortable resting back against the headboard.

“I came here to get away from you.”

“Not that easy, sweetheart.” The cocky grin he gives me has butterflies tickling at my stomach but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him get away with this so easily.

Scooting back up the bed so I’m sitting beside him, I focus my eyes on the mirror on the opposite wall, refusing to look his way. His dark stare does things to me and I know it’ll have me caving if I look at him for too long.

“Tell me everything. Everything you’ve been avoiding telling me, right now,” I demand.

“Uh…okay. As I said, Rebecca and I had been together since we were kids. Our parents were, still are, friends and it was almost kind of assumed that we’d end up together. I’d loved her from as early as I can remember, and everything was so natural between us. As the years went on we got more serious. We went to the same uni so we could be together, our parents rented us a flat. Then not long after we turned twenty, Rebecca found out she was pregnant. It was a total accident. We both had said we wanted a family but not while we were still so young, and students, but we did what we had to do.

“Watching my babies grow was the most incredible experience. I’d wake up every morning excited to see how much her bump had grown. Everything was perfect. Until she had them. Then the postnatal depression kicked in and everything started spiraling out of control.

“I thought it would all work itself out. That she’d recover and become the mum I always believed she could be. And she was, in a way, for a while. We got married, moved into our own place. But then she lost one of her closest friends and she fell back into the rabbit hole. I ended up moving us all back into my parents’ place so I could have some support. Rebecca spent most of her time out with friends, socializing, spending as much money as possible and as little time at home as she could.”

A lump forms in my throat as I imagine how a young Harrison would have coped with all that.

“I didn’t believe for one minute she’d throw away what we had. I thought aside from her struggles that we were solid. She was seeing a therapist; I thought it would all get sorted and we could move on with our lives. Well, she moved on with her life. She’d been sleeping with him for months behind my back. I was at home with our kids while she was out there living the high life.

“Everything was about how it looked to the outside world. So she wouldn’t allow me custody, she took me for everything she could and ran off with him and took my kids.”

I can feel his anger oozing from every pour as he spits those final few words.

“They were my life. But off she went, and enrolled them in the most expensive boarding school she could find. I was only allowed to see them on my allotted time slot if they weren’t busy with school stuff, or any of the other activities she arranged for them so she didn’t have to parent them.”

“Wow, Harrison. I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is. Now she uses them as a bargaining tool to get whatever she wants. She’s sick.”

A thought pops into my head.

“She made this happen.”

“Made what happen?”

“She phoned the house earlier. She knew they were coming and that I was home.”

“Fucking bitch,” he spits, getting up from the bed and pacing from wall to wall. “What did she say to you?”

“She told me that I was living her life and that you were lying to me.” I can hear her conniving voice loud and clear in my head. “She told me to have a nice evening. She had this all planned.”

Harrison’s face is red with anger, his chest heaves and his fists clench at his sides. “I’m so fucking done with her games.”

I give him a few minutes to calm himself down before asking a question I hope will distract him from wanting to do any more damage to this hotel room. The door already only just about shuts; I don’t need him putting his fists through the walls as well.

“Tell me about them?”

Looking up, his eyes soften when they land on mine. “You want to know?” His brows draw together in confusion.

“Of course I do. They’re your kids.”

A small smile twitches at his lips and I see the Harrison I fell in love with coming back to me.

“Their names are Alfred and Cassandra, although the three of us prefer Alfie and Cassie. They’re twelve going on eighteen. They both go to this horrendously pretentious boarding school the other side of the city. Alfie is a huge football fan, as you probably saw, and Cassie loves horses.”

The look on his face as he talks about them melts my heart—his love is as clear as day. It makes me think that everything’s going to be okay. That we’re going to be okay, even if our family is going to be bigger than I expected.

“Are they the reason you left me in Vegas?”

“Yes. Cassie fell off her horse. Rebecca was too busy in Madrid to come back to make sure she was okay, but I got on the first flight to be with her.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, just a little concussion, no lasting damage. It didn’t stop her getting straight back up on the damn thing either.”

The look on his face makes me wonder how he managed to keep them a secret all this time. It seems like, in reality, they’re the center of his universe, as they should be.

“You said Rebecca is in Madrid. She just leaves them here at school?”

“Pretty much. They hate it and I hate it. I’d love to pull them out of that school, put them in the one we went to and have them live with me. But it’s a fight I’m yet to win.”

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, I watch as he heads into the bathroom, my mind filled with the idea of suddenly finding myself as a mother figure to two people over half my age. If people didn’t think I was too young for Harrison now, they certainly will when they see the age of his kids.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t realize he’s looking down at me until he speaks.

“Summer,” he snaps, suddenly sounding pissed off.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck is this?” He drops the box I left in the bathroom a few hours ago. My heart jumps into my stomach as his stare burns into me. “Am I not the only one with a secret?”

I went for a piss. I didn’t expect to find out that I was going to be a dad—again.

Summer’s face pales as she looks between the pregnancy test box and me. Her expression drops as her panic sets in.

“Harrison, no…I…”

“What the fuck, Summer? How can you be angry at me for keeping secrets when you’ve been doing the exact same thing. What were you planning on doing? Running away and taking my baby away from me? Just like she did?”

“What? No, Harrison, I would never—”

“But you didn’t tell—”

“It was negative.”

“It was what?”

“Negative.”

I stare at her sincere face as everything I was feeling slowly washes away. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited about the prospect of being a dad again, but the fear of losing the chance overruled that. The pain of having my kids taken away from me pulls at my heart.

Falling down on to the bed, I let out a sigh, trying to get my head together.

Summer places her tiny palm on my forearm. “Harrison, I’d never take your child away from you.”

“It’s easy to say that. I never thought Rebecca would do it to me, but look at us now.” A thought hits me. It’s something we’ve not discussed before. “Do you want kids?”

She’s silent for a couple of seconds. “One day.”

Nodding at her, I can’t help disappointment settle in the pit of my stomach. As scared as I was a moment ago to find that box, I thought maybe I was getting my second chance to be a proper dad.

“One day,” I repeat. My tone must express my thoughts because she soon turns to me.

“Yeah, one day. We’ve got plenty of time for that. I’ve got things I want to do first before becoming a mom.”

Smiling at her, the thought of her swollen with my baby fills my head. Pulling her to me, I wrap my arms around her shoulders and breathe her in.

I thought I’d lost her tonight. I thought my stupid actions had put pay to what had been the most incredible thing in my life for such a long time. She may not forgive me for what I’ve done right away, but she will eventually. She just told me she wants kids one day, so it’s all got to be fine. Right?

Laying us both down on top of the bed, I hold her to me.

I had no idea how I was going to find her, but when Danni suggested I check to see if any transactions had been made on Summer’s credit card, I couldn’t help but think it was genius. Although if Summer really was running, I had a suspicion she would be smarter than that. And I was right. There was nothing from any hotel but there was a cash withdrawal. Once I found the location I was able to pinpoint a couple of hotels in the area and all it took was a little sweet talking of the receptionist downstairs and I soon found out where my wife was. It was too easy, something I’m sure Summer wasn’t too happy about when I first started banging on her door.

“I’m still mad at you,” she whispers and I can’t help but laugh.

“I don’t doubt it. You have every right to be.”

“You lied to me. I married you, moved my life halfway across the world for you, and you didn’t have the decency to tell me the truth about your life and who you are.”

“You know exactly who I am,” I argue.

“You’re a dad, Harrison. That’s a huge part of who you are, and you never told me.”

I flounder for the right words but there aren’t any. “I’m sorry,” is all I can come up with. “I really want you meet them properly.”

“Do they know about me?”

“Of course.”

A little laugh falls from her lips. “I guess I should be happy about the fact I’m important enough for you to mention me to them. I presume they knew I had no idea they existed?”

“I didn’t outright tell them that—”

“I bet she did,” Summer says, interrupting me.

“Why is she so intent on ruining my life?” I groan.

Summer shrugs against me but she doesn’t offer up an answer.

I must drift off to sleep. I’ve no idea what the time was but after the stress of the afternoon, it felt too good to have her in my arms. When I wake, I’m alone in the bed. Opening my eyes, I find the only light in the room is coming from a little lamp over in the corner, and staring down at the desk with a pencil in her hand is Summer. As I watch I allow the soothing sounds of the lead running over the paper relax me.

Her hair is pulled back from her face and she’s still wearing the same t-shirt and skirt she has been all day. She’s fucking beautiful.

Her phone lighting up distracts her and she picks it up before smiling down at it. I’m hit with a pang of jealousy that I’m not the one making her smile like that.

After typing a quick reply she places it back on the desk and resumes whatever she was drawing.

I watch her for the longest time, totally lost to her. But my need to touch her soon becomes too much and I slide from the bed.

“Shit,” she gasps when I place my hands on her shoulders and slowly run them down her arms, her whole body flinching under my touch.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you’d have heard me coming.”

Shaking her head, she drops it to the side and allows me the space I need to run kisses down the soft skin of her neck.

Her moan of pleasure vibrates against my lips and lust shoots straight to my dick. She might be pissed off at me, but I need her. I need to show her how sorry I am for not telling her everything from the beginning, and I need to show her what she means to me.

“Harrison—”

“Shhh…stop thinking. Just feel.”

She lets out a sigh but she doesn’t stop me.

My hands leave her for a couple of seconds as I pull my shirt over my head and drop it to the floor before coming to stand in front of her.

Her eyes hold mine for a few seconds. I can still see anger and disappointment darkening them. Guilt engulfs me that I’ve made her feel that way. That I’ve made her question what she means to me. Her eyes soon drop from mine in favour of my naked chest and as glad as I am that I can’t see the evidence of my stupidity staring back at me, I miss the connection instantly.

Locking down my thoughts, I step back up to her, grasp the bottom of her t-shirt and peel it up her body.