Chapter Three
At least the next day was a day off, Celia thought. It was a Thursday, a day she usually spent blowing off steam at home cleaning, but most of all simply playing with her daughter. Most of the week Maisey went to a delightful little daycare, but on Thursdays, Celia could feel a sense of true relief as she cuddled her daughter, made her meals and kept her close.
It was a very normal Thursday, with Maisey crawling carefully around in the blocked-off living room and Celia cutting up food to throw into the slow cooker. The food in the slow cooker would keep her well for the next week, and there was something delightfully domestic about doing her cooking on her day off.
As normal as it was, however, Celia couldn’t help glancing at her phone with renewed anxiety every now and then. She told herself that she didn’t care if James called, but she knew very quickly that that was a lie. The idea of him calling filled her with a kind of panic, but the idea of him not calling filled her with rage.
There really is no way for him to win on this one, but she realized very quickly that in the end, there was no way for her to win.
She had almost managed to put him out of her mind when there was the buzz of her doorbell.
Did I order something? Celia wondered with a frown. She buzzed the door open, and she didn’t undo the chain when there was a knock.
Instead of a delivery man, it was James behind the door. For a moment, Celia almost closed it again.
“You?” she asked, not budging, and he inclined his head.
“It’s me,” James said needlessly. “Let me in.”
Not by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin, she nearly said, but she shook her head.
“I didn’t tell you where I lived,” she said. “I told you to call me.”
“And I decided that that certainly wasn’t personal enough for the topic of conversation,” James said bluntly.
“Funny, that seems personal enough for me,” Celia replied with some asperity.
James gave her a thin smile, one that she remembered him using when he was on the phone with someone stubborn. It was a grim thing that meant that he would do what he had to to ensure victory, no matter what it was.
“Open the door, Celia,” he said firmly. “Believe me when I say that you want to do this with me now, like this, and not if I have to get a family lawyer involved.”
She shivered. She glanced over at Maisey, who was playing in the living room, unconcerned. “How did you find me? I gave you my phone number, not my address.”
James refused to look ashamed at her words. “I’m a very wealthy man, and I have my ways. It doesn’t matter. Now let me in, or I will use those ways to make this very unpleasant for you. It does not have to be.”
Please, please let this turn out all right, she thought, and feeling as if she were opening the door to a wolf, she unchained the latch.
James entered the apartment with the care of a wary predator, looking around in curiosity. When she saw his beautiful suit and the shine of his shoes, it only made her more aware of how shabby everything was. It was clean, of course, and she even liked to think that it had some style, but the truth of the matter was that just about everything that she and Maisey had came from the second-hand stores or from helpful neighbors and friends.
“You’re not living in the place on Delmont anymore,” James said, and she shrugged.
“I was going to stay there until Maisey needed her own room, save a little money, but it was too close to the police station. She cried whenever the sirens went off, and I couldn’t let her wake up at all hours like that. This place opened up, and I was lucky that I got a promotion at the museum just about then.”
James frowned, and she braced herself for whatever he was going to say about the place she was living in when Maisey made an interrogative sound. They both turned to see that she had hauled herself up to a near standing position on the baby gate, her mouth opened wide in a baby grin.
“What does she—”
Before James could finish the statement, Maisey’s unsteady baby grip wavered, and she sat down with a whuff of surprise. The diaper likely padded it, but the shock made her screw up her face with tragedy. The noise that James made was surprisingly close to Maisey’s, but Celia simply swept into the living room, nudging the gate aside so that she could scoop her daughter up into her arms.
“It’s okay sweetie, it’s okay,” she said, bouncing her daughter on her hip. “You’re fine, not hurt at all?”
“How do you know?” demanded James, and Celia shot him a surprised look.
“She’s a tough little girl,” she said. “Hauling herself up and falling down, that’s just her learning how to walk. It’s important for her to do, or she’ll never learn. See? She’s not really upset.”
Maisey stopped crying almost as soon as her mother started bouncing her, and now she was looking straight at James with a curious expression.
“Is she mine?” James asked, and Celia’s face hardened. She stalked to the couch, where she cradled Maisey protectively in her arms. Her little girl was quiet for the moment, but Celia couldn’t help but notice that her eyes never left James’s.
“If you do the math, you’ll find that there is no way that she is anyone else’s,” she said with a shrug. “However, I want to be utterly clear with you: Maisey is my daughter. I was the one who gave birth to her, who sat with her through what felt like years of colic, who celebrated when she started sleeping through the night. You weren’t a part of that.”
“I didn’t know,” James said, and to Celia’s fury, he had the nerve to look hurt. Now he was the one who was hurt?
“That’s not my problem,” she said, her voice clipped. “I tried to tell you. I called you what must have been eight times at that damned number you left me. I did everything but fly to Dublin and stand in front of your office with a sign.”
James gazed at her, his dark brows drawn together with a frown. “I am telling you, I did not know,” he said, but then his words cut off as Maisey struggled to get out of Celia’s arms. Celia guessed that it looked far more dire to anyone who wasn’t used to how rambunctious even one year olds could be.
“Okay, baby, okay,” she cooed. She let Maisey down on the floor, and to her wry dismay, Maisey crawled straight for James. There was a part of her that was nervous about her daughter coming close to a man who was all but a stranger, but she stayed where she was.
James seemed to hold his breath as Maisey came closer. For a moment, Celia wondered if he would step away, but instead, he sat down cross-legged on the floor, his blue eyes wide and fascinated. She had to admit that there was something fascinating about a man as powerful and well-dressed as James sitting on her floor, carpeted as it was with industrial shag and frankly in need of a bit of vacuuming. James reached one hand towards Maisey, and Maisey chortled, bonking her head lightly against his touch. She reached for his hand, grabbing one finger and pulling on it so she could drag herself up to a half standing position. She held it for a moment before toppling forward towards him. James made a slightly distressed sound, but Maisey was all smiles, falling into his legs.
Celia sighed, coming to sit next to James on the floor.
“This is good,” she murmured. “She never usually likes strangers so well. She likes Joyce and Joyce's husband Walter, who came over to help a lot when she was small, but almost everyone else she has to get used to.”
“Is... is it possible she knows me?”
“Anything is possible, I suppose,” Celia said, but when she looked at the way her tiny daughter looked up at James with total adoration, she wondered.
“She’s beautiful,” James said, sliding one gentle finger along Maisey’s petal-soft face. “She looks so much like you.”
“You think?”
“She has your beauty.”
James said the words as if they were self-evident, worthy of no more thought than a moment’s notice. They had the effect of making Celia’s jaw draw for a moment, and then she shook her head.
“That’s a kind thing for you to say. I sincerely hope that Maisey ends up being prettier than I ever was. Honestly, though, she’s smart and healthy and spirited, and that’s really all I could ever ask for. She’s definitely not going to be as shy as me.”
“What does... Oh!” James stilled as Maisey clambered laboriously onto his lap.
“Just hold her,” Celia said with a sigh. “Trust me, they’re made of rubber. You are not going to break her, I promise.”
She showed James how to pick Maisey up properly, and then how to lean her against his chest. The tiny girl snugged her cheek against James’s suit, burbling happy before her eyes fluttered closed.
James rocked Maisey instinctively, and then he glanced at Celia. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you were alone with her. She is a pleasure, a lovely little lass, but that could not have been easy.”
Celia shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. It was one that she had had over and over again in her head. She had asked herself so many times what she would say if she met James again. Sometimes she was recriminating, sometimes she was proud and aloof. Now that it was actually happening, however, she couldn’t find the words that she had polished over all of those long and sleepless nights.
“She’s the most important thing in my world,” Celia finally said. “She is so precious to me. I would never regret anything that brought her into my life.”
“Not even me?” James asked wryly, and Celia looked at him, startled. There was something vulnerable and real there, and even though she and James had been many things to one another, vulnerable was not anywhere on that list. At the very least, he had not been vulnerable to her.
“I don’t regret you,” she said. “I really don’t.”
James was silent, and Celia sighed.
“Come on, I’ll show you how to put her down for her nap, and then we can talk.”
James was clumsy at first, but she could not deny what a fast learner he was. Something inside her twinged at how tender he was laying Maisey in her crib, making sure that she was positioned correctly and that her small blanket was draped over her. Celia told herself that she had to ignore that twinge, but she knew it was there all the same.
James looked loath to leave Maisey at first, but finally he came away, lingering only for a moment at the doorway.
Celia led him back to the living room. Something had changed between them, but right now, she still didn’t know what that was.
“She is a wonder,” James said, and she could hear the Irish accent come out a little stronger.
“I have always thought so,” Celia agreed. “When I first laid eyes on her, I realized why parents would kill for their children. The thought of anyone hurting her makes me want to tear things apart.”
James chuckled a little, but he nodded. “I think I can understand a bit of that myself.”
“Can you?” asked Celia, her voice sharp but low.
James’s head jerked up at her tone, and he regarded her wariness. “Celia...”
“Because that’s an interesting thing to say for a man who wasn’t here for any of this.”
“Listen to me, Celia,” he said. “I want you to know that I had no idea that Maisey existed. I never did. If I had known, I would never have—”
“Would have what? Left us? Left me? Look, James, you can make all the excuses you want, but at the end of the day, I know what happened.”
James looked frustrated, pacing back and forth on the worn carpeting. “Celia, I genuinely had no idea. I don’t know how to prove to you that I didn’t.”
“I don’t need you to,” she said curtly. “I want your promise that you are not going to interfere with me and with Maisey.” James’s face darkened like an oncoming storm rolling over the sky.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” he growled. “She is my daughter, and I have rights.”
“She is my daughter, and as far as I am concerned, you have nothing,” Celia said, her voice harsh. She could never have been this cruel, this sharp, when they were together. Becoming a mother was like getting superpowers, she thought wryly.
“I raised her, I have nurtured her, and I have proof that I made those calls trying to locate you. As far as I am concerned, if you wanted to be a part of things here, you would have said so then.”
If Maisey had not been sleeping in the next room, Celia had a feeling that James might have started shouting. As it was, his eyes narrowed dangerously and he crossed the floor with two long steps. When she refused to rise from the chair, he hauled her up by her shoulders. Even in his anger, his touch was considerate, but she only gazed at him, her chin lifted.
It was only when she met his eyes that Celia realized that she had made a terrible mistake. She had never realized how very vulnerable she was to James before, not when she was touching him. She should have remembered that when he touched her, her body cried out for him. There was a need deep inside her that ran through her very core. A part of her craved him, and now she realized that time had nothing to do with it. She always would.
James seemed to sense it too. Suddenly his grip on her shoulders tightened but there was no rage on it. They were both aware of the electricity that danced between them that made them tremble. The power of what they had done two years ago was there still.
James was the one who moved first. He brought her close to him, so close that she could feel the heat of his body and his strength. Two years was an eternity, or at least Celia had thought so. She had thought that she would barely remember what James felt like. Now she knew she was wrong. Her body remembered, and she craved him.
The kiss struck like lightning, his mouth slanting over hers as he cupped her cheek with the palm of one hand. At first it was almost chaste, but the heat overtook it, leaving them both shaking. His tongue caressed the seam between her lips, and she parted eagerly for him. She had lost her shyness for him years ago, and somehow, it seemed as if she had never gotten it back. Instead, she hungered for him, and when she could, Celia dragged his tongue deep into her mouth. Her eagerness dragged a deep longing sound for him, and then he was dragging her even closer to him.
Their bodies still fit well, though Celia could feel that there was something new to this as well. They were different people, or at least she was. The passion was the same however, and suddenly she was clinging to him. She felt as if she had somehow never realized that she was in famine, and now there was food and water. Now there could be sustenance.
She reveled in his body, running her hands up and down his frame as if she needed to satisfy herself that he was still there, still real. She thought she would never get enough until she felt his male need pressed against her thigh. That awakened a bonfire of need in her, but then she realized what she was risking. With a hoarse sound, she pushed him away. For a moment, she wondered if she could budge him, if he would care, but then he stepped back, letting his hands drop to his side.
She studied him. He was still the consummate playboy, good looking and well-dressed, but there was something bright and desperate in his eyes. She knew that she likely looked no better. Her mouth was likely as red as his was, and she knew that the same needed that thundered through her was echoed in him.
“Get out,” she said, her voice thin but true. “You want to know why you can’t stay? This is why. When we’re together, I cannot trust myself.”
“God, woman, when did you become so cruel?” he asked, and she smiled, a smile as bitter as a winter morning.
“When I realized I was pregnant with a child when I was barely able to feed myself, and when the father could not be found, at least by me. When you are that alone and that afraid? Yes, James, it can make you cruel.”
Her words seemed to stun him. At the very least, he nodded stiffly, standing up and backing away. “This isn’t over, Celia,” he said, and she narrowed her eyes at the menace in his tone. “Not by a long shot.”
“There’s nothing you have left to say to me,” Celia said, and she could almost believe that she meant it.