Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) (17 page)

He flexed his shoulders. He went to take another sip of lemonade and curled his fist around the empty glass.
Stay cool, man
. Like Selena, who was ice-cold now, staring at him from the kitchen as if their meltdown hadn’t happened. But he’d felt her shock, felt her shaking. She’d gasped. And the soft sound of her wanting him had pulled him deeper into the kiss she’d been returning with abandon.

He’d envisioned several potential outcomes to him showing up on Belinda’s doorstep. He’d considered each one while he’d
waited for Selena to come home. But his grabbing her like he still had a right to, and her grabbing back, had been nowhere on his list. Instead of getting her to see reason, her barriers were even more firmly in place.

And damn if he wasn’t spoiling for another chance to rattle her cage.

But he needed to make some kind of amends. There had to be a speck of common ground left for him and Selena to build on, so they could discuss Camille sensibly.

“It still feels like I’m going to catch hell,” he said, “if your mom comes home and finds me alone with you.”

“We’re not alone.” Selena glanced down the hallway, finally joining him in the living room.

She paced back and forth. Then back again. She sat on the love seat Belinda used as a couch. The thing sported the same plaid tweed fabric as years ago. The same drooping cushions. The recliner beside it looked different, but it was just as faded. Both faced what looked like the same TV, rabbit ears perched on top. It was an almost self-righteously primitive setup compared with the state-of-the-art entertainment center Oliver had covered the cost of next door.

“If my mother could see us,” Selena muttered, “Belinda would definitely have something to say about this one.”

“This one?”

Selena looked like a queen amid the midcentury ranch’s fraying décor, with her silky length of mink hair and pale skin. She was wearing a sundress like yesterday. This one was made of a filmy lemon-yellow material that had him thinking of sherbet—and sipping every inch of Selena’s smooth skin while she melted all over him.

“You know my mother,” she said, yanking his attention back to their conversation. “She means well these days, but she can’t help but obsess over my running list of poor life choices. No degree. No husband for much longer. No savings. No baby daddy. No success keeping any of it from dumping back into Belinda’s lap, no matter how welcoming she’s been. She’d say I deserve better than to be hitting rock bottom with you again.”

“Camille deserves better, too.” At least they could all agree on that.

Selena winced. “Better than me?”

“Better than not knowing my family, even if your mom’s not going to be wild about you associating with me again. I’m assuming you haven’t told her about any of this.”

“I haven’t told anyone. Not even Parker—not the details, at least. That was the deal breaker for me when we got married. He wanted to know more about my past and who Camille’s father was. I wanted everything that had happened before New York to be over and done with. He either took us as we were, or not. My child deserved a fresh start. A clean slate where my mistakes couldn’t hurt her the way . . . the way they will now.”

Oliver sat in Belinda’s recliner. “You’re a good mom, Selena. And I can understand why you felt you had to do what you did seven years ago. But a part of you must realize the positive influence my parents could have on Camille’s life.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Selena smiled, as if that sad fact comforted her. “And I know your parents are good people, Oliver. I just don’t know how my daughter would react to finding out about them, only to have us move away again. And not upsetting her life any more than I already have is
all
I can let matter to me now.”

This Selena was stronger, he realized, than the girl who’d been so terrified of losing him. Stronger and potentially even more self-destructive than she’d been as a teenager, when she’d been trying to protect only herself from him.

“What’s happened to you?” he let slip out.

Selena shrugged, when she should be telling him to go to hell for judging her. “I’ve grown up, the hard way.”

“You’re giving up on my family without letting us prove we could be good for Camille.”

“I’ve learned a lot about second chances. The number one thing? That this is my life, my chance, my mistakes to make and make up for. It’s my responsibility to do the best I can for my daughter. She deserves that from me. And she’ll have it.”

“I don’t doubt she will. But why the hell does it have to be just you?”

“Because I’m all she’s ever had,” Selena continued, reasonable and calm while he could feel his blood begin to simmer again. “Because she’s not yours or your family’s to worry about. Not yet. Not until I’m sure it’s the right time. I wish I had a different answer that would make things easier. But I don’t. And don’t think I haven’t lain awake nights since coming back, wanting to talk it all through with someone. Get it out in the open. Make this right.”

“Then make it right.”

Selena shook her head. “Once we open that Pandora’s box, there’s no backing things up, regardless of what we discover. And springing a father Camille’s never met on her at this point in her life, when we’re
not
staying in town for any longer than it takes me to come up with the money to move again, would only confuse her more.”

Confuse Camille, Oliver wondered, or Selena?

It was a believable speech, fiercely delivered. Selena hadn’t so much as blinked while she’d spoken. She’d barely taken in air. But he’d just had her in his arms, felt her needing him the same bottomless way as when they’d been lovers. And she was wound so tightly now she seemed to be holding herself together by sheer grit.

“I’m not asking you to do anything you and Camille aren’t ready for.”

“Sure you are.”

“I want to do what’s best for everyone involved.”

“By forcing your way into my daughter’s life?”

“By talking with you about our mutual problem.”

“Camille’s no one’s problem.”

“Someone’s her father, Selena. Assuming you’re sure she’s not your ex’s.”

“Parker came along after I already knew I was pregnant.”

Oliver stared into his empty glass. “Does Camille know that?”

Selena nodded. “She’s always called him Parker. I’ve been honest from the start that he wasn’t her birth father. That her only blood family was a grandmother she’d never met before we moved in here.”

Oliver swallowed the reflex to argue the point on his parents’ behalf.

“I . . .” He tried to think of a gentler way to say it and couldn’t, when he’d smooth-talked countless skeptical CIOs into giving him their business. “I take my responsibilities seriously these days, Selena.”

“Me too. And Camille’s
my
responsibility.”

Which in her mind meant that the both of them were completely beyond his reach. “Your daughter’s my family, too.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If she’s not your ex’s, she’s either mine or Brad’s.” Another possibility struck him. “Could she be someone else’s?”

Selena choked as she sipped her lemonade. “Could you be more of a jackass?”

He let out the breath he’d been holding, relieved, grateful. “Then she’s either my daughter or my niece.” He slipped to the edge of the recliner. “Is it so hard to believe that that could matter to me?”

She went to put down her glass and missed the edge of Belinda’s scarred coffee table. She cursed and caught it before it could crash to the hardwood. But liquid drenched her arm, her dress, and the floor.

Oliver leaped forward and took the glass from her. He handed her the fresh handkerchief he’d slipped into his pocket that morning. She looked at the pressed white square, at his wrinkled jeans. Then she was gazing straight into his eyes, connecting again, crushing him with the mixture of home and loneliness he saw there. And her determination not to feel this . . . whatever this was between them.

She mopped up the table and then herself.

“You carry a handkerchief?” she sputtered, like she was accusing him of something. “Of course you do.”

He let her clean up, let her settle. He took in all of her, as if it were the last time. Smooth features, solemn eyes, and a guarded soul that he still felt tangled up in, whether either of them liked it or not.

“You really were hoping,” he said, “that no one would catch on.”

She handed him the soaked handkerchief. “I told Belinda we’d be in town for only a few weeks. There have been some complications.”

“Like what?”

When she clammed up again, she finally succeeded in pissing him off. He gave himself credit for not exploding and scaring her or the sick little girl sleeping in a bedroom down the hall. But,
complications
?

“We’re going to deal with this,” he said. “If you’d just listen—”

“I have listened. I listened when your brother came by school this morning, to try to get me to see reason. But—”

“Travis?” Damn it.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know. And don’t think it helps your cause for your family to be coming at me, too. Travis. Your mother. What’s next—Joe begging me from his hospital bed? I don’t want anyone to get hurt by this. But—”

“This is no one else’s business right now but ours.” And Oliver would make certain Travis and the entire Dixon crew understood that. “Once we break the news, I’ll get my family under control.”

She shook her head, a sad kind of envy overtaking her features. “They love you, Oliver. There’s no controlling that. And I wouldn’t want you to try. You need them too badly still.”

He stared at her, his heart feeling like it was teetering on the edge of a cliff, destined to fall and take him with it, no matter what he did next. His family did love him. They couldn’t have made that more clear, or the fact that they wanted him in town for as long as he could stay. So why did it feel as if none of that could make things right, not without Selena in his life, figuring this mess out with him?

“I’m not sure what Travis thinks he knows,” Selena said. “But he seems pretty certain I’m a threat to you settling in Chandlerville. Reassure him that I’m not, and he’ll back off. The best way you can keep everyone else out of my business is to drop your questions about Camille.”

“Drop them?” Drop the fact that he could be a father—to a little girl who thought he was cool. To Selena’s little girl.

“Give me some time. I can’t make a split-second decision about verifying her paternity. Don’t ask me to do that. We have to do this carefully, if we do it at all. Be reasonable, and—”

“I’ve been reasonable. But I’ve already talked with Brad. Do you understand what I’m saying? You need to tell your mother as soon as possible, because mine’s the one who started this. And I don’t see Marsha letting this drop. I’m sticking in town for as long as I have to—to deal with whatever my parents need me to. And my mother’s asked me to deal with this.”

“So now you’re
dealing
with my daughter . . .” Selena spat the words at him. “Is that what that display was outside? You cupping her cheek and smiling at her and crouching down in front of her to talk about cookies and lemonade? Maybe even kissing me just now. It was all for your parents’ sake, right? But now you want me to believe that Camille’s paternity means something to you personally.”

Oliver gritted his teeth. He felt just as incapable of helping Selena see reason now as when they’d been kids.

“Camille matters to me,” he insisted. “Even if the last thing you want is for anything about her to be about me. Let me help you see a different way through this. You’re ignoring the reality that there’s nothing I take more seriously than my responsibility to my family.”

“I see reality just fine.” Selena collected both their glasses. “And the reality is that I get to decide what’s best for Camille. And you get to leave. Don’t think you can bully me into agreeing to what you want. I’ll deal with telling Belinda. Then everyone’s just going to have to accept that I’m doing the best I can, the same as I have since Camille was born. I’m handling
my
responsibilities. I’m
going to make sure my daughter has a happy life, whatever it takes. And the last thing she needs is another man wanting to call himself her father, while he’s only thinking about himself and what he wants. Now get out.”

“Funny,” an older, more lived-in version of Selena’s voice said, from the doorway to the porch. Neither Oliver nor Selena had heard it open. Belinda stepped all the way inside. “That’s pretty much what I said the day I told your daddy to leave and never come back.”

Selena watched Oliver leave without responding to Belinda’s bombshell.

“Mom . . .”

She had no idea what had just happened or what her mother had meant. Not for certain. And she didn’t dare ask. Not right now. Not when she’d just been kissing Oliver and wanting to keep kissing him—a man who was smiling at her daughter one minute, grabbing for Selena the next, then making not so thinly veiled threats about doing whatever he had to on his family’s behalf about getting to the bottom of Camille’s paternity. Now, evidently her mother might have booted Selena’s dad out twenty years ago, instead of the man abandoning them the way Selena had always believed.