Chapter Eight: Part Two


"Don’t ask," he repeated. "You don’t want to know what I believed." He swung round to stare out at the garden so that he didn’t have to see the look in her eyes as she realized the truth — that he thought she’d gotten rid of her unborn baby.
"It was all a lie. A filthy, stinking, rotten lie and I believed it." He rubbed at his face as if to wipe away the guilt. "God help me, I believed it. I suppose I’ve got no more than I deserved for not trusting in you."
And the elusive thought that had been bothering him before they’d made love last night finally crystallized perfectly in his mind. "I mean, what was I thinking? Your parents couldn’t bully you into a divorce so why on earth did I believe that you would have surrendered on something so much bigger, so much more important?"
"Tell me, Tom," she insisted. "Tell me what they said."
"Said? They didn’t have to say anything." He’d carried the letter with him always. A warning never to love again, never to trust his heart. He reached into his jacket and from the back of his wallet he extracted the letter, turned and held it out to her.
Mollie took the wretched piece of paper. It had been ripped into pieces, then stuck back together. The creases were worn with handling and it was only the tape that was holding it together. It didn’t take long to read.
Tom — it’s all been a terrible mistake. I’ve had an abortion. I don’t want to see you ever again, Mollie.
She made a small, involuntary sound as she imagined his pain... Then she looked up. "I didn’t write this, Tom, my mother did." She folded it back up into the worn creases and offered it back to him. He shook his head. "She had such beautiful handwriting. I worked hard to copy it." Then, "If it’s any consolation, trying to persuade me into an abortion was the last straw. I left with Angie and we’ve never been back. They’ve never seen Harry."
"‘Don’t apologize. Don’t ever apologize for your family. I’m the one who should be groveling here."
"No — " She lifted her chin a little. "‘We both made mistakes. I should have been stronger — if I’d had the courage to tell them that I loved you instead of persuading you into a secret wedding, if we’d stood together they couldn’t have parted us. But penniless writer runs off with heiress... That put you in the wrong from the word go."
"Not penniless. Far from it."
She shrugged, hopelessly. "Who would have believed you wanted me just for my body?"
"It’s a great body, but I swear I love your mind, too..." He offered a tentative smile along with his hand.
She took it briefly, then turned to a small desk. "My mind isn’t that great. I doubted you too, when I should have believed." She opened a drawer, stared for a moment at the check for one hundred thousand pounds bearing a cashier’s stamp: Paid in full. She picked it up, turned and gave it to him.
"I’ve never seen this before." He looked up. "It’s made out to me but — "
"Lies," she said. "They did it to both of us. My father laughed when he gave it to me. He said you were cheap, that he’d have paid five times that amount to prove to me what kind of man you were."
"What kind of man do you believe I am, Mollie?" He laid his hand against her cheek, his eyes soft as melted toffee.

Chapter Eight: Part Three


It felt so perfect, as if she’d spent the last four years holding her breath, waiting for this moment. And she leaned into him, rubbing her face against his palm. "You’re like most men, Tom," she murmured. "A long way from perfect. But then perfect would be tough to live with. You’re a lot better than most." She turned and kissed his hand, looked up at him. "The only man in the world I’ve ever loved."
Then, her voice straining through a throat thick with tears, "This is where you get to kiss me," she prompted, sliding her hand into his hair, tangling it in her fingers to draw him closer to her. "And the orchestra plays the violins."
His smile was slow, but his eyes were heating her from the inside out. "To tell you the truth, Mollie, I wasn’t planning on an audience for this next bit." Then, with his mouth an inch from hers, he stopped. "No, wait."
"I’ve been waiting four years..."
"There’s one more thing I don’t understand. Who the devil’s Jerry? And what were you doing driving his Porsche?"
She groaned and leaned against his shoulder. "Thanks a lot, Tom. You’ve just ruined the perfect moment by reminding me that I’ve got to confess to my publisher that his car is a wreck."
"Your publisher? That is serious." Then he grinned. "Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll get it fixed, I’ll even tell him that it wasn’t your fault — "
"It wasn’t..." she began, but he pulled her close, stopped her protest with the most tender of kisses.
And then, once he had her undivided attention, he murmured, "Now cue the violins."
*** "Daddy?"
Tom jerked awake, thought for a moment he’d been dreaming. Then he saw Harry standing beside the bed peering anxiously at him pre-dawn light.
"What is it, Harry? Does your arm hurt?"
"No. I just wanted to make sure you were still here."
Not a dream. This small anxious little boy with his hair tousled from sleep, his arm in a sling, was his son, the child he thought forever lost.
"I’m home, son," he said. "I’m not going anywhere without you ever again." He lifted the cover and Harry needed no encouragement to scramble into bed beside him, his anxious frown immediately transformed into a wide grin.
"Do you know any stories?"
"A few," he said, trying to think of something a four year old would enjoy.
At his back Mollie moved closer to nuzzle his neck. "Once upon a time..." she prompted, propping herself up on her elbow, so that the three of them were all together, a real family. Tom doubted that this was what his publisher had in mind when he’d advised getting in touch with his feminine side. But it worked for him and his own grin must have set some kind of record.
"Okay, here goes," he said. "Once upon a time..."
The End

تمت بحمد الله
الحقيقة انا لسة مقريتهاش بس كانت علي جهازي قلت اشاركوا معايا

thank you alot