We Ran From Our Babies' Fathers, Then One Toddler Went Viral novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Popsicle

Preston reads the old settlement text and swears he never sent it, Poppy hands him her melted popsicle, and the news downstairs says Jack Ferris has landed in Lisbon.

I stood on the threshold and pulled the door almost shut until only my face showed.

"You don't get to meet her," I said.

"I'm not here to take anything."

"Then you're lost. The hotel district is that way."

Preston didn't smile.

"I'm opening a hotel in Lisbon on Friday," he said. "A woman on my team sent me that video at eight this morning with one line. It said: Look at her eyes."

He turned his phone around.

The little girl on the screen was frozen mid-turn, grey eyes wide.

"I've been in a car since nine," he said. "Hannah, I have looked for you for three years."

"No, you haven't."

"I hired two firms."

"You sent a text."

His brows pulled together.

"I never sent you a text."

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I went back into the flat, dug the old phone out of the drawer, and let it charge on the counter for four minutes while he waited in the hallway.

Nobody in my flat said a word.

When the screen lit, I opened the message and held it out to him through the doorway.

He read it standing up.

Mr. Aldridge will be handling this matter through a settlement and a clinic appointment. Do not contact him again.

He read it again.

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"That's my assistant's number," he said.

"I know. I saved it."

"She left the company six months after that date. I never saw this. I never heard a voicemail from you. Hannah, I swear it."

"Everyone swears things."

"Then look at me and tell me I'm lying."

I looked.

He didn't blink. His face was falling apart very quietly, and he wasn't hiding it.

It scared me more than anger would have.

"Even if you didn't send it," I said, "you didn't come either."

"I didn't know there was anything to come for."

That landed somewhere I didn't want it to.

"Mama?"

I turned.

Poppy stood in the hall in her yellow sunhat, which she wore indoors whenever she was feeling brave.

In one sticky fist she held the melting end of a cherry popsicle.

She looked up at the tall man in the doorway with the flat, total interest of a three-year-old.

"Who's that?"

My mouth went dry.

Preston went down on one knee on the landing, in his good dark trousers, until his eyes were level with hers.

He didn't reach for her.

"My name is Preston," he said.

Poppy studied him.

"You're very tall."

"I get told that."

"You have grey eyes."

"So do you."

"I know," she said, offended. "They're mine."

His face did something complicated.

Then Poppy held out the popsicle.

"You can have it. It's melted."

"Thank you," Preston said, and took it with both hands.

Cherry juice ran down his wrist and into his clean white cuff.

He didn't look at it.

He didn't look away from her.

Behind me, I realized I'd stopped breathing.

"Poppy, go find your fox," I said.

She went, trailing sunhat strings.

I stayed in the doorway, where I couldn't be pulled in any further.

"You can stand in this hallway for ten minutes," I said. "After that you leave, and you don't tell anyone where we live."

"I wouldn't."

"You're a billionaire. You won't have to. The internet will do it for you."

"Then let me help with the internet."

"I don't want your help. I never wanted your help. I wanted you to stay away."

The word hung there.

He stood up slowly.

"Okay," he said. "Then tell me what you do want."

I didn't have an answer.

Feet pounded on the stairs.

Bridget came up two at a time with Max on her hip, a paper bakery bag swinging from her wrist.

She stopped on the top step when she saw Preston.

"Oh, absolutely not," she said. "Hannah, step back inside."

"I'm fine."

"Is he threatening you? Is that a lawyer behind him?"

"It's just me," Preston said. "I came alone."

Bridget's phone buzzed in her hand.

She glanced down at it.

She turned it over against her hip before I could see the screen.

Downstairs, the baker had the little shop television on, as he did every afternoon, and the volume was loud enough to carry up the stairwell.

An anchor said: "And in entertainment news, movie star Jack Ferris has landed in Lisbon this evening, and fans are asking why."

Max pointed at the ceiling.

"That's the man from the TV," he announced.

Bridget's face went white.

"He's in Los Angeles," she said. "He's filming."

Preston looked at her, then at me.

"Jack," he said quietly. "My Jack?"

"Your Jack?" I said.

"We were roommates in college."

Nobody answered him, because nobody could.

The baker's television went on talking down the stairwell, and somewhere under it, a car door shut in the street.

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