same day you showed up I got a call from someone pretending to be James Monroe. You have that look on your face every time he is on the news. Your father had that same look after he met your mother. I thought it would go away eventually. I mean, a person can only have so much passion, right? At least that was what I thought.”
“We’re not together anymore,” Willow said.
“But you love him.”
“Love is not everything,” she said.
“You’re right of course, but love and true passion is everything. Your parents had that. I swear it was like they were meeting for the first time every day.”
“I was there when they died,” Willow said.
“Oh,” her grandmother said and covered her mouth. “You poor soul.”
“For years I didn’t understand the last thing my father said to me.”
She recounted the sad tale for her grandmother. The two women hugged at the end of it.
Willow spoke to him that night when he called. He wanted to see her when he got back. She told him no.
Willow had never taken a vacation in the years since opening her business. Nancy was all too happy to let her stay home. They had multiple photographers, after all.
On Wednesday morning she woke up to knocking at her door. She glanced at the bedside clock, it was almost noon.
She opened her door expecting to see her grandmother or her uncle, instead it was him.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.
“Your grandmother invited me over.”
“I told you I did not want to see you,” she said through gritted teeth.
She heard voices downstairs, and her grandmother offering tea. She recognized Simon’s voice.
“Are we going to stand out here and argue or are you going to let me in so we can talk?”
She closed the door behind her, forcing him out in the hallway. She did not trust being alone with him.
“Do you think that is going to stop me from doing this?” He dipped his head as his lips touched hers.
Willow pushed against his chest though she could feel the old familiar heat spread through her body. She wanted him. She gathered all the hate she could muster and pushed him away.
“Go away,” she said.
“This afternoon I am offering my official resignation as envoy,” he said. “Do you want me to mention your name at the press conference?”
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean I am stepping down because my fiancée has just discovered that she was the missing daughter of Doctors Akyini and Jeffrey Harper, has a good and true ring to it. We need time to reconcile with her new family and to sort out the details of the past eighteen years. Then some curious reporter will ask your name and I will say please, please, Willow Barnes and I need our privacy.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits as she gazed at him. She couldn’t tell if he was serious.
“I live in the spotlight,” he said. “I have shielded you from that thus far. Do you want to see what happens when that shield is gone?”
“How could I have missed this cruel person,” she said.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he suggested.
She opened the door and let him in.
“You can’t fix this, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “We have to fix it together.”
“I don’t want to fix it,” she said.
“Where do you want me to send your personal effects?”
“Charity,” she said.
“Even your expensive dresses?” he asked.
“I don’t want any reminder you ever existed,” she said.
“That’s kind of hard when you’re carrying my baby.”
Willow took a step back. She had not been feeling herself lately and she had gone to her doctor just days before the fight. She had not even gotten the results back as yet.
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“I knew that when you stopped drinking coffee and at the party you had only sparkling water. But you’re right. We don’t have to fix this. But it would be better if we did if we’re going to have a child together.”
“There are ways to fix that,” she said but regretted it the moment it left her lips.
She was mad at him, but she did not intend to be so cruel. A family was the one thing he wanted more than anything else. He told her that in Ireland when they had snuck away from his bodyguards. They had spent the night just talking and he confessed that more than anything he wanted children. He wanted to stop being Mr. Fix it for