lap into a seated position. Mia smoothed her hair and he helped by tucking a few errant strands behind her ear. This woman was absolutely perfect.
Placing a quick kiss on her forehead, he stood up and extended his hand to her.
“Let’s go see your father.”
As Ethan guided them to her father’s room, they saw Nurse Melody again and she gifted them with another smile. “The doctor is with him, but go on in.”
Stopping outside of his room, Mia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and on her exhale, pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Normally Ethan would find that look sexy as hell, but at this moment, all he wanted to do was hold her and make all her worries go away.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said, giving him a quick but thankful smile and latching on to his hand. With her other hand, she knocked on the door before slowly opening it.
When Ethan walked into the hospital room, he expected her father to be in the bed, not standing up talking to the doctor, dressed in normal clothes. Well, not exactly normal. He wore a suit jacket over a collared shirt opened at the neck.
“Classy” was the first word to come to Ethan’s mind as he studied the older man. Mia’s father had a very Old Hollywood look, a lot like Cary Grant with his dark brown hair, heavily grayed on the sides. His height kind of surprised him, looking eye to eye with him, considering how short Mia was. Their skin tone was the exact same, just like the color of their eyes, though the skin around her father’s were much more wrinkled.
And those eyes widened in shock as her father realized who was at the door.
“Mia?” her father spoke, his accent slight, his hand gripping the railing of the bed so hard Ethan could see his skin turning white.
“Hi, Papa,” his suga spoke, her accent matching her father’s. Her voice had a slight waver to it which caused Ethan to regard her. Her eyes shone with emotion and indecision.
“What are you doing here?”
“Vivienne called me and told me you’d collapsed and had been brought to the hospital … are we interrupting? Should we leave?” she asked, her words hesitant. So unlike her.
Her father’s eyes didn’t leave his daughter. He was taking her in like a man who had been deprived for far too long. Love shone in those eyes.
Mr. Devereux nodded then cleared his throat. “No. We were just finishing up, right?” he said, looking at the doctor next to him.
“Of course, Professor. I’ll see you in a week,” he said, shaking her father’s hand before exiting the room.
Mia and her father had their brown eyes trained on one another—one set starved for the sight of his daughter, the other starved for the affection of her father.
Ethan stood off to the side, watching this and realizing Mia got her stubbornness from this man … but maybe she got some of her heart from him as well, because this man didn’t look like a man who didn’t love his daughter.
“Papa,” she began, her lips twitching back and forth, still unsure of what to say.
“I was just being released as you walked in …”
“Oh … you’re okay?”
“Yes, sorry that you had to come all this way for nothing,” he said a little gruffly, gathering his papers off the bed tray. Mia wasn’t the only one hurt by the distance between them all these years, and from the step back she took, she was just realizing that. After a moment to gather her composure, she stepped towards her father.
“We’ll take you home,” she said, her voice lacking its normal lightness. The “we” redirected her father’s attention on Ethan, and he felt the assessing look. The older man’s gaze lingered on Mia’s fingers linked with his.
“This is Ethan Christopher,” Mia said and he instantly felt like he was in high school, meeting his girlfriend’s father for the first time. “Ethan, this is my father.”
Ethan held out his right hand. “Hello, Mr. Devereux.”
Despite his obvious confusion as to why Ethan was there, Mia’s father shook his hand in return, the atmosphere in the room thickening with awkwardness. Mia and her father were having a hard time speaking. So much needed to be said between them, but this definitely wasn’t the venue.
“Sir, are you free to leave?”
He nodded once.
“Okay. Let’s go then.”
Mia gave his hand a grateful squeeze. “Sounds good. Ready, Papa?”
“Just need to get my things,” he said, grabbing the plastic