“You’re right. I don’t have to make any decisions about the future today. I’ll just go and hear him out. Then I’ll decide from there what’s best for me and Natalia.”
“That’s a great way to go about this. Just remember that I’ll be here for you when you’re done.”
“Thank you,” she says before turning in my embrace and wrapping her arms around my neck. God, I love the feel of her body pressed against mine.
“You should go or you’re going to be late. I’ll run and grab the munchkin and meet you back here,” I tell her.
“Here, you’re going to need these,” she says as she pulls her keys out of her purse. She removes two from the ring and hands them to me. “The bigger one is for the front door downstairs and this one is for my apartment.” The gesture feels so intimate. So right.
“We’ll be here when you get back,” I tell her as she slips out the door and heads to meet her dad.
I grab the rest of my stuff before heading out myself. Carly never asked if I knew where her mom lived. Of course, if she would have asked, I would have played dumb and let her give me the address, but I’ve known where she lives since the day Carly walked back into my life, thanks to Luke’s intel.
It doesn’t take me very long to drive over to Georgia’s house. It’s a small, ranch style home in a pleasant subdivision. The brick exterior and dark green shutters are warm and inviting. The place has been clearly taken care of over the years. I walk up the paved path towards the front door and ring the bell. She answers with a bright smile on her face, holding my little girl.
“Carly said you were on your way,” she says, stepping back to allow me to enter.
“Did she tell you where she was going?” I ask, reaching forward and taking the little girl with the out-reached arms.
“Yeah. She called as soon as she got into her car. I know she has a lot of questions, but they’re not for me to answer. I think it’s best that she hear it from him.”
“What is she going to hear, Georgia?” I know that my question doesn’t have to be answered. Hell, it’s none of my damn business, but I care about Carly immensely and I guess I just want to know what she’s walking into. Plus, the professional side of me needs to know how much involvement Georgia played in his business.
She sighs before sitting down on the couch, laptop on the cushion next to her. “When I met Roman, it was instant love. You know? The kind you only read about. I didn’t think it really existed until I saw him. But I knew. We dated only a short period of time before we married. He was here from Mexico and his younger brother was in the process of moving here on a work visa under Roman. He opened his own shop a few years after we married.”
Georgia appears to stumble on the words she wants to say. Natalia sits on my lap in the chair across from the couch, playing and tugging on my jacket zipper. “I started to suspect that his business dealings were less than legal. Things just weren’t adding up, you know. He was secretive and I always felt like there was more to the story.
“When Carly was about five, he took us on vacation. While we were there, something happened. He wouldn’t explain it to me in great detail, no matter how much I tried to get it out of him. He just said that Carly and I had to disappear. Some bad people were making threats against us, and I could tell by the look in his eyes, that it was bad. To this day, I still don’t know the full extent of those threats. All I know is that between him and his brother, Carly and I were presumed dead in a boating accident and sent back home under new names. I was no longer Georgianna Hernandez. I was Georgia Mathewson, my maiden name. Carly and I mourned the loss of Roman for a very long time,” she tells me with a tear in her eye. I can tell that she loved the man, even if his business was less than legit. Hell, by the way she’s reacting, she might still very well be in love with her husband that she hasn’t seen in more than twenty years.
“Wow. So, Carly believed her father was dead?”
“To protect her, Blake. It was all in the name of protecting my daughter. I never would have forgiven myself if something would have happened to her and I had the chance to stop it.”
“You made the only choice you could have,” I tell her, looking down at my own daughter. I would do everything and anything to protect her. Keeping her safe will forever be my first priority. It’s amazing how your life’s perspectives change in the blink of an eye. “Why now?” I ask, knowing that it is one of my burning questions still remaining unanswered.