Eventually, when her breathing slowed and her tears dried, he quietly said, “I now understand your reasons for leaving, even if they were badly misguided. But that’s all in the past now. It’s time to make a fresh start.”
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes as she idly smoothed her fingers across his jaw. “I was trying to set you free.”
Tyler squeezed her hand. “I know that now, and I can see how brave you were.” He smiled into her sad brown eyes, glad that the bitterness between them was now gone. “When we’re married, we’ll have lots of children. We’ll just adopt them, that’s all.”
Wide-eyed and close to tears again, she softly asked, “Married, children, you’d do that for me?”
“You bet, honey. If it’s a choice of having my own children with a woman I feel nothing for or having adopted children with the woman I love, you win every time.
“Don’t ever doubt my love for you, Becca. Why do you think I took the time to track you down and then traveled over five thousand miles to be here with you now? Besides, I was adopted myself, and my parents were the best.” He laughed. “But you and me working together will be even better. If there’s one thing I learned from my ma and pa, it’s this. It’s the quality time you spend with your children that really counts. That’s what makes you a real mom and dad. I had one hell of a happy childhood because my parents wanted me, and for that reason, I was never treated as an inconvenience.”
“Oh, Tyler, what you say is so very true. My parents never had time for me. Looking back, we never connected on any level. I sometimes wonder why they even bothered at all. I was an only child, so perhaps after I was born, they decided that was enough.”
He brushed a stray hair from the corner of her eye. The moisture from her tears had held it in place. She seemed a lot more composed and upbeat now. “So why hide away in Rio, especially as you have such unhappy childhood memories of the place?”
“It does seem strange, doesn’t it, but when I was ten years old, I would regularly visit this very beach. The doctors informed my parents that the sea air would be most beneficial. I loved the feel of the ocean spray and the sound of the wind as it whipped through my hair. When I became too sick to travel, I would daydream about running at full speed along the golden sands from my bed at home.”
Tyler sighed. “The beach certainly is stunning.”
“My personal nurse, Renata, would bring me here every day, provided I felt well enough.”
“What about your mom?” he asked, already pretty sure of the answer. He hadn’t met Rebecca’s family, and from what he knew of them, he didn’t want to.
“Like all kids, I craved my mother’s attention, but she was always too busy to come along.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Story of my life. I haven’t seen either of my parents for five years.”
It figured. “It must have been a traumatic time for you, honey, diagnosed with leukemia when you were just a kid.”
Her breath hitched. “It was. I had chemo for two years, until I was twelve. When the doctors first told my parents and I that I couldn’t have children, I was too immature to realize the full implications. But as the years rolled by, it gradually became more of an issue. That’s why I focused solely on my career. Anything to distract me from the gnawing, empty pain I feel inside.”
Tyler saw she needed to talk, and he wasn’t about to stop her. “Go on.”
She forced a smile that didn’t convince. “On the upside, I’ve become the best goddamn software engineer in the whole of the US. That’s something to be proud of. I’ve worked with the best of the best. That’s how I came to work for you at Cerberus Technology. It was the best fucking decision I made in my entire life, and meeting and falling in love with you was just the icing on the cake.” She breathed in and then sighed heavily, and he figured she was reliving the past in her mind. “But…but even my achievements at work can never take away the deep ache I feel inside. I feel it right here.” She held her hand to her heart. “Every minute of every day, that fucking ache just refuses to quit, and I’ll never feel like a real woman because of it.”
“Believe me, honey, you’re worth ten of any other woman. And you’ll make a wonderful mother to our children.”
“Oh, Ty, you say the most wonderful things.” Her eyes glistened with fresh tears, and he knew if he continued, she’d burst out crying again.
He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “You realize I want a whole football team.”