things. I believed that she believed the baby was mine. Then later, right after Annabelle was born, a paternity test proved Sandrine was right. Annabelle’s mine. And I knew from the moment Sandrine told me she was pregnant that I wanted the baby. Sandrine didn’t. She didn’t want to be a mom. She liked her single life and she had a lot of ambition, a heavy focus on her career. I made her an offer. I would pay her a large lump sum to have the baby and then she would sign over all rights to me.”
“And that’s what happened?”
He nodded. “She kept her end of the bargain. I kept mine.”
“You haven’t heard from her since Annabelle was born?”
“No. I doubt I ever will.”
“But with something as important as a child, Quinn, you never know. Someday Annabelle’s mother might regret her choice, change her mind.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“And if she did come to you, if she wanted to meet Annabelle?”
“Can’t say for certain. If she was as honest and up-front as before, we would work something out so that she could know Annabelle and Annabelle could know her.”
Chloe liked his answer. It could be difficult for him to make room for his daughter’s mother in their lives. But it was the right thing. “That sounds good. For Annabelle, most of all. It’s very likely, as she grows to adulthood, that she’s going to want to know about her birth mother and meet her, if possible.”
“Maybe. But it’s like you told me that first night. I’m not going to borrow trouble. I’ll answer Annabelle’s questions and pay attention to the signals she gives me. And then take it from there.” He loosened his tie. “I didn’t want you to wonder anymore about how I ended up with sole custody of my little girl and no mother in sight.”
Tenderness washed through her—for him, for the kind of man he was. A good man. Honest. True-hearted. A man who would do what was right even if it wasn’t the best or easiest thing for him, personally.
She reached out and brushed his hand. “Let me...”
He sat so still, so watchful, as she undid the tie completely. It made a soft, slithering sound as she slipped it from around his neck. She laid it carefully over the arm of the sofa. Then she turned to him again and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his snowy dress shirt, smoothing the collar open, revealing the powerful column of his neck and the sharp black point of one of those intricate tattoos that covered his shoulder and twined halfway down his arm.
“Better?” she asked.
They shared a smile as he nodded. He said, “There’s more.”
She took his right hand and turned it over, revealing his cuff buttons. One by one, she undid them. “Tell me.”
“I’m dyslexic,” he said, his voice rougher than usual, freighted with something wary, something wounded. “You know what dyslexia is?”
“I think I do. I think I remember reading that it’s when a person has difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters and other symbols?”
“That’s pretty close to the generally accepted definition.”
She took his left hand and unbuttoned that cuff, too.
He spoke again. “Most people think dyslexia is what you just said. A learning disorder, period. It’s more. It’s a challenge, a tough one. But it’s a gift, too.” She sat with his hand in her lap, the buttons undone, drinking in every word, as he explained, “You remember how I was as a kid. Trouble. Always getting in fights. Everyone thought I was stupid because I couldn’t get the hang of reading. I hated school, hated being the slow kid. I acted out constantly. Only later did I figure out that my problem was I couldn’t learn the way most kids learn. A traditional school environment did nothing for me. I don’t get phonics, don’t get learning things in rote sequence. It completely overloads me. So I would lash out.”
She did remember that troubled boy so well. “You always seemed so angry.”
“You bet I was. By the time I was eleven, my mother was at the end of her rope with me. As a last-ditch effort to find something I could do well, she enrolled me in a karate class—and everything changed for me. For once, I got something, really got it. Yeah, I have to work my ass off to try and get the meaning out of a line of letters across a page. But I’d always been damn good at fighting. The way my brain is wired makes me more capable than most people of visualizing the moves of my opponents in advance. I see the whole picture, I guess you could say. And that makes me more willing to follow my instincts. So I was good at karate, and finally being good at something was damn motivating. It got me going, gave me hope. I was driven to excel.” He took her hand then and wove his fingers with hers.
It felt so good, her hand in his. She held on tight. “Answer me a question...”
“Name it.”
“You seemed nervous about telling me this. Were you?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Yeah, I was.”
“But I can’t see why you would be, not after the way your life’s worked out.”
“There’s more. And you need to hear it.”
She needed to hear it? She almost asked him why, but then decided that the whys could wait. “All right...”
“Dyslexia is often genetic.”
She frowned. “So you’re telling me that Annabelle is dyslexic?”
“No. So far, Annabelle shows none of the signs. Already, she can recognize her alphabet and sound out simple words. But you should know that any child of mine could possibly be dyslexic.”
She should know? It was an odd way to phrase it.
And he still had more to say. “I plan to be proactive. If a kid of mine showed signs of dyslexia, I would be on it, arranging for early testing, providing alternative learning systems and support, working with the school so everyone’s on the same page about what needs to be done. If one of my kids was dyslexic, I would see to it that he didn’t have to go through the crap I went through. I would make sure any kid of mine never had to feel stupid and incompetent and lag way behind the learning curve.” He tipped his head then and asked with wry good humor, “You still with me, Chloe?”
“Absolutely. Yes. And I’m so sorry, Quinn. That you felt stupid and incompetent when you were little. No child should have to feel that way.”
“I got past it.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” At his chuckle, she chided, “It’s nothing to joke about, Quinn.”
He shrugged. “Tell me something.”
She had that odd feeling again; there was more going on here than she was picking up. “Of course.”
He let go of her hand, reached for his coffee—and said just what she’d been thinking. “Do you have any clue why I’m laying all this on you?”
She watched him take a sip. “Whatever your reasons, I have to say it’s really nice to have a guy just sit right down and talk to me about the toughest things. It’s rare.”
“Right.” He set the cup down again and rolled one of his unbuttoned cuffs to the elbow. “It’s what women love. A guy who won’t shut up...”
“I don’t know about ‘women.’ But I know what I like. And you telling me about what matters to you, about what made you who you are? I do like that. A lot.”
“Well, all right.” He rolled the other cuff. She watched him, admiring the hard shape of his arms, thick with muscle, roped with tendons, dusted with light brown hair, nicked here and there with small white ridges of scar tissue. He went on, “But I do have a reason for loading you up with way more info than you asked for.”