Chapter 63

Agnes

By the time I stepped through the front door that night, I felt exhausted. Not even necessarily in a bad way—just the kind of tiredness that seeps into the soles of your feet and your shoulders and makes your eyes droop no matter how much coffee you drink.

From the dim light pooling out from under Elijah’s office door, I could tell he was working. Meanwhile, Thea’s soft voice drifted down from where she was playing in her room upstairs, causing a bittersweet smile to tug at the edges of my lips.

I tried not to think about last night.

Not about Olivia and Elijah’s kiss, surprisingly. But rather about the way Thea had curled against me, whispering that she wished I was her mother.

I wished she was my daughter, too. I hoped she was, even if it felt crazy and pointless and doomed. A part of me, the part that still held optimism in my heart, prayed that I’d finally found her after all these years. That both of our dreams could come true in this matter, even if nothing else did.

But I didn’t want to dwell on it. Not now.

Still, my gaze flicked down to my phone as I began to prepare dinner. The screen was dark and quiet, no new notifications or emails.

Nothing.

I pressed my lips together and turned away, trying not to think about it. But it wasn’t easy.

The DNA center was supposed to have responded by now. It had been over two weeks since they’d said there was a problem with the sample. Surely the results of the new test were in by now, and yet—

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. Overthinking about it wouldn’t help me any. I needed to focus on something else, something tangible. Something like… Dinner. That was simple enough, right?

I slipped out the pork roast I’d bought earlier, laying it out carefully on the cutting board while I set the oven to preheat. For a while, the motions were easy. Chop the garlic. Rub the seasoning in. Focus on the crispness of the rosemary between my fingers and the quiet scrape of the knife against the board.

But that fragile peace didn’t last.

Every few minutes, I found myself glancing at my phone again, like a new notification might roll in at any moment. Of course, as I went through the process of making dinner, there were no emails. I even picked up my phone at one point and navigated straight to my email app, wondering if I’d gotten something but the notification just hadn’t popped up.

Of course, there was still nothing. Just a bunch of old spam and marketing emails that had slipped through the filter.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I stared down at the screen. I shouldn’t have been so impatient. It wasn’t as if staring at the screen would magically summon an answer. But I couldn’t help it; I wanted to will a response into existence, force it to happen by sheer hope alone.

I wanted Thea to be my biological daughter. I wanted to be her mother, not Olivia. And I wanted the hell of searching for her to come to an end.

“Agnes?”

I jumped at the sound of Elijah’s voice, flicking the lock button on instinct. But in my frantic motion, my phone tumbled off the edge of the counter and hit the tile with a shattering crack.

“Damn it,” I muttered, crouching down.

Elijah appeared in the doorway, his brows raised. His eyes flicked down to the floor, catching sight of the shattered glass splayed out across the tiles.

“What happened?” he asked, stepping into the kitchen.

“Nothing,” I replied a little too quickly as I rose and stared at the wrecked phone in my hand. “Just startled myself.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. I knew that look all too well. I’d spent enough time around him—lied enough to him—at this point to be able to tell when he didn’t believe what I was saying. He just stared at me as I wiped off the shattered screen and sighed.

“You need a new phone.”

“It’s fine,” I said, prodding at the buttons on the phone. It turned on, but the screen was practically unreadable. But I was too used to living on hardly any income to entertain the idea of replacing the entire phone, even though I knew I technically had the money now. “I’ll buy a screen repair kit.”

“Agnes.” Elijah’s voice was low as he crossed the room. Before I could even react, he plucked the phone right out of my hand, turning it over in his palm. His thumb brushed over the shattered glass, and he shook his head.

“This isn’t fixable. You need a new one.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I insisted, reaching for it. “It’s just the screen that’s shattered. Not like the phone itself isn’t working.”

But Elijah just pulled it further out of reach, looking a little frustrated. “Relax. I’ll take you to get a new one tomorrow.”

I stiffened. “That’s not necessary—”

“It wasn’t a suggestion.”

I bristled at the edge in his tone, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping back. Elijah wasn’t exactly one to let things go, not when he was convinced something needed doing.

But this wasn’t just about the phone.

He couldn’t see what was on it.

The DNA center emails.

“Elijah, give it back.” I stepped closer, stretching out my hand with a tight, thin-lipped smile. “Really. I can fix it.”

“Fix shattered glass?” He smirked. “I’d like to see that.”.

“I mean it,” I said, planting my hand on my hip and holding my palm out flat. “Hand it over. Please.”

Elijah studied me for a moment, his expression shifting into something unreadable. He glanced down at the phone, furrowing his brow, then up at me again.

“Why are you so worked up?” he asked. “Don’t want me to go through your phone or something?”

“No. I just don’t want you be the one to go to the trouble.”

He tilted his head, clearly unconvinced.

“Elijah—”

But before I could finish, a blur of dark hair bolted through the doorway. Thea skidded to a stop right beside me, her eyes lighting up the moment she smelled the roast cooking in the air. But before she could ask about dinner, I suddenly had an idea.

“Hey, Thea,” I said, grinning almost impishly, “wanna play a game?”

Her eyes turned into saucers. “A game? What kind of game?”

“A get-the-phone-back-from-Daddy game.”

Elijah’s face flickered with confusion and mild amusement, but I didn’t give him time to question it. I lifted a giggling Thea onto my shoulders, holding her steady as she reached for the phone.

“Daddy, give it to meee!” she sang, giggling louder as she stretched her arms as far as they would go.

Even Elijah couldn’t keep the smirk off of his face. He held the phone just out of reach between two fingers, watching her squirm with playful amusement.

“Higher, Mommy!” Thea laughed, her small legs kicking against my chest.

“Alright, alright,” Elijah said with a chuckle, finally handing it over.

I lowered Thea back onto the ground, setting her down with a soft huff as she handed me the phone. My fingers closed around it tightly, and I couldn’t help but let out a soft breath of relief escape me.

Crisis averted… Sort of.

I glanced up at Elijah, half-expecting him to press the issue. But he just shook his head, clearly baffled by that little display. And before either of us could say anything else, the smoke alarms suddenly went off.

My heart dropped.

“Oh no—”

As the smoke alarms blared through the kitchen, I bolted toward the oven, yanking the door open only to be met with a plume of smoke. The pork roast was charred black, completely inedible.

I immediately cursed as I pulled the roast out of the oven and tossed it on top of the stove. Of course, during my little ‘game’ with Thea and Elijah, I’d somehow managed to burn our dinner, and now it was black as coal.

As Elijah hurried to fan the smoke alarms, Thea peeked over my shoulder, wrinkling her nose.

“Oops,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. “I can make something else.”

A moment later, the smoke alarms turned off. I was busy biting my lip and staring at the ruined dinner, wondering what else I could whip up before Thea’s hunger turned into a low blood sugar meltdown, when Elijah’s warm voice rumbled behind me.

“Come on, girls. Get your coats.”

Frowning, I turned to see Elijah already shrugging his jacket on, his car keys in hand. Thea’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together.

“Yay! We’re going out for dinner! Daddy, Mommy, and Thea!”