This Changes Everything, page 18
“Thanks for not saying anything,” she said. “I can’t let anything ruin this for me.” She sent Olivia a cold stare. “Especially her.”
“Ruin it for you?”
“She nearly destroyed my life. I admit I’m no angel. I’ve made mistakes, but that doesn’t mean my life has to end, right? My boyfriend dumped me when I got pregnant with her. I already knew he was married with a family of his own, but he didn’t have any problem supporting me before. I couldn’t believe he turned on me. I lost my place and income and my parents wouldn’t let me stay with them because they didn’t approve of my lifestyle.” She rolled her eyes. “As if they should judge. Mom had more boyfriends than me before she met dad. And at least I had standards. I was living well not hurting anyone.
“But no, I was on my own. Living with friends, selling what I could, taking odd jobs. And do you know how bad that was? Do you know what it’s like to have some alien creature take over your body and turn it into a walrus?”
Joshua impatiently tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t think—”
She rolled her eyes again. “Look, maybe some other women like their breasts turned into milk sacks and their stomach stretched like a beach ball, but it was all just ugly to me. I hated every day I was pregnant with her and it was no better when she came.” She sent Olivia a look of disgust. “Never stopped crying, sucked my nipples raw—”
Joshua cleared his throat. “Well, I think—”
“And you try traveling cross country with an infant. I pretended to be someone else, just for fun, right? I posted advice and stuff online and people starting paying attention but I wasn’t making anything. Then I got a chance to escape. I stood in for a friend at a photo shoot for a local clothing line and I met a guy who overheard me talking to someone about makeup or something. He said he liked my advice and I told him about my blog and he asked me if I had ever thought of being a writer.
“I said hell yes, he said great ‘cause he owned a publishing company. He said I could be a brand. And he asked me if I had kids and I knew what he wanted me to say, ‘cause he’s the kind of guy who’s easy to read, like my ex, so I said ‘no’ and he smiled and said I was perfect. We’re an item now and I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to stay anymore. I’m older than I look, I can’t afford to mess this up. He doesn’t even know my real name. Nobody can know about her.”
Joshua paused before he said, “What should I tell her?”
“About me?”
He nodded.
“I don’t care. Tell her the truth if you want. That her father’s a dick and she was the worst thing to happen to me.”
No, he’d lie. He was good at that. “Fine nobody will know, but one more thing.”
“What?”
“Why me?”
“Why did I choose you at the bus stop?”
He nodded.
She grinned. “I told you I know how to read men. I knew you were one of the good ones.”
Chapter 42
Meeting in the conference room. Ten-thirty.
Joshua stared at the text from Roger.
Important?
Yes.
He sighed and stood. He looked across his desk at his colleague, a man with bushy dark brows and a shock of red hair, who was typing furiously. “Do you know what this meeting is about?”
The man shrugged and continued typing. That didn’t bother him. They’d worked well together because neither liked to talk much.
“See you there.”
He nodded.
Joshua left his office. It seemed strange he’d been included in any meeting since he soon wouldn’t be working there, but if Roger thought it was important for him to be there he wouldn’t argue.
He entered the conference room, surprised he was the first one there. He usually wasn’t. He took a seat and waited.
When ten thirty-five struck and he was still alone, he texted Roger. Where is everybody?
He lifted his head when he heard the door open. Karen walked in looking stylish in a red wool suit with white blouse, which made him think about her dressed in a red robe and wearing Santa hat and telling him he was a bad boy…
She closed the door behind her. “Since you won’t return my calls I thought this was the best way to reach you.”
He glanced down at his cell phone, before he looked past her at the door. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to see Marshall’s ring on her finger. He didn’t want to pretend that the sight of her still didn’t make his heart melt.
“I see.”
She walked to the head of the table and took a seat. “There are a few things we need to discuss before you leave.”
He nodded.
“But before we begin, I want to make one thing very clear.” She typed something on her tablet before she beamed it on the wall.
Joshua took a deep breath before he turned to see what was so important to her. He didn’t care what she had to say. How much money she thought they could make. He wasn’t staying. He looked at the image and stopped. He didn’t see a chart or graph or bullet points. He saw four simple words: I love you too.
What?
“Is that clear enough for you?”
He blinked quickly. Was he really seeing this? He turned to her stunned.
She grinned. “I mean it.”
“I-I don’t understand. You love Marshall.”
“Not anymore.”
His mind reeled. “But...I saw you kissing him. You kissed him and you didn’t stop.”
She hung her head ashamed. “I know and I’m sorry. I was—for a moment I wasn’t myself. It was what I’d always dreamed. But it was only for a moment.” She met his gaze. “It didn’t mean anything. Afterwards I only thought of coming home to you and Olivia.”
“But my note—”
“Marshall stole it from my lunch bag. I didn’t see it. I only discovered the truth by accident. But once I did, I confronted Marshall and he told me everything. It’s not the first time he stole something from you. He did something similar twenty years ago.”
Joshua frowned. “I don’t remember that.” He shook his head. “I don’t even remember him.”
“That’s the irony,” she said with a sad laugh. “He remembered you and what he did and his guilty conscience got the best of him.” She stood and walked towards him. “He won’t come between us again.”
Joshua rose to his feet not sure if he wanted to run away or grab her. It hurt to hope. It hurt to let himself believe that she loved him.
Karen studied him, determined to win him back. Her heart race and her knees shook, but she held his gaze. She would block him from leaving if she had to. This time she would fight to make him stay. She’d learned too much about herself these last several weeks. How blind she’d been about Marshall. It embarrassed her. She now understood her mother’s words. It wasn’t fair to throw away all the love her father had given her for one mistake, no matter how deep the wound. He’d made up for it. She’d held onto a year of hurt and turned it into more than a decade. But no more. The woman who’d kissed Marshall and distrusted her father was gone. She’d learned to forgive herself; she needed Joshua’s forgiveness now.
She stopped in front of him. “I made a mistake,” she said, holding his fierce gaze, although inside she trembled. “But it wasn’t with you. It was not realizing soon enough how much you truly mean to me. I shouldn’t have accepted your resignation. I shouldn’t have let you go. Will you give me a second chance?”
Joshua took a deep breath and looked away. She couldn’t blame him for his hesitation. It had devastated her that he’d seen her weakness. That he’d seen her kissing Marshall. She wouldn’t blame him for not trusting her.
“You don’t want me to resign?”
She couldn’t read his guarded expression. “Of course not. I want you to stay. I’m going to be the new president and we’ll—” She stopped when he shook his head. He was turning her down. Dismay crushed her heart. No matter what she said or did she would lose him. He would leave her.
“That won’t be enough. I want us to be equals. I want a different kind of partnership.”
She grabbed the back of a chair in relief. “Of course. We can—”
His dark eyes met hers, stopping her words in a way no one else could. “I want to be husband and wife.” His voice was deceptively calm, like a dark river that hid all its dangers beneath the surface. She held her breath. “Is that a kind of contract you’re willing to sign?”
“Absolutely,” she said and saw the dark, guarded look leave his gaze, replaced by hope and love. He still loved her. She hadn’t lost him.
He gathered her in his arms and wrapped them around her like a warm blanket. “I knew you’d say that,” he said before he kissed her and swept away the hurt that had kept them apart.
When he drew away, she laughed. “You knew it, huh?”
“Yes.” He gently cupped the side of her face. “But there’s something else.”
“If you read my note, you know the truth about Olivia.”
“I do.”
“Just so you know, I’m going to adopt her. We come as a packaged deal.”
“You want a wife and mother too?”
He nodded.
Karen laughed, her heart bursting with joy. “Well, then that changes everything…"
Five years later…
“Daddy, daddy, tell me the story,” Olivia whispered.
Joshua frowned. “The story?”
He and his daughter sat together on the couch in front of the lit Christmas tree. The house still had the scent of the gingerbread cookies they’d baked in the afternoon. It was Christmas Eve and he let her stay up late with him waiting for Santa. She never made it past nine. They’d open presents the next morning before traveling to Karen’s parents’ house for dinner. He heard Karen’s footsteps upstairs as she worked in her office, talking to Marshall who was separated from his wife and estranged from his father. He’d briefly left 3R to fail spectacularly on his own before coming back three years later, begging for any position she could give him. He became an assistant in the marketing department and flourished there.
Joshua glanced at his watch. He’d have to go up and get her soon or she’d work through the night. Their two year old son was already fast asleep.
“Yes, you know,” Olivia insisted. “Our Christmas story.”
“I don’t know our Christmas story,” he teased her, knowing very well the story she wanted to hear. The story he told her every Christmas.
She furrowed her brows. “Yes, you do. It’s the story about how you found me and how I helped you and Mom love each other and—”
“Since you know the story so well you tell me.”
She frowned. “No, I like when you say it. Please.”
“All right,” he said and she grinned and snuggled up against him with youthful enthusiasm. He loved the feel of her soft, little body next to his. “Once upon a time there was a lonely man…”
She poked him. “You.”
He nodded. “Yes, me. And one cold December day, this lonely man found a beautiful baby at a bus stop.”
She grinned and pointed to herself. “Me.”
He tenderly kissed her on the forehead. “Yes, you and the moment the lonely man saw her he knew he’d found his greatest Christmas gift…”
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About the Author
Dara Girard, an award-winning, national bestselling author of more than forty novels, from romance to suspense, loves telling stories.
Born in the US to immigrant parents, Dara enjoys pulling from her Jamaican, British, Nigerian heritage and exposure to various cultures to bring what reviewers and fans call “vivid emotional stories” to life. She is best known for her popular Henson Series, the mysterious Clifton Sisters, and the fun Black Stockings Society.
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For more information visit
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Copyright Information
This Changes Everything
Copyright © 2019 Sade Odubiyi
Published by ILORI Press Books
Cover and Layout Copyright © 2019 ILORI Press Books
Cover design by ILORI Press Books
Cover Image Copyright holly berries © Alexapics/shutterstock; baby items © 9Dream Studio/shutterstock
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Dara Girard, This Changes Everything
