He Saw Me Too Late

The toe of Alex's shoe froze over the rose he had been grinding into the pavement. A second later, he caught my chin and forced my face up. "Mia Harper, what the hell are you playing at? Pretending you don't know me, or too scared to look me in the eye?"

Look at him?

I couldn't see anything anymore.

I pulled free from his hand and fumbled for the scattered flowers. "Sir, you've got the wrong person. I've never been married, and I don't know you."

That sent him over the edge.

The restaurant steps were private property, so Alex motioned for security to cut me off and ordered the rest of my flowers thrown away.

"Five years ago, you were carrying my child, and you threw us both away to run off with Victor Kane. The baby died. Then you took my mother's money and disappeared. Now you're back playing the victim. What is this, another attempt to shake down the Walsh family?"

Lydia slipped her arm through his. "Don't let her ruin tonight," she murmured. "The baby just kicked. We should go inside."

Alex softened at once. He spread a hand over her belly through the silk of her gown. "Hey, Peanut. Daddy's here."

They were the exact words he had whispered against my pregnant belly six years earlier. He had not even bothered to choose a new nickname.

Something cinched tight around my heart. Today was Noah's fifth birthday. I had promised to be home early and bake him a chocolate cake, even if it came out lopsided. I reached frantically for the white cane near my feet. Then came a sharp crack.

Before I left, Noah had stood on tiptoe to tie my scarf and tucked the emergency card from his kindergarten teacher into my pocket. He did not know how sick I was. He only knew Mommy sometimes forgot where she kept the salt and missed steps on stairs she had climbed a hundred times. So he would not be scared, I promised I would come home after I sold the last six bunches, watch him blow out his candles, and tell him one more time about the little boat that found its harbor.

Alex had stepped on my cane and snapped it in two. "Who left this thing in the way?" he demanded.

A shard of plastic sliced my shin. The pain did not scare me. Failing to get home to Noah did. I felt my way forward two steps before a security guard seized my arm and accused me of trespassing. Alex had decided I was there to ruin Lydia's birthday, and he demanded an apology.

I murmured an apology. He still wouldn't let it go. "Five years ago, at her birthday party, you dropped to your knees crying so convincingly. Now you won't even open your eyes. What kind of apology is that?"

"My eyes would frighten her," I warned.

Lydia gave a soft laugh. "I'm not that fragile. Besides, when Alex has had too much to drink, he talks about how beautiful your eyes were. Maybe looking a little like you is the only reason I ever had a chance with him."

Alex snapped at her to stop talking nonsense, then ordered security to let me go. But his own hands clamped onto my shoulders and forced me to face Lydia. My knees struck the stone step, and pain wrenched my eyes open.

My eyes stared at nothing. A cloudy gray-white film veiled my pupils. The noise outside the restaurant died all at once.

Someone gasped. Reporters began whispering questions about who I was. Lydia's hand slipped from Alex's arm, and only then did the security guard notice the blood running down my leg. Alex alone kept hold of me, as if he could not accept that I was the same woman who used to throw open the curtains at dawn and complain about the glare of the New York sun.

At last, Alex asked, his disbelief barely more than a whisper, "What happened to your eyes?"

I answered him only in my head. The woman standing beside you.