Seven Years, Marked in Pencil

Adrian's POV

Olivia didn't ask why I had followed her into the kitchen. She just kept working.

She stood at the counter with her back to me, finishing whatever she had decided to make. Every now and then, the spoon touched the side of the bowl, the only sound between us.

I didn't say anything. She kept glancing at me secretly from the corner of her eye, waiting for me to start something. 

I let my eyes wander around instead. It was a small kitchen, nothing like the spaces I was used to. There were children's cups beside the sink, a few drawings held to the refrigerator with magnets, and a pair of tiny shoes abandoned near the doorway. I turned, my eyes found something at the door frame beside the kitchen entrance. 

Faint pencil marks, each one dated in Olivia's handwriting. A series of dates had been written beside small lines drawn across the wood.

“2 yrs….3 yrs….4 yrs.” Climbing higher every year, all the way up to a line marked just a few months ago….Seven marks.

I stood there, staring at them. My eyes moving again slowly from the oldest mark to the newest.

The room went so quiet that Olivia finally turned around, the wooden spoon still in her hand. "What?" She studied me, wiping her hands on a towel. "Adrian?"

"Nothing." I pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table and sat down. She watched me the whole time, before she poured me a glass of water without being asked and set it in front of me. “You want some water?"

I nodded, taking it from her.

She glanced toward the door frame that I had been looking at but turned back to me, then back at me. 

"How long have you lived here?" I asked, taking a sip out of the water.

"Almost three years." She smiled.

"And before that?"

"Different place." She picked up the wooden spoon.

I nodded once, my fingers remained around the glass.

I couldn't hold back anymore, there was no reason to delay it anymore.

I carefully set the glass down. "When were you planning to tell me?”

Her spoon stopped moving. "Tell you what?"

"You know what." I looked directly at her.

"I don't…" She turned fully to face me. I watched the color leave her face the way it had at the gala. "What are you talking about?"

"About my daughter." I kept my voice level. "When were you planning to tell me about Lily?"

She simply stared at me for a second, then she shook her head. "I don't know what you're ta….."

"Don't." I snapped. "Don't lie to me again.”

"Adrian, I…” She swallowed, thinking of the best lie. She looked toward the living room as though she could somehow find an escape route through it. "I'm not lying, I don't…" She stammered.

I could see it, the exact moment she realized lying wasn't going to work.

I reached into my jacket, pulling out the folded report and placing it on the table between us "I had a DNA test done," I said. "Ninety-nine point nine nine percent. She's mine, Olivia."

The wooden spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering against the floor.

"You did…what?" Her voice cracked. "You had me investigated.” Her eyes dropped to the paper. "You tested her without telling me? Without my permission?"

"I had to know." I said plainly.

"She's a child, Adrain" Her hands were shaking now. "You went behind my back and took something from her body without asking me, without asking her….You had no right."

"You took seven years from me." I stood, the chair scraping against the floor. "You don't get to talk to me about what was taken."

"That's not the same and you know it…."

"I know everything now." I took a step toward her. "I know you hid her from me, I know you let me believe I had no one. Seven years, Olivia. Seven birthday, seven Christmases….First steps I never saw." My jaw tightened so hard it ached. "So don't stand there and lecture me about consent."

She backed away. "You don't get to walk into my life after seven years and decide you suddenly have rights over her.”

I sighed. "Do you really think I'm going to let you disappear with her now?”

She moved toward the kitchen doorway without taking her eyes off me, placing herself right in the frame with her arms spread, like she could physically block seven feet of space between us and her daughter.

"You are not taking her from me." Her voice cracked. "I don't care what you know, what test you ran or what money you have. She is…mine."

"She's ours." I stopped a foot away from her,m. "And I'm done being shut out of that."

"So what, you'll drag me to court? Take her away, make her some Kingston heiress you parade around….”

"I'm not going to separate her from you, Olivia." My hand came up, tilting her chin until she had no choice but to look at me. "I've spent seven years without her. I'm not spending one more day pretending she doesn't exist." My thumb brushed slowly along her jaw. "But I'm not taking her from her mother."

"Adrian, don't…”

"I'm taking both of you."

Before she could pull away, I pulled her firmly against me and lowered my head, claiming her lips. She went rigid for half a second… then her fingers curled into the front of my shirt, not pushing me away but not pulling me closer either, just holding on like she didn't know what else to do with her hands.

I pulled away, my hands still holding her close. “You made me miss the most important seven years of our child's life.” I said, my thumb gently caressing her lip.

“How do you intend on making it up to me.” I smirked.

Before she could, I lowered my head again, claiming her lips. “Or…how about giving me another baby?” 

She gasped, hearing those words. “Your so shamel….”

"Mommy?"

We broke apart so fast Olivia nearly stumbled backward into the doorframe. Lily stood a few feet away, her small face tilted up at us, confusion written plainly across it. Her eyes moved from Olivia's flushed face, to my hand still resting at her jaw, to the wooden spoon abandoned on the kitchen floor.

"What's going on?”