All Chapters of Everything Except You: Chapter 141 - Chapter 145

"You've had three coffees and no lunch," Faiyaz said, standing in the doorway of her office with his jacket already on. "I checked with your assistant. Get up." "I have a deposition summary due tomorrow." She didn't look up from the screen. "It'll still be due tomorrow in two hours." He held her coat out, not quite an offer, closer to an instruction. "Up." She went, mostly because arguing with him took more energy than she had left, and forty minutes later they were seated at a corner table at Ostia, the kind of restaurant with low lighting and no menus printed with prices, the waiter already bringing bread before either of them had said a word. "You ordered ahead," she said, catching the look that passed between Faiyaz and the waiter. "I know what you like." He said it like a fact, not a confession. "You're insufferable," she said, breaking off a piece of bread just to have something to do with her hands. "I've been called worse tonight, and it's only nine o'clock." He didn't

He looked at the garden and thought about the custody filing he'd opened and looked at and closed without sending. He'd told himself it was because he didn't want to hurt her. That was true. But underneath that truth was another one he'd been less willing to examine.He had packed Liyana's things. He had looked at a flight to London. He had called it protecting everyone.And he had almost left his other daughter behind.He had spent two and a half years being Liyana's father in every way that mattered. The fever at three in the morning. The first words. The scraped knees. The mornings when she climbed into his bed because the night had gone on long enough.Riyana had none of that. She had a father she called Uncle. And when she'd seen him from the window, she'd run to him anyway.He couldn't undo the lost time. But he could stop creating more of it.He was not that man. He had never wanted to be that man. And yet.He heard the door, small feet on the path, fast.He turned.She was alr

Raiyan called at eleven. Evan picked up on the second ring. "So. You are alive," Evan said. "Yes." "I was beginning to wonder," Evan said, dry. "I know." A pause. "Sorry." Evan went quiet a moment, the quiet of a man who'd been waiting for this call and wasn't going to make it difficult now that it had come. "Mei landed safely." "Yeah. She fought a TSA agent over the octopus. Did the octopus survive?" Raiyan let out a low chuckle. "Yeah. It did. Intact." "Good." A pause. "Did Liyana and Riyana like it?" "They love it," Raiyan said. The line held a warm quiet, the kind two people could sit in without it costing them anything. "Thank you," Evan said. "For sending the car. For taking care of her." "She takes care of herself," Raiyan said. "Yes," Evan said. "But still." "I am not coming back," Raiyan said. "To London. Not yet." He looked at the ceiling of his room. "I cannot leave without both of them. I will not do it." "Both," Evan said. "Riyana is here." He said it simp