“India is more than just my ex. She’s…,” he trailed, “she’s special.”
“Man, she has really got to you.”
He slipped his phone onto his desk, “I’ve loved that woman for as long as I could remember. I thought I lost my chance with her when she got married.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I know.”
“You two aren’t the same people you were.”
“We’re better. Older. A little wiser.”
“You can’t seriously be considering getting back together with your ex.”
“Why are you here, Derrick?”
“You have been caring for a kid for a few weeks now. I thought I should check in with you and see how things are progressing.”
“Kier is happy, healthy, and at the Ivy where he belongs. The preparation and the valuation for the IPO are well within the parameters we set when we first made the decision to go public.”
“That’s because we’ve managed to keep things quiet, but we are in a particularly precarious position. Judge Adams only gave you temporary custody. She is going to want to see that Kier is being taken care of. Both physically and mentally.”
“Kier is more than happy. He has India and his home with me.”
“Yeah, but for how long will he have India?”
“Forever, if I have any real say in it. She is endgame for me, Derrick. She always has been.”
“Are you her endgame?”
He nodded. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“She isn’t one of your employees. She doesn’t have to listen to you. She didn’t seem that interested in much that had to do with you the last time I saw the two of you together.”
“We had a lot to work through…” he thought back to the night before and the way she looked at him when she made her announcement, “We still have a lot to work through, but we are getting there.”
Derrick frowned, “You truly believe you two are going to get back together.”
Alex looked his friend in the eye, “I believe we deserve a second chance to get things right.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You still look at him like he’s your world. How are you going to leave him,” Emilia asked as she helped India roll out the dough for sugar cookies.
Every year, India would make care packages for the holiday residents of the local VA. She baked cookies and wrote holiday cards. Some of her favorite Vets got a special bottle or two in their basket. It was something she had started doing the first time Ryan was sent overseas. It brought her comfort to bring them comfort.
It was the same feeling she got when she was taking care of Kier. She mixed in some chocolate chips to the dough. Emilia was right. She still did look at Kier like he was still her son. She could not just turn off the part of her brain that thought of him as her son. She did not want to.
Kier came into her life right when she needed him. He reminded her that there were still amazing things in the world whenever he smiled at her. India looked up to find him happily watching them work as he bit/gummed on some cookie chunks from her scraps pile. His brown eyes were bright, and his chubby face was covered in crumbs.
“I have to leave.” She was sinking in quicksand and her ability to escape was quickly fading. “Eventually, Elizabeth and Noelle are going to come back. I doubt they will be happy to see me living in their home.”
Emilia didn’t bother trying to deny it. “That could be a problem.”
Nodding, she grabbed another handful of chocolate chips to add to the dough. “She has never liked me.”
Elizabeth saw her as the enemy from the very beginning. It hadn’t mattered that India was barely fourteen years old. Elizabeth treated her like she was gum stuck under the woman’s Chanel buckled heels. It hadn’t mattered how hard she tried to please the woman or meet her standards. In his mother’s eyes, she was not good enough for someone of Alex’s caliber.
It was the first time India had felt judged not because of the color of her skin, but because of her “character”. The fact she was black meant nothing to Elizabeth. She just wasn’t the right kind of black. Elizabeth only recognized those who were like her, wealthy and entitled.
Who was she to have a place by the side of a Prince-like Alex? Her son deserved a woman with multiple last names and a trust fund. Elizabeth respected old money. She recognized prestige and bloodlines.
“Alex’s mother lives for her children.”
“And only her children.”
No one could accuse Elizabeth of not loving her children. She thought they were paragons of perfections and that they deserved only the best. She just didn’t see the same value in others. She passed that belief onto her children. It just hadn’t stuck so well with her son.
When they first met, Alex had been so entitled. He’d grown up listening to his mother tell him he was better than everyone. He acted accordingly. She put in a lot of long hours to knock a lot of that out of his head.
Was it any wonder Noelle turned out the way she did? She’d been raised by a viper and told that everyone around her wasn’t worth her time or attention.
“She tries to be the best mother she can be.”
“It isn’t my place to judge how another woman raises her children.” India hedged carefully. She was aware, she was not just talking to one of her girlfriends.
“But you do,” Emilia remarked softly, her gaze all the more telling.
The pair had grown close in the last few weeks India had lived at the Ivy. Still very much the firm disciplinarian, India remembered, Emilia was also warm and loving. She doted on her charges and treated Kier like he was her grandson. The pair got along so well, she felt comfortable leaving him with her.
“I think…,” India mused as she wiped at the bridge of her nose with the inside of her elbow, “I think Alex and Noelle had everything they ever wanted handed to them on a silver platter. It made her son cold to everyone, except the select few he gave his heart to and her daughter an addict. Loving your children isn’t enough, you also have to parent them and teach them humility, compassion, love, and strength. I hope she will be able to do that with Kier.”
“You worry about Kier.”
“He is so young and malleable.”
Emilia pulled out a tree-shaped cookie cutter from the drawer behind her and walked over to the sink. “And Alex?”
“Alex and I are not a factor.”
“He loves you.”
“He loves himself more.”
“I don’t believe that is true,” Emilia remarked as she rinsed the cutter. “I remember the way he was with you all those years ago. I see the way he looks at you now.”
When they were younger, Alex treated her like she was gold. When they weren’t butting heads with each other, they could spend hours talking to one another about anything and everything. She knew him. She knew that as much as he wanted to believe he loved her, he also wanted to win. He wanted to get her back to satisfy the part of his ego that was bruised, when she married Ryan.
“I have no interest in revisiting the past.” She needed to move on and live her life. India didn’t need to wallow in her pain and hurt. She needed to move through it and get past it.