Happily Letter After by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 25

SEBASTIAN

I was being ridiculous.

Right?

To suspect such a thing would be absolutely crazy.

It had honestly taken a while for my mind to conjure up the wild theory that Sadie’s news brought about. First, it shocked me to hear what she’d been through, how scared she’d been, and how it led her to make that very bold decision to harvest her eggs at such a young age. But it wasn’t until she mentioned the egg donation that the alarms started going off inside me.

It was hard to fathom where my mind was going with this. And yet . . . how could it not? How could I not wonder? There was a very good chance that all of this was just one big coincidence. But what if it wasn’t?

Pulling on my hair as I sat alone in a café around the corner from Bianco’s, I honestly had no idea what to do. I’d felt bad lying to her about the situation at the restaurant, but I had to be alone to process this. She would have definitely suspected something in my behavior if I’d stuck around.

Think.

Think.

Think.

Okay. When we had been given the information for our donor, all they gave us was a profile of her looks, health, and general background. But . . . they’d also told us that our eggs came from a woman who had donated them at no cost to help another family. I suppose that could be a coincidence, too. But the articles. Why did Amanda have them? And how could she even have found out the donor’s name? The process was supposedly completely anonymous. And why not tell me if she somehow found out? And why save the articles and not do anything else about it? What was the benefit in that?

Maybe Amanda just liked those articles.

Maybe this was all one big coincidence.

Maybe I really needed to let this whole thing go.

Forget I even thought it in the first place. But how? How could I just move on from this without knowing for certain if there’s any correlation?

What if Sadie ended up being Birdie’s donor? Wasn’t that an intrusion on Sadie’s privacy? She didn’t intend to ever find out whom she had donated to. It wasn’t fair to bring this upon her. My God.This is so fucking crazy.

Burning up, I took off my jacket and rested my head in my hands. There was no way I could broach the subject to Sadie without proof. I’d once mentioned that Amanda and I had some fertility help, but I had yet to even tell her that we’d had to use a donor egg because of the cancer treatments. Eventually, I would’ve told her and then what? She might have wondered the same thing I was wondering right now. Eventually, we’d have to face it.

If Amanda hadn’t saved those articles, none of this would even be happening. But it was too suspicious not to consider. There was no way I could alarm Sadie without proof, though. I needed to figure out a way to confirm things beforehand.

“Daddy, why are you looking at me funny?”

I hadn’t even realized I’d been staring so intently at my daughter as she sat across from me eating her pasta the following evening. All day, I’d been looking for signs of Sadie in her. They had the same blonde hair, but Birdie’s face, well . . . it was mine. She looked just like me, so her facial features weren’t going to be able to give me much of a clue.

“I’m just thinking about how beautiful you are,” I said. “And how lucky I am to have you. That’s all.”

“Oh.” She twirled her spaghetti. “When are we gonna see Sadie again?”

“Not tonight. But hopefully soon. Actually, Magdalene is coming over in a little while to babysit you so I can pay Sadie a visit.”

“Why can’t she come here?”

I had no good answer for that.

“We can do dinner some night this week here, okay?”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

Several minutes passed before she called me out again.

“Daddy . . .”

I blinked out of my daydream. “What, sweetie?”

“You’re looking at me funny again.”

I sighed. “I am, aren’t I?”

Not only was Birdie sensing that something was off, but I couldn’t risk fucking everything up with Sadie if all this worrying was in vain. Would I be staring at her like this, too? I needed to figure out a way to keep my cool with her tonight.

After Magdalene arrived, I headed over to Sadie’s apartment as fast as I could.

When she opened the door, I got the unexpected urge to pull her into my arms and just hold her. Because no matter what the truth was, I cared so much about this woman. I didn’t want her to end up feeling hurt or violated. Any decision she had made in the past was out of the goodness of her heart, and I knew that.

“What’s that for?”

Speaking into her neck, I said, “I was just thinking about how crazy I am about you. I also want to apologize for having to abruptly end our date yesterday.”

“You never have to apologize for something like that. You have so much going on. Honestly, I admire how you handle it all.”

Pulling back to look in her eyes, I said, “You know what, Sadie? I was handling it before you came along, going through the motions of life with little to look forward to for myself. Handling it all is so much easier when you have someone by your side, someone who brings you joy. Don’t ever doubt what you’ve brought into my life. I know we haven’t been together that long, but I haven’t been this happy in a very long time.”

She looked like she might cry. “You know you don’t have to say stuff like that to get in my pants, right?” She playfully smacked my shoulder. “Seriously, though, thank you for saying that. I feel so lucky to have met you. This is the first time in ages that I wouldn’t change a thing about my life.”

Cupping her face in my hands, I leaned in and took her mouth in mine and closed my eyes, cherishing every movement of our tongues, every taste. I didn’t want anything to change. Everything was perfect just the way it was, without anything happening to turn both our worlds upside down.

Impulsively lifting Sadie up, I carried her into her room and placed her on the bed. She reached over to my waist, undoing my buckle and throwing the belt to the side. My rigid cock sprang forward as I pushed my boxers down and lowered myself down to her. Within seconds, she’d spread her legs wide open for me and I was inside her.

Sex with Sadie was different each and every time. Sometimes it was rough, other times slow and sensual. This time was pure passion, a manifestation of the words I’d just admitted to her minutes earlier. The feel of her warm flesh against my bare cock as always was almost too much to bear. I lasted all of a few minutes before I lost control, emptying my cum inside her faster than I wanted.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” I said as I continued to move back and forth inside her.

It pleased me to feel her muscles tighten around my cock seconds later. There was nothing more beautiful than feeling her come all around me.

With my dick still buried inside her, I muttered against her neck, “What did I ever do before you?”

“I hope you never have to remember.” She smiled.

We held each other for a long time, and Sadie actually nodded off soon after that. She must have had a long day. My plan had been to return home by eleven, at which point I’d call an Uber to take Magdalene home.

It was 9:00 pm now, and I had no idea how long Sadie would be asleep. I knew this might be my only opportunity to do something I really needed to—as wrong as it felt and as much as I didn’t want to have to do it.

Slowly and carefully lifting myself from the bed, I walked over to her kitchen and looked around. I found a stash of Ziploc bags and took two out of the box.

Quietly venturing into her bathroom, I swiped her toothbrush before placing it into one of the bags. Opening the drawer below, I grabbed a wad of hair off her brush and placed it in the other bag. My understanding was that hair needed to be pulled from the root for DNA testing, so I doubted it would take but hoped that at least the toothbrush would suffice.

Jesus.

Am I really doing this?

I felt like a thief.

A piece of hair and a used toothbrush might not be of any monetary value, but what I’d done was stealing nonetheless—I’d stolen Sadie’s right to privacy. And I’d felt like shit since the moment I’d done it.

Standing in the post-office lobby, I hung my head as I leaned on the counter and blew out a shaky breath. I’d just mailed off the DNA testing samples I’d collected and couldn’t possibly walk home yet. My head pounded, my chest felt tight, and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Normally, I’d take Motrin for a headache, but I didn’t deserve any relief. I was a piece of shit who deserved to feel like someone had chiseled into his temples.

Even though I’d been sick about what I’d done since yesterday, it still hadn’t stopped me from being the first one in line at the post office when it opened this morning.

When Sadie had told me about her egg donation, she’d said she never wanted to know who the recipients of her generosity were. In fact, she’d made sure the entire process was anonymous before going through with it. And for some reason, I didn’t think she’d ever had contact with her own birth parents. At least she’d never mentioned it. So I was pretty sure she didn’t want to know if she had children out there.

But I had to know.

Plus, what were the odds that Sadie was our donor? The fertility center had never even told us what state the person was from, only that she was a US citizen. There are over three hundred million people in this country. I’d have a better shot of winning the damn lottery. Sadie would probably think I’d lost my mind for even thinking it was a possibility—three hundred million people in the country, and my daughter just happens to write her biological mother a letter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she’d probably be right—I was a little nutty for even considering it could happen.

The fucked-up thing was that I’d never once wondered about who my daughter’s biological mother might be before the other day, even though I knew she was out there somewhere. I’d thought a lot about that over the last forty-eight hours. Why was I so compelled to know now when I hadn’t been the least bit interested in knowing just a few days ago? The answer was obvious—because it was Sadie. But what was I hoping for with these results?

Did I want Sadie to be Birdie’s biological mother?

Or did I want to go back to not knowing who the egg donor was?

I grappled with those questions the most. Deep down, even though I didn’t want to admit it, I think a part of me wanted Sadie to be Birdie’s mother. My daughter lost her mom at such a tender young age, and I’d give anything so she could have her mother again. But did that anything I’d give include forcing a woman I loved to acknowledge a child she’d never planned to know?

I blinked a few times.

A woman I loved.

Did I love Sadie?

My shoulders slumped, and I let out a heavy sigh of defeat.

Fuck.

I did.

I went and fell in goddamn love with her.

Great. Just great. I betrayed a woman I love.

I was pretty sure I was never going to forgive myself. But that was okay. I deserved to beat myself up over what I’d done . . . and then some. That wasn’t even a question. What was most important now was, would Sadie ever forgive me?