“She’s beautiful,” he said. “She looks a little older than a year.”
“She’s actually sixteen months,” the woman said.
Bastian nodded and did the mental calculation, confirming what he already knew. This was definitely his baby. His bear was going nuts, demanding he take the baby from the nanny and keep her safe with him. He pushed his bear down, but the feeling of wanting his baby in his arms remained. He smiled at the woman in what he hoped was a charming manner.
“Can I hold her?” he asked.
The woman looked at him like he had gone mad, and then fear flickered across her face. She jumped to her feet.
“Umm, actually, we’re running late. We really need to go,” she said.
She turned away before Bastian could respond and she practically ran from him. He debated going after her. He could catch her easily enough. He hadn’t meant to scare her and he realized now, too late, that it had been a bad move asking to hold the baby. He wanted to reassure the woman that he meant neither her nor the baby any harm, but he reasoned that if he went chasing after her, he was only going to scare her more. He would never hurt the baby, or indeed anyone who cared for her. He had just wanted to hold his daughter in his arms.
He consoled himself, telling himself that Rachel would be along soon, and then he would be able to meet the baby officially and she would be in his arms soon enough. He glanced at his watch. It was just after five and he figured that Rachel would be along at any moment.
He knew he would have no trouble recognizing her. Even without the photograph Oscar had sent him, Rachel’s face was as clear in his mind as it had been the first day he had met her. Her face was never far from his mind and the mere mention of her name brought it forth every time with startling clarity.
He wondered if she would recognize him. It hardly mattered. She would remember him when he told her who he was. No one would forget the name of the father of their child, even if they chose not to tell him about the child.
Bastian looked in the direction he thought Rachel would come from. After a couple of anxious minutes that felt like hours, hell, weeks, he spotted Rachel. As he saw her, it was like time stood still for a moment. Even in his memory, he hadn’t done her beauty justice. She was as gorgeous, as mesmerizing as ever, and the second Bastian set eyes on her, that feeling that they were connected rushed back to him.
Rachel spotted him at the same moment he spotted her, and he now had no doubts that she recognized him. She stopped walking, her eyes on his, and for a moment, they just stared at each other. Bastian felt a hundred emotions flood through him as he looked into her eyes. He was as much under Rachel’s spell now as he had been two years ago.
The spell was only broken when Rachel turned and ran from him. Bastian recovered himself quickly and jumped up from the bench and began to weave through the crowd. He had lost her once and he wasn’t about to let it happen again.
9
Rachel was walking home from work. She was in no particular hurry. It was a nice, warm day and she was just enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin, warming her beneath the short sleeves of her blouse. She reached the park and stepped through the gates, wondering if Lena would be here with Stephanie. Sometimes Lena went to the park in the morning and other times, she timed it so that she would be there as Rachel walked through on her way home from work and then they walked the rest of the way home together.
She looked around but she couldn’t spot Lena or her stroller. As her eyes scanned the park, she did a double-take when she spotted a familiar face on a bench. Familiar and yet a face she hadn’t seen in two years and had hoped she never had to see again: Bastian.
For a second, Rachel froze. Her eyes met Bastian’s and despite the fear that flooded her, she couldn’t help but notice the striking color of his eyes, a color she saw every time she looked into Stephanie’s eyes, and the intensity of his gaze. Even after all of this time, she felt as though when Bastian looked at her, he really saw her. It was like he saw through everything and viewed her very soul. Beneath the dread at seeing Bastian sitting there, Rachel felt her body flood with warmth as her mind automatically went back to the night they had spent together.
Rachel wanted to believe so badly that Bastian being here was just a coincidence and this was just a chance encounter, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She knew why he was here—he was here for her, for Stephanie. He had to be. Why else would he be sitting on a bench in the park she walked through every day? It made no sense that he would be here for any reason other than to wait for her to pass through.
Rachel forced herself to tear her eyes away from Bastian’s and the second she did it, the spell he held her under was broken. She turned and ran blindly, not caring where she was headed, only knowing she had to get away from Bastian. She was flooded with emotions, all of them fighting for her attention, as she ran down a path that wound through flower beds and trees. Rachel hoped the path didn’t lead to a dead end.
She could hear feet pelting the ground behind her and she knew without having to turn around that
