Page 37 of Iron Cross

“I’m so sorry,” I said, taking his hand in mine and pulling it toward me. “It’s a compliment, I swear. He likes monsters.”

Aaron didn’t take his eyes off of Cillian, as if he’d never seen a child before.

“He looks like you,” Aaron finally said, when his eyes came back up to me. “Beautiful.”

My heart leapt. No one had ever said my son looked like me. But he meant it. There was no deception in his expression. He truly did believe that Cillian looked at me.

“You two have a nice day,” Aaron said, smiling at me, then at my son. “No one will bother you from now on.”

“What did you just say to them?” I asked, not sorry in the least for Tiffany being in some kind of panic, but also not sure how scared I should be of this man. “Are you a cop too?”

How ironic would that be? After years of deception, and living among the mafia, a cop comes into my life.

“No, I’m not,” Aaron said, with a small shrug. “I know a lot of cops, though.”

I could feel Aaron’s gaze on the side of my face, his hands buried in his jacket pocket.

“How old is he?” he asked, nodding towards my boy, who was nuzzled at my neck, apparently as exhausted by today’s events as I was.

“He’s two years old.”

“Well, he’s a giant!” There was a sadness in his voice that cracked my heart. “I’m guessing he didn’t get that height from you.”

I laughed, because now that I had given up my high heels, I stood maybe five foot four, though pregnancy seemed to have made me shorter.

“Independent little thing, isn’t he?” said Aaron. “I was watching you in the playground. Not in a creepy way.” If I had wanted to think of him as a creep, the playful wink would have made all of that fade away. “But you two were the most interesting thing in the park. He seemed quite… self-sufficient.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s tragic, really.”

“Tragic?” he lifted a thick, brown eyebrow and I shrugged.

“The tragedy of motherhood is that the moment you give birth to them is the moment you start losing them.”

He looked perplexed by that. “Say more.”

“When he was a baby, I was all that he could see when I held him and fed him.” I remembered those glorious early years. They were exhausting. But now, my womb ached at the memories of all the moments I had not loved as much as I should have. The time when I had been his everything. “Everything he tasted and touched was up to me. Then he walks and talks. He sees otherpeople, develops other relationships. Bit by bit, I become less important. One day, he’ll stop thinking of me when he thinks of his family. He’ll envision a spouse, a child of his own, and I will becomeextendedfamily.”

That was a feeling that built in the pit of my stomach - the knowledge that I’d become irrelevant to the person I loved more than anything in the world.

“He’ll always be my baby,” I sighed. “But I will become less and less until, eventually, he’ll be able to live without me. And I will never live without him.”

Aaron gave a solemn nod. He almost looked sad, as he gave my son one final glance and said, “It’s tragic, when affection isn’t returned.”

There was a wound in his eyes, coupled with a fast downturn of his lips. But in a blink, it was gone.

“I’m sorry if you’ve felt that way,” I said, with genuine remorse. “That must be painful.”

“Well.” He shrugged, and smiled. “It is what it is.”

I wanted to reach out to him, and to touch his beard. I wanted to place my hand over his heart and look into his eyes. But that wasn’t possible with Cillian here. Not when one part of me always had to be on him, and what mischief toddlers can get up to.

The image of Eoghan flashed in my head. Him and the Vasilieva woman - tall, Amazonian, and every bit a queen he could admire.

I heard myself say, “Do you want to get dinner sometime?”

I felt my eyes widen, as the words surprised even me.

“I mean, maybe a coffee?”

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