Chapter 80: You Took Us Away From Daddy

“Mommy?”

“What is it baby?” Celine knelt by the bed and stroked Leah’s soft hair.

“Mommy…I want to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead sweetie.”

Leah seemed to hesitate before asking, it made Celine wonder what she wanted to say. The girl never hesitated to say anything before, she would tell her mother what was on her mind straight up.

“Go on Leah, tell me.” Celine urged and the little girl looked up at her mother opening her mouth to ask.

“Will you…will you have a boyfriend soon?”

Celine looked into her daughter’s innocent eyes. Taken aback at the strange question.

She didn’t know if she should laugh or be in awe.

How the hell did she know what a boyfriend was?

“It’s okay if you don’t have one now Mommy. But I know someone you will really like, he’s very handsome.”

Celine couldn’t help a laugh escaping her mouth, “Now where did you even learn what a boyfriend is?” She knew her kids were really smart and astute for their age, but till this day she would still be astonished when they mentioned something they weren’t supposed to know yet.

Leah pouted, “I’m not a little kid anymore, I know what a boyfriend is.”

“Really now?” Celine was going to tease her daughter a bit. These kids always liked to insist they weren’t little anymore, did they even know how old they were? But Leah said something entirely unexpected, something she had never said before.

“And I know what a Daddy is too, but I don’t know why Leo and I don’t have one. Mommy, why don’t we have a Daddy?”

Celine fell silent with shock. She hadn’t anticipated her daughter would ask her this most dreaded question right now. She knew they were aware of what a father meant, but she had been trying her best to fill the space of a father for them. She had assumed her children didn’t long for one, but her daughter’s words struck a painful chord in her heart.

Had she been wrong this whole time?

Leah’s innocent question showed a sharp but suppressed desire in the little girl’s eyes. It seemed this was something she had been longing for, but she had only just decided to voice it out.

Celine felt a pang of pain and guilt in her chest. She never once wanted her kids to lack anything, never once deprived them of anything they needed, she gave in to their wants if it would be good for them and taught them to refrain if their wants were unhealthy.

Her gaze drifted to her son’s sleeping form. Did he have the same hidden desire as Leah too?

Celine knew that even if Leo had the same thoughts, he wouldn’t voice is it out unlike Leah who would speak her mind without hesitation.

Leah hadn’t meant to ask their Mommy about her Daddy, but earlier when she met that man and when he carried her, she suddenly knew what it felt like to have a Daddy for a single moment, she couldn’t hold herself from asking even if she knew Leo had warned her not to talk about it with their mother.

Celine stroked her daughter’s hair, she didn’t know what to say but the guilt in her heart felt suffocating.

She had failed…she had failed to fill the space of both parents for her children and now her daughter was longing for a father.

Leah had quietly put things together in her head, Leo had said that their real Daddy didn’t want them, but that man she met would surely want them wouldn’t he?

“Mommy, if you get a boyfriend then we can have a new Daddy, I don’t want the old one.”

If that man she met could like their Mommy, Leah would be really happy to have him as her new Daddy.

But Leah remembered the happy woman who had hugged him and addressed herself as Mrs Blakewood, disappointment clouded her eyes. What she wanted couldn’t be possible, he already had someone.

Celine felt her eyes sting with incoming tears, she pulled Leah into her arms and hugged her silently. She had no answer for the little girl because she hadn’t thought up an answer to this type of question, she always used to tell herself she would make sure she would be enough for her kids as a mother and father. And she had failed at that.

The tears fell down her face and she tightened her hold on her daughter. “I’m so sorry sweetheart.”

Leah nestled in her mother’s arms and closed her eyes feeling really sad.

She thought about that man earlier, it was the first time she had ever called someone Daddy.

She looked up at the stars from the window in the room and made a quiet wish.

She wanted that man to become her Mommy’s boyfriend so she could make him her real Daddy.

*****

Celine wasn’t able to sleep for half the night, her mind repeatedly thinking about what her daughter had asked her.

She glanced towards the moon through the windows and thought back to the cold profile of the man she had seen outside The Paradise Hotels earlier.

It hurt her more to realize that the man her daughter was longing for might just be starting another family with someone else. He was unaware that he had children.

Celine wondered about the possibility of telling him about the kids now.

Five years had passed and their deal to just have a single night was long over. Things had changed now, could there be a possibility that he would be happy to meet his children?

That thought lingered in Celine’s mind for merely a moment before she recalled the woman who so happily showed her ring to photographers.

Revealing Leo and Leah’s existence would only just ruin another woman’s happiness.

She put herself in Erica’s shoes, wondering how she would feel if the man she were about to marry suddenly showed up with kids on her doorstep, it would hurt, it would be complicated.

Things were better this way, less complicated and Celine realize she would lie to her kids if she had to, as long as she could protect them from being dragged into a complicated situation.

Not to mention there was the Blakewood family, and Celine didn’t want her kids to be tossed into a world of rivalry and familial inheritance.

“It’s better this way.” Celine whispered to herself, her voice muffled against her pillows. “It’s better this way.”

Though she told herself that, the next moment she opened her eyes she saw a phantom image of little Leah with tears in her eyes.

“You took us away from Daddy, I hate you Mommy!” The image of her daughter disappeared into thin air just as it had suddenly appeared and she couldn’t hold in her emotions anymore.

Her tears and sobs were drowned deep into the pillows as the night waned.

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