Page 127 of The Heart Breaker

“I… What?”

“What do you want?” he asks, the cold tone in his voice making my stomach drop. “Do you want money?”

“No.” My brows pull together. “I don’t want anything. I just...” My throat tightens. “I wanted to meet you.”

He shifts back in his chair. “This is highly inappropriate,” he says, and the words cut straight through me. “I don’t know what your mother told you, but?—”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” I cut in. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve wondered about you my whole life, and for some reason she refused to tell me anything about you.”

I’m hit with the strange, dizzy feeling of looking at my father and knowing that this is the person I spent years wondering about, years building up in my head, wishing I could meet.

But the feeling barely has time to settle before it’s gone again, swallowed up by the look on his face.

The disappointment.

The anger.

“I found a picture of the two of you when she was pregnant,” I continue, forcing the words out past the hurt lodged in my throat. “I spent months trying to find you.” He shakes his head, and whatever hope I came in here with starts falling apart. “I just want to know my dad.”

He looks out toward the window, then back at me, his lips pursed into a thin line. “I have a family,” he says, his voice clipped. “A wife. A son. A life I’ve built for myself.”

“I’m not trying to blow up your life,” I tell him, and I can hear the crack in my own voice even though I’m trying so hard to keep it steady. “I didn’t come here because I expect to be invited to Sunday dinners. I just…” I swallow, because it feels like my throat is burning with every word that slips out. “I just wanted to know you. That’s all.”

He shakes his head again, and my stomach sinks. “Your mother and I had an agreement, Aurora. I’m sorry, but I made my feelings clear back then. I didn’t want to be a father.”

“But that was years ago. You’re a father now.” My voice tightens. “You love your son, don’t you?”

His expression hardens. “I think it would be best if you didn’t come back,” he says. “And you should withdraw from my class.”

My throat burns when I push to my feet. I need to get out of here right now, because there is no way I’m crying in front of him. Not after spending all this time looking for him just to stand here and find out I meant that little.

I swing my bag over my shoulder and turn toward the door, gripping the strap so hard my hand aches. My eyes are already stinging. I can feel the tears building, and the thought of him seeing them makes something twist in my stomach.

I make myself look back anyway.

He’s watching me from behind the desk, and I force myself to hold his gaze. “Did you ever think of me?” The question slips out before I can stop it. My throat tightens, but I keep going. “When you left. All these years… did you ever think about me at all? Did you ever want to find me?”

The office is so quiet I can hear the clock on the wall and the sound of my own breathing as I wait for him to say something that doesn’t crush whatever hope I’ve got left.

But when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is, “No.”

A tear slides down my cheek before I can stop it, humiliation settling in my bones. After all this time, after months of searching, after everything it took to walk into this room, that’s all he has to say.

I nod because I don’t trust myself to do anything else, then turn and walk out of his office before I fall apart in front of him.

The hallway blurs almost as soon as I step into it. I keep my head down and walk fast, one hand locked around the strap of my bag, the other wiping uselessly at my face because the tears just keep coming anyway.

No.

No. No. No.

I hear the word on repeat with every step down the stairs, and when I push out into the cold, my chest hurts so badly it feels hard to breathe.

I came all this way to find him and he never once tried to find me.

He has a new family now. There’s no room for me in his life.

By the time I get to Cole’s building, the tears have dried on my face. I sniffle as I wrap my coat around myself and climb up the steps, knocking on his door, begging myself to just hold it together until I’m inside.