[Serena’s POV]
The questions start innocuously. Almost safe.
"What's her favorite color?"
I set down my wine glass, study his face for the trap. But there isn't one. Just genuine curiosity carved into the lines around his eyes.
"Purple. But not light purple—she's very specific about this. Deep purple. Like eggplant."
He nods, and I watch him file the information away. Memorizing. Like he's studying for the most important exam of his life and can't afford to miss a single detail.
"What scares her?"
The question catches me off guard. More intimate somehow than asking about her favorite things. "Thunderstorms. She pretends she's not scared, but she'll crawl into my bed when it gets bad."
"What do you do? When she's scared?"
"I tell her stories. Make up elaborate plots about brave princesses who learn that storms are just the sky having feelings. That being loud doesn't make something dangerous."
Something crosses his face. Longing so acute it looks like pain. "What else should I know?"
And I find myself telling him. Despite every instinct screaming to protect this information, to keep these intimate details of our daughter away from the man who filed legal papers against me—I tell him.
How Aria hates bananas but loves banana bread. How she organizes her toys by color instead of type. How she asks impossible questions at bedtime, philosophical inquiries about death and infinity that no six-year-old should be contemplating.
He listens like I'm delivering classified intelligence. Asks follow-up questions that prove he's not just hearing—he's absorbing. Building a blueprint of the child he's missed six years knowing.
The waiter refills our wine. The city glitters below us. And I'm caught in the surreal experience of sharing my daughter with the man who helped create her but never knew she existed.
"She's brilliant," he says finally. "Like you."
"She's stubborn. Also like me."
"That's not a flaw." His mouth curves slightly. "It's survival."
The observation lands somewhere tender. Because he's right. Aria's stubbornness isn't defiance—it's the same armor I've worn my entire life. The refusal to bend that's kept us both intact.
"What about you?" His voice shifts. Lower. More careful. "The years after Columbia. What was it like?"
The question I've been dreading. The one that requires admitting how thoroughly his absence carved through my life.
"Hard." The word is inadequate. "I was pregnant and terrified and had no idea who the father was. Just a medallion I couldn't trace."
"Did you try? To find me?"
The vulnerability in the question makes my chest ache. Like he's afraid of the answer. Afraid I didn't care enough to look.
"I did." The admission costs me. "For about two months. I asked around campus—described the night, the party, everything I could remember. But I was too embarrassed to push hard. Too ashamed that I'd been reckless enough to sleep with a stranger."
I watch his jaw tighten. His hand flex around the wine stem.
"Then I gave up." I force myself to continue. To finish the truth. "Decided you were probably an asshole anyway. That any guy who'd leave without a word wasn't worth finding."
He laughs. Sharp and pained. The sound of something breaking. "You weren't wrong."
"Caspian—"
"No, you weren't." He sets down his glass with too much precision. "I was a coward. I woke up next to you and panicked. Convinced myself you'd regret it. That you were too drunk to really want me. That staying would make it worse."
"So you left."
"So I ran." The correction is brutal. Self-aware. "Told myself it was for your benefit. But really, I was terrified that you'd look at me in the morning and see what I've always been—the second son trying too hard. The guy who only matters in comparison to someone better."
The confession does something violent to my carefully maintained anger. Because this—this raw self-awareness, this acknowledgment of his cowardice without excuse—is what I've needed for seven years.
Not apologies. Not explanations. Just honesty about the damage he caused.
"You left me pregnant and alone." My voice cracks despite my attempt at control. "I gave birth in a hospital with only my seventeen-year-old sister there. Raised a baby while working two jobs and finishing my degree. Do you understand what that was like?"
"No." His eyes are too bright. "But I want to. If you'll let me understand."
The waiter interrupts before I can respond. Places a plate between us—chocolate cake, rich and decadent, with the specific ganache frosting from that bakery near Columbia that I loved but could never afford.
I stare at it. At him.
"You remembered."
"I remember everything about you, Serena." His voice has gone rough. Raw. "That's the problem. I always have."
The air shifts. Becomes something dangerous. Electric.
Because this isn't just about the cake. It's about him remembering which varietal of wine I loved. Which debate strategies made me feel alive. The way I used to bite my lip when concentrating. Seven years of details catalogued and carried.
Seven years of him thinking about me while I was thinking about him.
"You can't just—" I don't know how to finish. Can't articulate the terror of letting him close after years of careful distance. "This doesn't fix anything."
"I know."
"One dinner doesn't erase seven years."
"I know that too."
"Then what are you doing?" The question comes out desperate. Afraid. "What do you want from me?"
He's quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I become hyperaware of the space between us. The table that's too small. The way his hand rests inches from mine. How badly some traitorous part of me wants to close that distance.
"I want to know if you still put your hair in a bun more aggressively than needed when it’s in your face." His voice is barely above a whisper. "If you still organize your arguments in groups of three. If you still look at me like I'm a problem you're trying to solve."
My breath catches.
"I want to know what Aria's laugh sounds like. What stories make her smile. Whether she inherited your ability to destroy people with logic or my inability to let anything go."
He leans forward. Not touching. Not demanding. Just existing in the charged space we're creating.
"But mostly, I want to know if there's any chance—any possibility—that you could forgive me enough to let me try. Not to be what we were. But to be what we could have been. If I'd been brave enough to stay."
The confession strips me bare. Exposes the truth I've been hiding from myself: that I want this too. Want him in ways that terrify me. Want to believe that people can change, that fear doesn't have to be permanent, that the man who left can become the man who stays.
But wanting and trusting are different territories.
"I don't know if I can." My voice is barely audible. "Every time I let myself believe in someone, they leave. I can't—" I stop. Can't finish the admission that letting him in might destroy what's left of me.
"I know." His fingers twitch toward mine. Don't quite touch. "And I'm not asking you to trust me. Not yet. I'm just asking you not to give up on the possibility that I could earn it."
The cake sits between us. A symbol of memory and attention and seven years of him carrying pieces of me.
I pick up my fork. Take a bite. Let the chocolate melt on my tongue while his eyes track the movement with an intensity that makes heat pool low in my stomach.
"It's good," I manage.
"Yeah?" His voice has dropped lower. Intimate.
"Yeah."
The word hangs between us. Agreement. Acknowledgment. Permission for something I'm not ready to name.
Dangerous. Electric. Inevitable.