Cameron

My alarm goes off at seven in the morning, causing me to let out a groan. My flight leaves later this afternoon to go back to LA, but not an ounce of me wants to get up.

For a second I forget about what happened last night. I thought it was all some sort of dream, but then I hear music playing and the sink running in the kitchen, and I just know I didn't make this all up in my head. She's actually here.

I wander out of the bedroom and lean against the doorframe. Maddie is swaying her hips side to side to the beat as she flips an egg in the pan, and just for a second I stop worrying about all we have to talk about. I stop worrying about having to leave.

It's funny, because after all the history we have, never have I once woken up to her making breakfast for me. I mean, maybe in high school before we dated, but never like this. Never the morning after we slept together.

I could get used to this.

Her eyes pop up to meet mine, and she jumps from being caught dancing. "Oh. Sorry." She says. "Did I wake you up? Was the music too loud?"

She seems happy, her cheeks flushed and an extra pep in her step. I don't see how she couldn't be since she had about six orgasms from me last night. All from just my tongue.

"No. I'm surprised you're up so early though. Since when are you an early bird?"

"Since I have to be on mommy time now." She laughs, and it's like a complete punch to my gut.

I have a daughter.

A daughter I never knew about.

"Right." I clear my throat and go to sit down at one of the barstools. I'm confused as to how she even got the ingredients to make breakfast since there wasn't anything in the fridge yesterday, but maybe they stocked it after I asked for room service.

"What time does your flight leave?" She asks. "I'm assuming you go back today?"

"Yeah, but my flight doesn't leave until later this afternoon. I just set my alarm so that I'd make sure I was up."

A plate of eggs, bacon and sausage lands in front of me. It smells absolutely delicious. I take a bite of the eggs and groan from how good it is. We certainly worked up an appetite last night.

"It's so good." I hum happily with a mouthful of eggs. "Thanks for this."

She joins me at the island, still in just my t-shirt from last night. I notice she's let her hair turn back to blonde rather than brown, the ringlets going every which way from being slept on. I love how she looks in the morning, even with her eyeliner and lipstick smeared from last night.

"So where do you live now that you're all famous?" She asks. "A mansion?"

"Not exactly." I laugh. "More like a penthouse."

"Oh, because that's so much worse. You poor thing."

"You're exactly like Ethan, you know that?" I smile towards her. "I never said it was a bad thing. I just haven't invested in a house yet."

"And why is that?" She tilts her head to the side, genuinely curious for my answer.

Would it be creepy to tell her that it's because I've been waiting to see what she's going to do with her life? Where she'll settle down? I'd buy a house wherever she is. I want to be as close to her as I can.

"Let's talk about you." I say instead. "You moved back home for Isabelle I'm assuming?"

She nods. "Yeah, it was just easier. I'm still in med school at Yale, just part time now doing online classes. I got a new internship here at another pediatric clinic, and when I'm not interning there then I work part time at Maya's salon as a receptionist."

I want to tell her that I could have helped if I had known, but how could I have helped? I couldn't be here. I travel all the time. We're finally about to be in the off season where I'll be able to thankfully spend some time with Isabelle. I want to get to know her. I want to be the dad that she needs me to be. I just need to know if Maddie is okay with that.

"Sounds like you're a busy girl." I say and finish up the breakfast on my plate. "Did you want to take a shower?"

She stands up and gathers up our plates before she takes them to the sink. "You can hop in first. I'm going to clean this up."

"Do you want me to help?"

"No." She laughs. "Go ahead. I've got it."

Leaving her to it, I head into the bathroom and start the shower up. I slip my briefs off and stand in front of the sink, gripping onto the sides as I stare into the mirror.

My life has changed drastically in the matter of twenty four hours. I just found out I have a daughter and yet I have to leave her. I have a job to do, but the only thing I feel like doing is fix what's been broken between all of us. Leaving doesn't seem like the right decision, but I don't have an option.

Letting out an irritated sigh, I jump into the shower and quickly wash myself up. I don't want to waste any time that I have with Maddie. I don't know when she'll have to go get Isabelle from her mom, and I don't want to risk any lost minutes.

I leave the water running for her and wrap a towel around my waist. As soon as I open the door I see Maddie completely naked, her back facing me with a towel folded on the bed in front of her.

"Oh, fuck." She quickly grabs the towel and struggles to get it open as she spins to face me. "Sorry, I thought you were still in there."

I can't seem to focus on anything else but the scar that's going directly across her stomach though. It's deep and red, and I bring my eyes to hers, waiting for an explanation.

"I had a C-section." She says quietly. "When Isabelle was born."

"You had to have surgery?" I ask in disbelief. "And you didn't call me?"

I realize I know nothing about her or my daughter after the past two years. So much has happened, and instead of talking about it we covered up our feelings with lust. I'm angry, I'm furious. Obviously something happened during her labor, and I wasn't contacted.

"Cameron, why would I have called you?"

"Oh, I don't know, because I'm her father? If something was wrong and they had to resort to a C-section I should have been fucking contacted."

"I know." She replies calmly. "I know how wrong it was, okay? I own up to it completely, and I regret it more than you'll ever know."

"You could have died. Isabelle could have died. What if I never saw you again? What if you had-"

"Cam..." she covers up the scar with the towel and walks over to grab onto my face. "Nothing happened. I'm fine. She's fine. It's okay."

"But it could have." I reiterate, and hot, angry tears come onto my face uncontrollably. "I'm so fucking hurt, Mads. I'm so hurt that you would keep her from me. Last night was incredible, and I don't regret it by any means, but I don't know if I can trust you again after this."

Maddie looks devastated, biting hard onto her lip. "I told you my reasoning. It doesn't make it right, but I just couldn't hear your voice after you ended things with me. I couldn't face seeing you with Katie. It was selfish and stupid, but just knowing you chose someone else over me was-"

"I never chose Katie over you." I blurt out. "She blackmailed me. That is the reason I had to end things with you. Not because I wanted to."

Maddie takes a huge step back from me. "What?"

"That night we went out to Devin's show." I explain. "There was a video that was filmed of you doing that line of Oxy. One of Katie's friends sent her it, and she threatened to send it to all of the top medical schools in the country. Her father was the head coach at Penn state Maddie. He had all of the contacts. All of the connections to completely ruin your dreams."

"And rather than tell me the truth you thought it would be better to tell me that you were in love with her again?"

"She had something over me too." I say lowly, bringing my gaze down to the floor. "She had a sex tape of us. If I told you the real reason and she found out that you knew then she was going to leak that too. She wanted to be with me for the clout, to gain followers. I only agreed to do it for two years, but after a little over a year she found someone more famous. The videos got deleted, and now I can finally tell you the truth."

I expected Maddie to be relieved that I truly never loved Katie. I expected her to be happy that I never fell out of love with her, but instead she looks like the wind has just been knocked out of her.

She blinks away tears, clutching onto the towel tightly. "You should have just told me the truth. You come first before my career ever will. I agreed to fucking marry you. We could have dealt with that together. We could have figured it out."

"You know it would have destroyed you to lose your dream, Maddie. Don't try to lie."

"No!" She explodes. "What destroyed me was being a single mom for two years because I thought you had chosen someone else! We split up because of a fucking video of me? Do you realize how stupid that is? This is so much bigger than my career will ever be! Isabelle comes before everything, and if you had come clean then-"

"I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT HER!" I erupt, my anger spewing out all at once. "I didn't fucking know! If you had told me that night then of course I would have said fuck it if the video came out. If I knew we were expecting a child it would have made things a lot different!"

"This isn't fucking fair." Maddie sobs. "We lost two years because you lied!"

"Yeah well so did you." I spit back, getting closer to tower over her. I don't like being like this, but I'm pissed. I'm furious. "Feeling's fucking mutual Maddie. I missed out on the birth of my daughter. I missed out the first time you fed her, the first diaper change, the first night bringing her home..."

"I know!" She sobs and tries to move away from me, but I step back in front of her. I'm crying now, my hands balled up into fists.

"What about her first laugh? The first time she smiled? When she discovered her favorite toy? Her favorite food? I DESERVED TO FUCKING KNOW!"

Maddie pushes me backwards and grabs her clothes that are by the bathroom door. She's sobbing, her hands shaking as she tries to put her jeans back on.

"Do not come near me!" She screams when I try to stop her. "Don't fucking touch me."

"Maddie..." my voice cracks, and I realize my hands are still balled up into fists. I must have scared her. I would never hurt her, but I don't blame her for being frightened. I lost control.

"You will never get in my face and yell at me like that again, do you understand me?" Her eyes meet with mine, swollen and puffy from the crying. "I don't care what the fuck I've done to you. That doesn't give you the excuse to react that way."

What the fuck are we doing?

This isn't us. We've never fought like this. I love this woman with my entire being. I don't know where we go from here, and I don't know where we stand, but the last thing I want is for her to be scared of me. I'm not that guy.

"You're right." I say quietly, making sure to keep my voice low. Her body is still shaking, and I take a step closer towards her. "Can I hold you? Please?"

She scans my eyes again, and once she realizes that I'm no longer angry she slowly nods her head, collapsing into my arms. Her tears come onto my chest, and I grip her tightly, kissing the top of her head repeatedly.

"You have every right to be m-mad at me." She splutters. "And I am so fucking sorry that I denied you of all of those opportunities. It wasn't fair to you."

"That still doesn't give me the right to yell at you the way that I did. I don't know where we go from here, Maddie, but I want to be civil for Isabelle. Right now we don't trust each other, and I don't know when or if we can fix that, but the only thing I'm certain of is that I have to see my daughter. I have to be a part of her life."

"You can be." She nods. "As much as you want."

"Our off season is coming up in a few weeks since we didn't make it to the playoffs. I'll have a few months free, and I want to be here. If that's okay with you."

She nods again, relief flooding through my chest. I'm grateful that despite how angry we are at each other we seem to have one thing in common. We both want the best for Isabelle.

I don't want her to leave after the fight we just had, but I know that we probably need space from each other to think about things. The secrets we kept from each other were huge, and we're not going to overcome them in an hour. It's going to take time to work through.

"I should probably get going." Maddie steps out of my embrace. "My mom's already kept Izzy long enough."

"Can I call a car for you?"

"Actually, yeah. That'll probably be faster than waiting on an Uber. Thanks."

I call my driver to have him come and pick her up. He's always prompt and on time, so it doesn't surprise me when he calls to tell me he's outside in less than five minutes. I instruct him to wait a second as I walk her to the door.

Her blue eyes glisten with tears. I don't know if she's feeling the same as I am, but I'm terrified. Terrified that this might be the end of us. That we won't be able to work this out.

I pull her back into me, not asking permission to hug her tightly. "It's going to be okay." I reassure her. "We just have to give it time."

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