Beautiful Mistake [a Roman Reigns story]

6 The missing part

Lily POV

"Um... I don't know what you mean." I said as I tried to avoid his question.

"Lily... please tell me that's... not... what I think it is..." he stammered.

I took a deep breath and decided it was time to tell him the truth. Although I was not sure how this situation would end. Now that I had to look him in the eye again, I became more and more aware that I could no longer hide it.

"Here's the thing, Roman. I have a daughter... we have a daughter." I whispered, lowering my gaze to the floor. Unable to bear the look in his eyes. I waited for him to start screaming, but nothing happened. Instead, I was suddenly in his arms. Roman hugged me so tightly that I thought he would never let me go. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

"You should have told me!" he whispered in my ear.

"I know.... but how? How was I supposed to tell you? I left to spare your family pain. If I had told you, I would have hurt so many people with it. So I thought it would be better if I kept it to myself," I explained sniffling as he pulled away from me to look me in the eye.

"After you left, I fell into a deep hole. Nothing made sense anymore, but I pulled myself together as best I could. Still, my wife noticed. I don't want to go into too much detail now, but our marriage didn't last long after that. She felt that I was no longer happy. So we decided to separate. I live close by to make it easier for the kids. It works well and she has a new partner. But I... I always felt that a part of me was missing," he said quietly, not taking his eyes off me.

He placed his large, warm hands on my face. With his fingertips he wiped the tears from my cheeks. Immediately I remembered when he had done exactly that the last time. It was the night that changed everything. The night after which I was no longer alone, but I hadn't known it yet.

"Well, would you like to meet this part?" I asked in a shaky voice. I was trying to process what he had just told me. But it was quite a lot at once.

"I would love nothing more than that. What's her name?" replied Roman with tears in his eyes as he let go of my face and gave me a small smile.

"Come with me. She's in my office. Her name is Maya and she's 2 years and 3 months old now." I said and led him to my office.

"Does she know about me?" he wanted to know.

"She's seen pictures of you and some videos, but she doesn't know you're her father. I just... I just didn't know how to explain it to her," I said.

He nodded and then followed me silently. Roman also had a lot of new information to process.

"Wait here for a minute, okay?" I said as we arrived outside my office. I walked in after taking a deep breath and saw my little angel sitting on the floor playing with her babysitter.

"Thank you so much for watching her, Nancy. I owe you one." I said to my colleague.

"No problem. It was my pleasure. She's so sweet and has been a good girl." replied Nancy before leaving the office.

"Maya, come here my darling." I said to my daughter and lifted her into my arms. She snuggled against my neck.

"Hi Mommy." she said happily.

"I want you to meet someone. Okay?" I said to her.

"Okay." Maya nodded.

"Come in." I called and immediately the door opened.

As Maya saw who it was she started to squirm for me to put her down. Carefully I lowered her back to her feet.

"Mommy. Ro!" she called excitedly, pointing to the big man in the room.

"I know, baby." I smiled and was happy about her enthusiasm.

Roman knelt down so he could be a little more at eye level with her.

"Hi Maya. I'm Roman. God, you're so beautiful. You have the same eyes as your mommy." cooed Roman. The emotion in his voice clearly audible.

Maya tilted her head to the side and looked at Roman quite attentively. Then she put her index finger in his mouth and turned to me. She looked at me with wide eyes. I knew what she wanted, so I nodded.

Immediately she strode toward him and raised her arms. Without hesitation, Roman lifted his daughter into his arms. Only now did I realize how similar they looked. I felt guilty that I had kept them apart for so long.

"Lily, what's wrong?" asked Roman when he saw my face.

"I... it's just..." I didn't have the words to explain what was going on inside me.

"I know... come here." he held his other arms out. I walked over to them and Roman wrapped his strong arm tightly around my waist.

"Everything will be fine. We'll make a new beginning. This time we'll do it right. I don't want to lose the missing parts again." he said calmly and pressed his lips to my forehead.

Maya grabbed his chin with her small hand and turned his head so that he was looking at her. Her look was full of curiosity and suddenly she surprised us.

"Dada?" she asked.

Roman and I looked at each other in shock. I had no idea why or how, but somehow Maya knew Roman was a part of her too.

"Yes, baby girl. I'm your Dada." Roman confirmed with a proud smile.

I really hoped that Roman would be right and we would have a new beginning. We would have a lot of things to explain, but for the first time in a while I had confidence that I could handle it.