Chapter 4 - The Christmas Morning Sanctuary
The snow storm outside the Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Atlanta was turning the city streets into a blanket of silent, untouched white.
I had booked the presidential suite—not because I wanted to flaunt wealth, but because it had a massive stone fireplace, two warm bedrooms, and a kitchen where I could order every child-friendly breakfast item on the room service menu at two in the morning.
The suite was warm, smelling of pine wood and rich cocoa.
Luke and Violet were fast asleep in the massive king-sized bed in the master bedroom, buried under three layers of down comforters, their breath coming in sweet, synchronized rhythm. Violet was still clutching her gray elephant, while Luke had slept with his hand resting over my silver watch, which I had taken off and placed beside his pillow.
I stood in the living room by the window, a glass of bourbon in my hand, watching the snow fall over the city lights.
The door behind me opened softly. Cassandra stepped out into the living room, wearing an oversized grey sweater and sweatpants the hotel staff had sourced for her from the late-night boutique downstairs. Her hair was damp from a warm shower, her face clean and completely free of the exhaustion that had weighed her down on the plane.
She walked over to the fireplace, sitting on the plush rug near the hearth, wrapping her hands around a mug of hot tea.
"They've never slept in a bed this soft," she said softly, looking at the fire. "Violet usually wakes up three times a night complaining about her mattress."
I walked over, setting my glass on the mantle, and sat down on the rug a few feet away from her.
"Tomorrow morning, a team from my real estate office is purchasing a home for you in Boulder," I said quietly. "Or Seattle. Or wherever you want to live. Four bedrooms, a yard, a studio for your painting, and the best security system money can buy."
Cassandra looked at me over the rim of her mug. "Damon... I don't want your charity."
"It's not charity!" I said, my voice rising slightly before I caught myself and lowered it. "It's what they deserve. What you deserve. Cassandra, you spent three years living in near-poverty because a criminal in my company stole my mail. You are not going to fight me on this."
"I am not a project for you to manage, Damon," she said, her eyes flashing with that familiar, stubborn fire. "You can't just throw millions of dollars at three years of absence and expect it to clean up the mess."
"I know that," I said, leaning closer to her, my expression raw. "I don't expect you to forgive me tonight. I don't expect you to fall back in love with me. But I am going to provide for my children, Cassandra. And I am going to be in their lives every single day from this moment forward."
Cassandra set her mug down on the hearth. She looked at me for a long, heavy minute, her green eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the fire.
"Do you know what today is?" she asked softly.
"Christmas Day," I replied.
"It's also the day they turn two and a half," she said, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "Every month on the twenty-fifth, I used to sit in my studio and write a letter to you. I put them in a wooden box under my bed. I told myself that when they turned eighteen, I would give them the box so they knew their father wasn't a monster who abandoned them—that he was just a man who didn't know they existed."
My throat felt tight, a lump forming that made it impossible to swallow.
"I still have the box, Damon," she whispered. "There are thirty letters in it."
I moved across the small space separating us, kneeling directly in front of her. I reached out, my hands hesitating before gently framing her face. She didn't pull away this time.
"I don't want the letters, Cassie," I whispered, using the old nickname for the first time in three years. "I want to be there for the rest of the story."
Cassandra leaned her forehead against mine, a quiet sob escaping her lips as three years of loneliness, fear, and exhaustion finally broke through her defenses.
"They missed you so much," she sobbed softly, her hands reaching up to grip my forearms. "Every time a plane flew over the house, Luke would point up at the sky and ask if that was where his daddy was working."
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I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight against my chest as she cried, resting my cheek against her soft, damp hair while the snow continued to fall silently outside our window.
"I'm down here now, baby," I whispered into the quiet room. "I'm down here on the ground. And I'm never going back up."
