Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Hero

Emily's hand stayed in mine for exactly four seconds.
I counted them.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Then she pulled away like she had only just realised everyone was watching.
The loss of her fingers hit harder than it should have.
She stepped back, clutching the sheet around herself again, her face closing off as quickly as it had opened. I knew that look. I had been on the wrong side of it enough times to recognise the walls going back up brick by brick.
"Don't do that," she said quietly.
I turned from the doorway. "Do what?"
"Make declarations in hallways like I asked you to save me."
"I wasn't saving you."
Her brow lifted.
I swallowed the rest of the sentence.
I was choosing you.
That was what I wanted to say.
I didn't.
Because saying it in front of Anna, Jen, Jo, my agent, and my furious director would have been cruel. Not romantic. Not brave. Cruel.
Emily didn't need more pressure.
She needed clothes.
She needed space.
And Eleanora needed me.
"Get dressed," I said instead.
Her eyes flashed. "Don't tell me what to do."
"I'm not. I'm asking you to hurry."
"That sounded a lot like telling."
"Emily."
The warning in my voice was sharper than I intended, but I was already splitting in five different directions. My daughter was awake. My mother was surrounded by photographers. My director was threatening me. Jo was looking at me like I had taken something from her I had never offered in the first place. And Emily was standing in my hotel room wearing nothing but a sheet and stubborn pride.
For one second, she looked like she might fight me just because she could.
Then my phone buzzed again.
Mum.
Hero, they're shouting through the gate. Your dad has called the police. Please hurry.
Emily saw the message.
The argument died on her tongue.
She turned away without another word and grabbed her dress from the floor.
I looked back at the hallway.
My director was still staring at me like he could burn obedience into my skin if he glared hard enough.
"You cannot leave with her," he said.
I almost laughed.
"Watch me."
"Hero," my agent cut in, sweating through his collar, "let's all take a breath. The priority right now is controlling the story."
"The priority is Eleanora."
"Yes, of course, but from a public-facing standpoint-"
"There is no public-facing standpoint when it comes to my daughter."
My director stepped forward. "You signed a contract."
I stepped forward too.
Anna moved between us before either of us could do something stupid.
"Enough," she snapped. "Both of you. This is a hotel corridor, not a boxing ring."
Jen was already on her phone, pacing a few steps away.
"I've got a car coming to the service exit," she said, covering the speaker with one hand. "Five minutes. Maybe less if the driver can get around the press."
"Good," I said.
My director's mouth twisted. "You are all enabling a disaster."
Anna looked at him over her shoulder. "No, we are managing the disaster you were about to make worse."
He turned on her. "Stay out of this."
Anna laughed once, cold and humourless. "You dragged me into this the second you decided the solution to a child being exposed was a staged romantic outing with his co-star."
Jo flinched.
I saw it.
So did Emily.
She had managed to get her dress halfway up, her back turned to us, the zip still open from her waist to between her shoulder blades. The same zip I had touched last night. The same bare skin that had undone me so completely I had forgotten the rest of the world existed.
Now the rest of the world was standing at the door.
Emily struggled with the clasp, her fingers shaking too badly to catch it.
I moved without thinking.
"Don't," she said immediately.
I stopped.
Her back was still to me.
The hallway went silent.
"I can do it," she said.
But she couldn't.
Not because she was weak. Because her hands were trembling and her breathing was too fast and she was seconds away from falling apart in front of people she would rather die than break in front of.
Jo's voice came softly from the hallway.
"I can help her."
Emily's whole body locked.
"No," she said.
One word.
Sharp enough to cut.
Jo looked down, hurt flickering across her face.
I should have felt sorry for her.
Part of me did.
The rest of me was too busy watching Emily's shoulders rise and fall.
"Anna," I said.
Anna looked at me, then at Emily. She understood immediately.
She stepped into the room, shut the door halfway in my director's face, and crossed to Emily without making a big performance of it.
"Turn around," Anna said, gentler than I expected from her.
Emily hesitated.
Then she obeyed.
Anna zipped her up carefully, smoothed the back of the dress once, then leaned in and murmured something I couldn't hear.
Emily's face crumpled for half a second.
Then she nodded.
I looked away before she caught me watching.
Not because I wanted to give her privacy.
Because seeing someone else offer her kindness in a moment I had helped create made something sour twist in my chest.
I had been so angry for so long that I forgot Emily had been bleeding too.
The door opened again.
Anna stepped back out first.
"She needs shoes," she said.
"I'm fine," Emily replied, already bending to grab her heels.
"You're not going barefoot through a hotel full of photographers," Anna said.
Emily shot her a look. "I said I'm fine."
"And I heard you. Shoes."
For some reason, that did what my pleading never could.
Emily put the heels on.
Jen covered her phone again. "Car's two minutes out. But the service exit isn't clean. There are two photographers at the back and more at the front."
"Can we use the kitchen exit?" I asked.
Anna nodded slowly. "Maybe. Staff corridors connect through the lower level."
My agent rubbed both hands over his face. "This is insane. We need a plan."
"We have one," I said. "Get to Mum's. Pick up Eleanora. Go to the flat."
Emily's head snapped up.
"No."
I looked at her. "Emily-"
"No," she repeated, harder this time. "You are not taking her to my flat."
"Our flat."
Her laugh was quiet and bitter. "Of course that's the part you care about."
"That flat is secure. No fans know about it."
"I live there."
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do." She walked towards me, voice low enough that only I could hear. "That is the one place that still feels like mine. You don't get to bring court orders and cameras and chaos into it because suddenly it suits you."
I clenched my jaw.
The words court orders hit exactly where she wanted them to.
"I'm not using the court against you."
"You already did."
Silence spread between us.
Behind me, my director muttered something under his breath, but for once I ignored him.
Emily's eyes were bright again.
Not with tears.
With fury.
"You fought me for her," she whispered. "You won. You got to decide where she lives, who she lives with, what happens next. Don't stand here and act like you need my permission now just because the whole world is watching."
I stared at her.
"I'm asking," I said.
"No. You're telling me what's safest and expecting me to fall in line because you have decided you're right. Again."
My hand tightened around my phone.
She was wrong.
And she wasn't.
That was the worst part about Emily. Even when she was unfair, there was always enough truth buried inside it to make me bleed.
"Fine," I said.
Her expression flickered.
"What?"
"I'm asking," I said again, slower this time. "Please. Let me bring Eleanora to the flat. Let me get her somewhere safe. You can tell me to leave the second this calms down, but right now I need somewhere they won't find her."
Emily looked away.
I watched her throat move.
She wanted to say no.
I could see it.
Maybe because the flat was hers now. Maybe because bringing Eleanora there meant letting our daughter into the only piece of life Emily had managed to keep separate from motherhood. Maybe because if Eleanora crossed that threshold, Emily could not pretend the baby existed only in my world anymore.
"She won't understand why I don't want to hold her," Emily whispered.
The hallway went dead silent.
Even my director stopped looking angry.
I felt the words more than heard them.
Emily stared at the floor like she hated herself for saying it out loud.
"She's a baby," I said carefully.
"That doesn't mean she won't feel it."
I had no answer.
Because maybe she was right.
Maybe babies knew.
Maybe Eleanora had always known there was a person missing from the room.
My voice softened. "Then don't hold her."
Emily looked up.
I hated the relief that flashed across her face.
And I hated myself for hating it.
"You don't have to pretend," I said. "Not with me. Not today. Just let me get her somewhere safe."
Her mouth trembled.
She pressed her lips together until it stopped.
"Fine," she said.
One word.
It should not have felt like a miracle.
But it did.
My phone buzzed again.
Another unknown number.
My stomach tightened before I even opened it.
A photo loaded.
Eleanora again.
This one from court day.
Her little face blurred slightly by distance, wrapped in a white blanket in my arms as I walked out of the building.
Emily made a sound behind me.
Small.
Destroyed.
Underneath the photo was another message.
Noon. Statement. Or the child gets named.
Anna stepped close enough to see it.
"Fuck," she whispered.
Jen's face drained of colour.
My agent reached for the phone. "Give me that."
I moved it out of his reach. "No."
"We need legal involved now."
"Then call legal."
My director's eyes narrowed. "Who sent that?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
Jo was still standing near the wall, arms wrapped around herself. Her face was pale, eyes fixed on the phone in my hand.
Too fixed.
A tiny pulse of unease moved through me.
"Jo?" I said.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
"What?"
"Do you know anything about this?"
The second I asked, regret moved across her face.
Not guilt.
Not exactly.
Something smaller.
Something controlled too quickly.
"No," she said.
Emily looked at her.
Jo looked away.
There it was again.
That wrongness.
A beat too late.
A blink too fast.
I didn't have time to chase it.
Not yet.
But I logged it somewhere dark and quiet inside me.
"Car's here," Jen said.
Anna turned to my director. "You and Jo go out the front."
His head snapped back. "Excuse me?"
"You want a distraction? There it is. Give the cameras something useless. Hero leaves through the staff corridor."
My director looked like he wanted to argue, then realised she was offering him exactly what he wanted.
A photo opportunity.
His eyes slid to Jo.
Jo looked at me.
For one second, I saw the plea there.
Take me with you.
Choose me.
Don't walk away with her.
I looked at Emily.
She stood beside the bed now, arms folded tightly, dress wrinkled from the floor, hair wild from my hands, lips still swollen from mine.
A mistake.
A memory.
A future I had no right to want.
Then my phone buzzed again in my palm, and there was no choice at all.
Eleanora came first.
Always.
"Anna," I said.
"I'm with you," she answered.
Jen nodded. "Me too."
My director muttered, "This will be remembered."
I looked at him. "Good."
Jo flinched again.
I hated how much I noticed.
Ten minutes later, we were moving through the back of the hotel in silence.
Anna led the way, phone to her ear, arguing with someone from security. Jen stayed behind us, typing furiously. Emily walked at my side, not touching me, not looking at me, but keeping pace. Her heels clicked too loudly against the service corridor floor, each sound cutting through the hum of kitchen staff and distant voices.
The hotel smelled like bleach, coffee, and panic.
My phone did not stop vibrating.
I ignored every call except Mum's.
"I'm on my way," I told her as we turned another corner.
"Police are here," she said. "They're keeping them back, but your father is about three seconds from being arrested himself."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
"Tell him I said don't punch anyone."
"I already did."
"How is she?"
There was a pause.
Then softer, "She's upset."
My chest closed.
"In what way?"
"She's crying on and off. I think the noise outside frightened her. She keeps asking for you."
I stopped walking.
Emily stopped too.
The corridor blurred at the edges.
"She asked for me?"
"She's saying Dada," Mum said, voice breaking. "Over and over."
I closed my eyes.
Dada.
Emily's face changed.
Just a flicker, but I saw it.
My daughter had asked for me and it had hurt Emily.
Not because she wanted that for herself.
Because she didn't.
And maybe that was the wound.
"She doesn't know what's happening," Mum continued. "But she knows something is wrong."
"I'm nearly there."
"Hero?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't bring more chaos with you."
My eyes moved to Emily.
She was staring straight ahead.
Too still.
Too pale.
"I won't."
Mum sighed like she didn't believe me.
Fair enough.
The car was waiting at the kitchen exit, engine running. Rain had started at some point, thin and grey, streaking over the black windows.
Two photographers stood near the bins, cameras ready.
Security moved first.
So did Anna.
"Head down," she snapped.
Emily froze.
I stepped closer, blocking her from the cameras without touching her.
"Move," I said softly.
She did.
The flashes started immediately.
"Hero!"
"Is it true you have a daughter?"
"Emily, did you try to give the baby away?"
Emily stumbled.
I caught her elbow.
She ripped free, but not before another flash captured it.
"Did Hero force you into court?"
"Is Jo your girlfriend?"
"Hero, where's the child now?"
My vision narrowed.
Anna shoved the car door open. "Get in."
Emily climbed in first.
I followed.
Jen got in the front.
The door slammed shut behind us, cutting off the shouting, but not the feeling of it.
Emily pressed herself against the far side of the car, breathing too fast.
I wanted to reach for her.
I didn't.
The car pulled away.
For thirty seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Emily said, "They asked where the child is."
Her voice was flat.
Dead.
"They don't know," I said.
"They will."
"No, they won't."
She turned to me then. "You don't know that."
"I won't let them."
"There it is again." Her laugh was hollow. "Hero Fiennes Tiffin, armed with sheer male arrogance and a useless promise."
I let my head fall back against the seat.
"I'm trying."
"I know."
The softness of those two words caught me off guard.
I looked at her.
She was still staring out the window, jaw tight.
"That's what makes it worse," she said.
"Why?"
"Because when you try, I remember why I loved you."
The car went silent.
Jen stopped typing.
Anna, who had just joined the call on speaker from another car, said nothing.
Emily closed her eyes like she wished she could snatch the words back.
I couldn't breathe.
Loved.
Past tense.
Still enough to destroy me.
"Emily," I said.
"Don't."
"You can't say that and then tell me not to speak."
"Yes, I can."
"No, you can run after you say it. That's different."
Her head snapped towards me. "You don't get to accuse me of running."
"Don't I?"
"No." Her voice shook. "Because the last time I begged you to stay, you left for a film."
My mouth closed.
There it was.
The beginning of all of it.
The wound we kept dressing with new injuries because neither of us had ever properly cleaned it out.
"I didn't know you were pregnant," I said quietly.
"I didn't know when you left."
"But you knew after."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
Her face crumpled for a second, then hardened. "You stopped answering."
"I was filming."
"You were disappearing."
"I was working."
"You were choosing."
The words landed.
I looked away first.
Because back then, maybe I had been.
Not choosing against her.
That was what I told myself for years.
But choosing the life that made her feel left behind.
Choosing the call sheet over the call.
Choosing exhaustion as an excuse.
Choosing silence because every conversation with Emily had started sounding like goodbye and I was too much of a coward to hear it properly.
"I would have come back," I said.
She laughed, but there was no cruelty this time. Only sadness.
"That's the worst part, Hero. I think you believe that."
The car moved through London streets that already felt strange. Quieter than they should have been. Shops half-empty. People walking with their collars up and their faces wary. News screens in windows flickered with updates about the virus spreading across Europe, numbers climbing, governments reacting too slowly and too late.
The world outside looked like it was holding its breath.
Inside the car, Emily and I were still bleeding over wounds years old.
Jen turned slightly from the front seat. "Hero."
I glanced at her.
She held up her phone.
A new headline.
Not the original article.
A follow-up.
HERO FLEES HOTEL WITH EX AFTER SECRET CHILD BOMBSHELL
There was a blurry photo beneath it.
Me shielding Emily from the photographers.
Her face turned down.
My hand near her waist.
The angle made us look intimate.
The truth was worse.
We were.
Emily stared at it for one long second.
Then she looked at me.
"This is never going to stop."
"It will."
"No." Her voice was calm now, and somehow that scared me more than the panic. "It won't. Not while I'm near you."
I knew that tone.
I had heard it before.
In court.
When she told the judge she believed adoption was the most stable option.
When she didn't cry because she had already cried every tear out before she walked into the room.
"You're not doing this," I said.
Her eyes narrowed. "Doing what?"
"Deciding you're the problem and disappearing."
"I am the problem."
"No, you're not."
"I'm the headline."
"You're her mother."
Emily's face went white.
"Don't."
"She is your daughter."
"Stop."
"You don't have to want the same things I want yet, but you don't get to erase what she is because it scares you."
She slapped me.
Not hard enough to injure.
Hard enough to shock us both.
Jen gasped.
The car swerved slightly, then corrected.
Emily stared at her hand like it belonged to someone else.
I touched my cheek slowly.
It stung.
Good.
I deserved worse.
Emily's eyes filled, but still, stubbornly, nothing fell.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
I nodded once.
"Don't call me her mother like it's a weapon," she said.
My throat tightened.
"I wasn't trying to."
"Yes, you were."
I wanted to deny it.
I didn't.
Because maybe I had been.
Not intentionally.
But I knew exactly where to press when I wanted Emily to feel something. And part of me, the ugly part, still wanted her to feel the weight I carried every day.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She looked away.
The rest of the drive passed in silence.
Photographers were scattered across the pavement, some pretending not to be waiting, others not bothering to hide it at all. A couple of them stood opposite the house with cameras hanging from their necks. Another leaned against a parked car, phone already raised before our car had even slowed.
There were no gates.
No security.
No neat line between us and them.
Just a normal London street with terraced houses, wet pavements, parked cars, and strangers waiting outside my parents' front door like my daughter's life was entertainment.
My stomach turned.
Mum's curtains twitched in the upstairs window.
Then the front door opened a crack.
Dad appeared first, stepping out onto the doorstep with the kind of look on his face that told me he had already been shouted at, photographed, and pushed past the edge of his patience.
Behind him, Mum was visible in the hall.
And in her arms-
My heart stopped.
Eleanora.
Tiny hands pressed against the glass.
Dark curls messy from sleep.
Big eyes searching the drive.
My entire body moved before the car had fully stopped.
"Hero, wait," Jen said.
I didn't.
I was out of the car and through the rain before anyone could stop me.
The shouting started immediately.
"Hero!"
"Is that your daughter?"
"Did Emily abandon her?"
"Is Jo involved?"
"Where's the mother now?"
I heard Emily get out behind me.
I turned sharply.
"Stay in the car."
She looked at me like she wanted to argue.
Then a photographer shouted, "Emily, why didn't you want your baby?"
Emily froze behind me.
I turned just enough to see her standing by the open car door, rain hitting her face, body locked like that question had gone straight through her.
I wanted to turn back and destroy the man who had asked it.
But Dad reached me first.
"Inside," he snapped. "Now."
Two photographers stepped closer.
Dad rounded on them. "Back up."
"Hero, one comment!"
"Is the child inside?"
My blood went cold.
They knew she was here.
I pushed past Dad and into the narrow hallway just as Mum opened the door wider.
Eleanora saw me.
Her little face crumpled.
"Dada!"
That one word broke something in me.
I reached for her, and Mum handed her over without question.
The second Eleanora hit my chest, I could breathe again.
She clung to my shirt, crying properly now, hot little sobs against my neck.
"I've got you," I whispered into her curls. "I've got you, baby. I'm here."
Her fingers twisted in my collar.
"Dada."
"I know. I know."
I closed my eyes and held her tighter.
The world could scream all it wanted outside.
This was the only sound that mattered.
When I opened my eyes, Emily was standing just inside the doorway.
She must have followed me.
She was soaked from the rain, hair stuck to her cheeks, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her own ribs together.
Eleanora lifted her head from my shoulder.
Her wet eyes found Emily.
For one second, nobody moved.
Not Mum.
Not Dad.
Not me.
Not Emily.
Eleanora stared at her with that serious little frown she had when she was trying to place someone. She knew Emily's face. From the rare moments Emily managed to be in the same room without folding in on herself.
But she did not reach for her.
She did not say Mumma.
She did not smile.
Emily's face collapsed inward so quickly most people might have missed it.
I didn't.
She looked relieved.
Then devastated by the relief.
My mother saw it too.
"Oh, Emily," Mum said softly.
Emily stepped back. "I shouldn't have come in."
"Yes, you should," Mum said.
"No." Emily shook her head. "No, I shouldn't."
Eleanora buried her face back into my neck.
Emily watched.
Her lips parted around a breath that looked painful.
"I'll wait in the car."
"Emily," I said.
She was already turning.
I shifted Eleanora higher on my hip and followed her into the hall.
"Don't run."
She spun around. "Stop saying that to me."
"Then stop doing it."
"I am trying not to make this worse!"
"You leaving makes it worse."
"For who?"
"For me."
The words were out before I could stop them.
Emily froze.
I froze too.
Eleanora sniffled against my shoulder, tiny hand patting my chest.
My mother quietly stepped back into the living room, dragging Dad with her.
Emily stared at me.
"For you," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Hero-"
"I know that's not fair."
"No, it's not."
"I know."
Her eyes moved to Eleanora.
Then away.
"I can't be what you want me to be."
"I'm not asking you to be."
"Yes, you are." Her voice broke. "Every time you look at me with her in your arms, you are."
I looked down at our daughter.
Eleanora had stopped crying, thumb drifting towards her mouth. Her cheeks were pink, lashes damp, body heavy with the kind of trust I still could not believe I had earned.
I had not known how to be her father at first.
I had learned because there had been no other choice.
Maybe Emily was terrified because she thought love had to arrive fully formed.
Maybe nobody had told her it could be built.
One bottle.
One sleepless night.
One tiny hand wrapped around your finger.
One moment of staying when every broken part of you screamed to run.
"I don't need you to be anything today," I said carefully. "I just need you to come with us."
"To the flat."
"Yes."
Her jaw worked.
"You'll bring her things?"
"Everything she needs."
"And you'll stay with her?"
"Yes."
"And if I can't-"
"You don't have to."
She looked at me like she didn't trust the promise.
I couldn't blame her.
Before she could answer, my phone rang again.
Unknown number.
I ignored it.
A message appeared immediately.
Clock is ticking.
Then another.
Noon.
Emily stepped closer, reading it.
Her face hardened.
"Whoever this is has pictures of her."
"Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
Her eyes lifted to mine.
For the first time all morning, her fear had company.
Anger.
"We find out," she said.
We.
Again.
I nodded.
"We find out."
Mum came back with Eleanora's bag already packed, because of course she had been preparing while the rest of us fell apart. Dad carried the folded travel cot under one arm and a bag of nappies under the other, still glaring towards the front of the house like he could scare off the press through brick.
"You're going to the flat?" Mum asked.
I nodded.
Her eyes moved to Emily.
Emily looked like she expected judgement.
Mum gave her none.
"Good," Mum said simply. "It's safer."
Emily blinked.
That single kindness nearly undid her.
Mum stepped closer and touched her arm lightly.
"You don't have to know what you're doing, sweetheart."
Emily's mouth trembled.
"I really don't," she whispered.
"I know."
I looked down because seeing Emily comforted by my mother was too much.
Too close to what could have been.
Too close to what I still wanted.
Eleanora lifted her head again, looking between all of us.
Then she pointed at Emily's dress
Emily's eyes flicked to mine.
"Yes baby the dress is wet, we are going to get Em-" I stopped myself.
Emily's eyes flickered to mine
"Emily," I corrected softly. "We're going to get Emily dry."
Eleanora repeated it badly.
"Emmy."
Emily went completely still.
Mum pressed a hand to her mouth.
Dad looked at the ceiling.
I could not move.
Emily closed her eyes.
For a second, I thought she might break.
Instead, she opened them and gave Eleanora the smallest smile I had ever seen.
"Close enough," she whispered.
And just like that, the morning shifted.
Not fixed.
Not healed.
But shifted.
Fifteen minutes later, we left through the back gate with police holding the photographers away from the front.
Eleanora was strapped into her car seat between us.
Emily sat on one side.
I sat on the other.
Our daughter clutched her rabbit in one hand and my finger in the other.
At first, Emily kept her body angled towards the window.
But after ten minutes, Eleanora dropped her rabbit.
It landed near Emily's foot.
I leaned forward to grab it, but Emily got there first.
She picked it up carefully, like the toy might accuse her of something.
Eleanora reached out.
Emily hesitated.
Then handed it back.
Their fingers brushed.
Barely.
Eleanora accepted the rabbit and tucked it under her chin.
No drama.
No rejection.
No grand moment.
Just a child receiving something from the woman who gave birth to her and did not yet know how to stay.
Emily stared at her own hand after.
I pretended not to see.
Outside, London moved past us in grey streaks and flashing headlines.
More shops were closing. More masks appeared on faces. More people looked over their shoulders like danger had become something you could breathe in.
My phone kept vibrating.
Jo.
My director.
Ava.
Unknown.
Unknown.
Unknown.
I turned it off.
Emily noticed.
"You can't ignore them forever."
"I know."
"What are you going to do?"
I looked at Eleanora.
Then at Emily.
Then at the city becoming stranger by the second around us.
"I'm going to get my family home."
Emily's breath caught.
She looked away fast.
But she did not correct me.
And for now, that was enough.