FIFTY SHADES OF THEO JAMES

Epilogue

15 years later...

Sitting on a park bench I kept my eyes carefully trained on a small girl with shoulder length brown hair and bangs as she climbed up a daunting play structure. A part of me wanted to call out to the girl, warning her away from it, but I knew I couldn't allow my fears of her getting hurt to suffocate her.

After all, pain was the inevitable part of life. There was no avoiding it. That was how we knew we were alive.

"Daddy! Watch me!" The little girl called out to me and with a lurch in my heart I watched her jump from the top of the structure to the ground.

"Ellie!" I called, standing to my feet. "Please be careful, darling!"

Laughing, the girl named Ellie skipped cheerfully over to my side and threw her arms around me.

"I scared you didn't I daddy?" She asked, seemingly amused.

Looking down at her I nodded my head. Just as I was about to kneel to explain to her why she shouldn't do things like that, her amused expression turned somber and she apologized.

"I'm sorry daddy, I promise I won't scare you like that again." She jumped into my arms and pressed a kiss to my cheek before wriggling away and running back to the playground to play.

"Only child?" A young woman with red hair and brown eyes asked me as she took a seat next to me on the park bench.

I glanced from her to my daughter and with a smile I nodded my head. "Sadly, yes," I admitted. "I grew up in a big family so I always imagined having a big family of my own one day. We struggled at first to get pregnant and then after treatments we finally got pregnant. The day my daughter was born we were on our way to the hospital for a scheduled c-section because she was overdue, and we were hit by a drunk driver. I survived, so did our daughter, after an emergency c section, but my wife..." my voice trailed off.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss. I couldn't even begin to imagine. I'm sorry I brought it up." She expressed.

"Which one is yours?" I then asked, killing the awkward silence from the young woman feeling bad about rehashing the past.

She smiled sweetly and pointed to the other girl playing with my daughter, and then to a boy climbing up the slide.

"They aren't mine, though. I can't have kids of my own. I was married once, and we tried to have a baby and got pregnant, but then my organs started shutting down on itself. We had to terminate around seventeen weeks because I was dying. After that ordeal, my doctor said I would never survive trying to carry a baby to term and that it was his professional medical advice that I never get pregnant, so that was that.

"My husband ended up leaving me for it and well, I really wanted kids so until I am in a good place in my life to adopt I spend my time getting my maternal fix from being a nanny." She finished in a faux cheerful voice.

"I think when that time comes for you to adopt you will be one of the best mums out there." I responded. "And I am also sorry for your loss..." my voice trailed off realizing that I didn't know her name.

"Oh, I am Dani... Daniella. And you are-"

"Maximilian, but you can call me Max." We exchanged formal pleasantries and shook hands before we went back to talking. "Anyways, um, I don't normally do this, but it seems like the kids are hitting it off pretty well, and I have this awesome playground set up in my backyard, but Ellie has no one to play on it with, so I figured we could meet up sometime for playdates."

She nodded her head. "Yeah, um, we can look into that. Strictly professional of course."

Chuckling to myself, I turned my attention back to Ellie to make sure she was doing okay. "It's actually Ellie's birthday this weekend if you want to bring them by. No gifts necessary, I just want her to have a good time with kids she enjoys playing with."