<h4>Chapter 96: Chapter 96 : Leaving for Miami</h4>


    Time seemed to travel fast as I prepared for my journey down to Miami. When Saturday morning came, I was packed; the gifts were wrapped, and everything was ready to go. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure now if I was ready to face him.


    Taking my time, I wandered around the apartment, making sure that I had everything that I needed while Neal was downstairs loading the bags into the vehicle. The driver assured him that he’d be able to take care of everything without his help, but Neal knew how important it was that the gifts were ced safely in the car, considering some of them were fragile.


    It wasn’t that he didn’t think that his driver could handle it. Neal was just trying to be sweet and knew how hard I had ved away to make sure that they were wrapped perfectly.


    After onest check around the apartment, I grabbed my purse and made my way towards the door. “Are you ready to go?” Neal said with a small smile across his lips as he appeared in the doorway.


    “Yeah, I just did onest sweep around the apartment. Everything looks good, and I don’t believe that I forgot anything.”


    With a nod of his head, he took my hand in his and locked the door behind us. Then, we made our way down to the elevator to head towards the garage. I was ready for this adventure.


    I was ready to see Allegra, and I was ready to see my father. But most of all, I was ready to get this guilt off my chest that I had by hiding the truth of my pregnancy from James.


    “Are you sure about this? You can always change your mind,” Neal asked me as soon as we stepped into the elevator, his eyes watching every movement that I made, and with a small nod, I crossed my arms over my chest and smiled.


    I wasn’t ready. However, I wasn’t going to tell him that I wasn’t ready, otherwise, he would make the decision for us and keep us here in New York for the rest of the Christmas holidays.


    “Of course, I’m sure about this. I’ve been nning for thest few days and those presents look absolutely fabulous. There’s no way that I’m going to back out on going now.”


    As soon as the elevator doors opened, we stepped from within them and made our way towards the car that was patiently waiting in front of us. I was full of confliction, but pushing it aside, I slid into the back seat of the car with Neal, the driver closing the door behind us.


    As the car lurched out onto the streets of New York, I watched the buildings fly by the window, the cool snowy air falling down around the world outside. My heart ached with every moment that we closed in on the airport.


    I was really doing this, and even though Katrine’s warning lingered at the back of my mind, I knew it had to be done.


    “As soon as we get onto the ne, go ahead and get yourself settled. I’ll make sure that everything’s taken care of for takeoff, and then within a few hours, we’ll bending in sunny Miami.”


    “Sounds amazing,” I said as I turned my gaze from the window towards him.


    I just needed to remain positive and remember that it wasn’t just me I was thinking about any more. It was the child that was inside me. James wasn’t the only one who deserved the truth. Eventually, my child would as well, and I would never expect James to stay away from my child.


    The child was just as much his as it was mine.


    ***


    James.


    “Dad, did you happen to get the rest of those gifts from the car?” Tally’s voice called out as it traveled through my open office doorway. I had just walked inside to put some things down, and already she was at me, wondering if I had picked everything up out of the car.


    I couldn’t help but chuckle, though. Since the moment that Tally became a mother, she had done aplete 180 and became the person I always knew she could be.


    “Of course, I did, sweetie. I put everything in the living room. I am just putting some stuff away, and I’ll be out there in a minute to finish helping you unpack!” I called from over my shoulder as I opened the door to my desk and ced the small square box inside.


    The box itself was a gift for Ba. It wasn’t a ring or anything like that. It was something simple, but at the same time, it meant a great deal to me.


    Regardless of the situation that was going on between her and I. I wanted her to know that I cared about her. That through everything we went through, I still cared.


    The time I spent with her meant everything to me, and it still did, even if she didn’t see how I saw things. I knew without a doubt that her happiness needed toe first.


    I was the one who had f*cked everything up.


    I was someone who took her for granted and drove her away from me.


    I wouldn’t presume to believe that I could get her back. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was ever going to be a future for her and I again. Neal was a good man, no matter how much I detested him for taking her away from me.


    I couldn’t me him. She was wonderful, beautiful even.


    She was everything a man would desire to have a wife, apanion, a partner, and I had taken her for granted. I let her slip away from me.


    Moving from my office, I headed back out into the living room to where Tally was sitting with the baby propped up in his bouncer, unpacking the bags that she had gotten with gifts in them for her various people.


    The majority of it though, of course, being for my grandson.


    “I think you managed to probably buy out the entire store this time,” I said teasingly, watching as her eyes lifted up to mine, before she rolled them with a smirk on her face.


    “Hey, I never knew that stores like that existed. I mean,e on, it was fifty percent off everything. You can’t me me for buying all of it.”


    One of the other things that Tally had learned since bing a mother was the importance of money. Even though she had money, she was limited to a certain amount, and no longer could she spend it frivolously upon herself.


    Instead, I told her that I was not going to give her any more every month than what she already got because it was an allowance she should have been capable of living off. So instead, she had to learn to save and invest and make a means for herself so that if anything ever did happen to me, she would be settled without having to worry about a thing.


    And surprisingly, she was keeping to it.


    “It’s going to be a wonderful Christmas. I’m d that I have you and my grandson here to spend it with,” I said to her, clearing the air.


    She hesitated before raising her gaze to mine once more from the packages in front of her. Her smile fell into a small frown as she nodded. “I wish that you would just call her. You told me how much you cared about her, and I am so sorry that I caused so many issues between the two of you, but if you love her, you can’t let her go.”


    “It isn’t that easy, Tally,” I replied, knowing exactly where the conversation was going. She had been on me for weeks at calling Ba, at trying to make amends and fix things, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had moved on to Neal.


    “It is that easy, Dad. I’ve known Ba my entire life. She isn’t someone who forgets easily. She isn’t someone who just lets go of love when she finds it.”


    Love was definitely something that I was not ustomed to talking about with her. I had loved her mother once upon a time, and even to this day, there was a part of me that would always care for her because she was the mother of my child.


    However, I didn’t like the person she had be, and at one point in time, I never thought that I would ever, under any circumstances, fall in love again. But when I first kissed Ba, I felt that powerful connection with her.


    That feeling of desire and want.


    The desire to fall in love again, and I did. I fell deeply in love with Ba.


    “Things happened for a reason, Tally, and she’s happy she’s moving on with her life. I’m not going to jeopardize any happiness that she has gotten since she has left us.”


    “But she’sing into town, and now you can actually talk to her,” she replied, giving me that knowing nce that she had done since she was little. That nce that told me she knew what I needed to do, and I was being too stubborn to do it.


    “What makes you think that Reba is going to want toe and see me after everything that I had put her through, that you had put her through?”


    A soft chuckle left her lips before she slowly stood and walked towards me. “I have my own ns to make with her, and I n to do that while she’s here. I f*cked up, and I need to apologize for what I did. But if it wasn’t for her, there was a good chance that I’d be dead.”


    In some aspects, the moment that Ba had helped her outside of her apartment did save her life. Because had she not had anywhere to go and had stayed with Chad, there’s no telling what that family would have done to my daughter.


    I would be forever grateful to Ba for helping Tally.


    Lord knows neither of us deserved her forgiveness after everything that happened.


    If Ba could forgive Tally, then perhaps there was some kind of hope that she could forgive me. The idea swirled like a mass of clouds in my mind, and as they slowly cleared, I had a new objective of what I could do to make things right with her.


    Maybe I wouldn’t have her the way I did before, but perhaps she would let me just be her friend. Perhaps she could redeem a crooked man who simply wanted to start over.


    The only thing I could do was pray.