Unspoken
Chapter: 1
Pairing: Robert/Holly
Rating: PG
~London, England 1991~
Three year old Elizabeth looked up at her mother, her eyelashes batting slightly, giving her the cutest smile that she could muster. "Can I please have another cookie?" she asked, politely. "One more?"
Holly felt her resolve cracking and under the influence of a three year old with the blues eyes she had ever seen. "Okay." she said, placing the smallest peanut butter cookie of the batch into her daughters tiny hand. "But you have to help mummy pick up your toys."
"Okay." she agree, biting into the cookie. "I promise."
She kissed the tip of her daughter's nose. "Then we have to go pick out a baby gift for Uncle Barry, okay?"
"I love to shop." she beamed. "Can I have a new dress?"
"We'll see."
"Daddy's home!" Elizabeth proclaimed, jumping down off the chair and flying into the living room. "Daddy! Daddy!"
Duke sat down his briefcase and lifted his daughter up into his arms. "Hello, princess." he said, kissing her cheek. "How was your day?"
"We made cookies!" she told him. "Your favorite!"
"Is that so?" he asked, walking toward the kitchen. "I hope you saved me some."
"Bunches."
Duke placed Elizabeth down on the kitchen chair. "Pick daddy out the biggest cookie you can find." he told her, walking over to Holly. He placed a kiss against the side of her neck. "Miss me?"
"Always." she smiled. "I made us dinner reservations for tonight at your favorite restaurant."
"What's the special occasion?"
"It's your birthday, daddy!" Elizabeth said, walking over and handing her father the biggest cookie she could find. "This is the biggest one."
"Thank you, sweetheart." he said, accepting the cookie. "Why don't you go and pick up your toys and put them away for me?"
"Okay." she said, heading out of the kitchen.
Duke bit into the cookie. "I have to leave in the morning for a business trip." he told his wife. "O
m going to be gone for about a week."
"A week?" she repeated. "But Duke you were suppose to be taking a few days off. We already made plans to take Elizabeth to the zoo and to the amusement park."
"And we can still do all those things." he assured her. "I just have to take care of some business first. I promise that we'll do all those things when I get back."
"Where are you going that's so important?"
"Just a small little town in the States." he told her. "Nothing exciting, just some business that I have to take care of."
Holly's mood took an instant nosedive. She wondered if the small town he had to do business in was the same small town in which he had once lived. The town in which his ex-wife and former stepdaughter lived. When they had first met they both were recovering from broken hearts and shattered expectations. They had vowed to leave the past in the past and only concentrate on the future. It was the only way they could move forward with their lives.
The only difference was that Duke knew all about who Holly Sutton Scorpio was but she in return had no clue about Duke Lavery or his connection to Port Charles, Anna Devane, or Robert Scorpio.
tbc...