Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(19)

I kept my gaze locked on her as she twirled with another little girl, an infectious smile splitting her face.

“Can you believe she’s four already?” the same man said, only this time he was no longer behind me. He was standing directly beside me, a glass of what appeared to be punch in his hand.

He was tall, so I kept my head low, only glancing at him from the corner of my eye. It had felt like a lifetime since I’d last seen Caven, so I couldn’t recognize him on torso and voice alone, but if this was him and I looked up, there was no doubt he’d recognize me.

Well, he’d recognize me from the night Keira was conceived anyway.

He was clueless to our past together.

And knowing that had only hurt slightly less than the idea of facing him again.

“Yeah. Four. That’s almost college age, right?” I halfheartedly joked.

He chuckled. “Here. Let me get that.” He took the present then handed it off to someone passing by. “So, which one of these rugrats is yours?”

I swallowed hard, unsure how to answer. I stole one more glance at Keira in case it was my last and asked, “Any chance you can tell me where the restroom is?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Just inside. First door on the left. There’s also one at the top of the stairs.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, starting away.

“I’m Ian by the way,” he called after me.

I blew out an audible sigh of relief. Ian Villa. Caven’s best friend and business partner. Not ideal. But also not Caven.

I offered him a finger-wave over my shoulder as I tiptoed to keep my heels in the grass from tripping me up.

That was the moment I should have left. I’d gotten what I’d come for. I’d seen her. I’d memorized her. And even if this didn’t work out and I spent the next five to ten in jail, I’d always have that picture of her smiling and laughing in my head. But when I reached the steps to the huge wooden deck, I couldn’t force my feet to take the first one. She was right there.

After all this time, she was so damn close.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t approach her. The last thing I wanted was to hurt her in any way. But she didn’t have to know who I was. A quick happy birthday from a stranger never hurt anyone.

At least that’s what I told myself as I steeled my emotions, turned on a toe, and headed in her direction.





CAVEN


How was it possible to confuse a fucking frog with a unicorn? I mean, seriously What. The. Fuck.

My drink with Lance Goodman had gone surprisingly easy.

He’d downed a beer.

I’d had a cup of coffee.

He’d rambled about percentages and cash flow.

I’d put my foot down on two hundred fifty million for twenty-five percent.

He’d bitched loudly but eventually relented.

I’d been out of there in less than a half hour.

But that was where the ease of my day had ended. First, I’d stopped to pick up Rosalee’s special balloon. The party planner had offered to handle it, but it was something of a family tradition for me to get it myself. When my mom was alive, she’d always buy Trent and me one of those balloons with some kind of stuffed animal inside for our birthday. She didn’t care that she had two sons who didn’t give a damn about teddy bears. She just like getting them for us. When Rosalee turned one, it was the first thing I’d thought to buy her. Alejandra had informed me that the balloon was a choking hazard, so I’d had to pop it and give her the bear. But every year, I bought her another one.

This year, it’d popped before I even got it to the car.

I’d gone back inside to ask for another, but lo and behold, the woman who made them was off that day. Seriously, I had no idea shoving a bear into a balloon was such a niche trait that there was only one woman who could do it.

There was no way I was going home without that balloon, so I threw a wad of cash at the florist and told him to call her in for an hour.

I was running out of time, so while I waited for the balloon sorceress to make my replacement, I drove across town to get the cake—the three-tier unicorn cake I’d custom-ordered months earlier. Only when I got there to pick it up, the cake they gave me was a frog, sitting on a lily pad, complete with little black fondant flies floating on wires around it.

I was a huge proponent of Alejandra’s “you get what you get, and don’t pitch a fit” style of parenting. But if I brought home a cake with insects on it, my daughter was going to lose her damn mind.

Another wad of cash later, the baker took a sheet cake out of the display case and decorated it so that it loosely resembled a unicorn theme. It was going to have to do. I didn’t have time for anything else.

After swinging back to pick up the balloon and getting stuck in traffic on the way home, I was ten minutes late to my own daughter’s birthday party.

Ian had been sending me pictures of her riding the pony before the guests had started arriving, but I was pissed I’d missed it. That damn pony was all she’d been talking about for months.

Despite my financial situation, I tried my best not to spoil her. Christmas was kept to a six-gift maximum, which included new shoes and at least one book. It was another of my mother’s traditions I was carrying on. Unlike my mother though, I could get Rosalee damn near anything she could ever want. But that wasn’t how I wanted her to grow up. We had a nice house, I drove a nice car, and she had plenty of clothes, but that was where our spoils stopped.