Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(29)

But I didn’t want a custody battle.

So I had to at least try.

There was no way he hadn’t been ruined after that day at the mall. Forty-eight people had lost their lives at the hands of his father. If I could convince him to put his anger aside and step into my shoes—even if for only one conversation—he’d get it.

He needed the facts about Hadley Banks. Not the woman he’d created as the villain in his head.

“Don’t fucking call me that.” He glanced around the diner before putting his elbows on the table and leaning in close. “How do you know about that?”

I swallowed hard. “Because your father killed my parents.”

His lips got tight and his dark brows drew together, absolute horror slashing through his handsome face.

Caven oozed pure masculinity. He had this weird aura about him that straddled the gap between guy-next-door and GQ. He was wearing a faded gray long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of tattered jeans—not the kind that cost five hundred dollars to look tattered. They looked like a normal guy’s clothes.

But with his chiseled jaw, the scruff trimmed to perfection, and his short, brown hair meticulously styled, he appeared every bit the millionaire I knew he was.

Except right then, as he flashed his gaze around the diner, looking anywhere but at me, he looked like a guilty little boy.

His nostrils flared, and the hinges of his jaw ticked. Maybe with unshed emotion. Maybe with mounting anger. I couldn’t be sure.

His voice gave nothing away as he asked, “And you think I’m responsible for that? Is that what you brought me here to say?”

“No,” I said firmly, sliding my hand across the table to cover his. I didn’t think before I did it. I didn’t consider how he might interpret it or how it might make him feel.

I was just trying to offer comfort to a man in pain. Unfortunately, it only seemed to snap him out of his guilt-driven trance and slam him back into the reality where Caven Hunt was sitting across from Hadley the Terrible.

He snatched his hand away as if I’d set it on fire. Leaning back in his seat, he held my gaze. “Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.”

The ache in my chest grew. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to—”

“You were just trying to what? Please. Fucking enlighten me here. Is this the part where you ask for money? Try to blackmail me to keep quiet? Because I really hate to break it to you, but this little payday secret you think you know about me is public fucking knowledge if you dig deep enough.”

My whole body turned to stone. “I would never—”

“Okay, then. Fine.” He leaned to the side, fishing the phone out of his pocket before pressing at the screen and resting it on the table between us. “How much will it cost me for you to disappear? A million? Ten? Name your price and I’ll have it wired over first thing in the morning.”

The light on his phone caught my attention, and when I looked down at it, there was a red, circular record button showing on it. It was off. Probably to cover his attempted bribe.

“Were you recording me?”

“What’s it going to cost me?” he growled, rising to his feet.

I was losing him. If he left, there would be no getting him back. Frantic, I stood up with him. “Look, I don’t want your money. What I want is to make you understand. The only person responsible for that shooting is Malcom Lowe. I do not blame you in any way. I’m simply trying to make you see that we have way more in common than just a daughter.”

His chest was heaving and the smoldering anger rolling off him was suffocating. But he didn’t move.

That was a win in my book.

“Please,” I begged. “Just sit down and listen to me. I did some really terrible things in the past, but I am not an evil person. I swear I’m not here to hurt you. Or steal your money. Or steal your daughter. We didn’t meet in that bar by chance, Caven. There is a whole other dimension to our story that you have no idea about. All I’m asking is that you let me explain.”

He stared at me for a long second with a scrutinizing intensity. I had no idea what he was thinking. For all I knew, he was about to tell me to fuck off.

When he finally spoke, his voice was filled with gravel. “Were you there?”

The there he was referring to didn’t need to be elaborated on.

Neither did my answer. “Yes.”

His whole body sagged, and his lids fell shut. “Jesus Christ.”

“Sit down. Please.”

His chest expanded as he drew in a shaky breath. There were a lot of things I’d expected Caven Hunt to say to me that night. But never once had I considered his next statement.

His eyes opened, blazing with grief and filled with desolation. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry.”





CAVEN


After the mall shooting, Trent and I had done our best to escape the filthy wasteland that was my father’s shadow. For the most part, we’d been successful. Trent had been nineteen at the time, so he was able to gain custody of me, and after changing our last names, we ran as far away from Watersedge, New Jersey, as we could get. Which turned out to be two and a half hours away in Standal, Pennsylvania.

The guilt I carried with me was so devastating that it crippled me for years. Trent did his best to help me recover, but he wasn’t there the day of the shooting.