Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(31)

“I would have. I absolutely would have.”

She bit her bottom lip and looked off to the side. “And you’d have been right to do that.”

It didn’t feel right anymore. It felt like I’d poached a broken woman to get my fucking cock off. Just what I needed: more guilt.

“You weren’t able to get into my computer, were you?” I asked.

“Nope. I hired a guy and everything. The only thing he was able to figure out was that you had a twenty-two-character password. He was still working on getting into the computer when suddenly it shut down and wouldn’t restart. He couldn’t even pull anything off the hard drive or whatever it’s called.”

I smirked. “You don’t create a technology company without learning how to secure a laptop first.”

“Touché.” She smiled, and as much as I fought it, it made me smile too.

This was a conversation with a woman I was supposed to hate. No one—especially me—should have been smiling.

She must have felt the awkwardness at the same time I did, because she once again leveled her gaze on the table. A tendril of her long hair escaped from behind her ear, and with the grace of a dream, she tucked it back, revealing that smile all over again.

And that was when mine disappeared.

She could explain away stalking me down at that bar.

She could explain away stealing my computer.

She could even explain away fucking me as a distraction.

But there was one thing she’d never be able to make me understand.

“How could you leave her like that?”

Her head snapped up, her eyes wide and filled with sorrow. “Caven…”

“You don’t deserve her.”

She flinched, quickly closing her mouth.

“We all lived shitty lives, Hadley. You don’t think I’m not still fucked up from the shooting? You don’t think I have my dark days? Hell, I’ve had years of darkness. But Rosalee, she didn’t do anything wrong.” The bitterness and resentment came rushing back like a flash flood to my system. “She didn’t deserve to be abandoned by her own mother.”

Sitting up taller, she squared her shoulders. “Yes. She did. Because she deserved better than I could have ever given her. You have no idea what it was like for me after that shooting. I was just a kid. I knew what had happened. I’d been there. I’d seen it. But I couldn’t make sense of it. I had all of these new emotions that were warring inside me, but they wouldn’t come out. My grandfather put me in counseling and therapy, but it was easier to pretend that I was okay than to explain the carnage happening inside me. By the time you met me, I’d been ravaged by the shrapnel of those emotions until there was nothing left of me.” A muffled sob ripped through her before I felt it slashing through me as well.

“Hadley, I…” I didn’t finish the thought. I had the urgent need to apologize to her again. For what he’d done. For what I’d done. But I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t apologize. Not when it came to Rosalee.

Her blazing, green eyes came back to mine. “You have to believe me. I loved that little girl, Caven. I swear to you I did. I told myself I was going to be a good mom. I vowed it. But the night I went into labor… All the pain and fear. I was in that mall again, waiting to die. I delivered her alone in my apartment because I was too paralyzed by fear to even walk outside. In that moment, blood covering the bed, that tiny little girl crying, those feelings and emotions that I’d never fully dealt with, they broke me. The only clear thought I had was that if I kept her, they would break her too. I hated giving her to that prostitute, and I followed her all the way to your building just to be sure Keira—uh, Rosalee was safe. But I couldn’t face you. I couldn’t explain all of this to you back then. However, the one thing I will never forget was the feeling deep inside my soul that I’d done the right thing for that little girl. I know you’re mad because of what I did but—”

I had to stop her. My gut was sour after listening to her talking about delivering our child alone and scared. But clearly she did not know as much about me as she thought she did.

“I’m not mad because of what you did. I’m mad because you came back.”

“What?” she gasped.

“Jesus, Hadley. I’ve been scared my entire life because a part of my father still lives inside me.” I stabbed a finger at my wrist. “His blood still runs through my veins, and short of bleeding myself dry, there is not one damn thing I can do to change that. There is still a very big, very real part of me that feels like I’m responsible for every life that was affected or lost that day.” I leaned in close, the intensity increasing even as I lowered my voice. “He came to that mall to kill me.”

It wasn’t a secret. My father’s motives had been flashed across the screen of every national news source that day. Luckily, I was a juvenile, so they weren’t allowed to use my name or picture.

But people in Watersedge still knew.

Worst of all, I still knew.

“But you didn’t kill anyone, Caven.”

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t. But there will never be a day that I don’t struggle with feeling like maybe I did. Before Rosalee, I was addicted to work and women, anything to keep my mind off who I was and what I’d caused. But that little girl saved my life. No question about it. Because, despite the fact that she looks just fucking like you, when I look at her, I see pieces of myself. Good pieces. Untainted pieces. Whole pieces. It’s impossible to hate myself when I can see those pieces inside someone as perfect as her. So no, Hadley. I’m not mad anymore because of what you did. I get it. I’m sorry. I’m eternally grateful to you for leaving her with me. But if you’ve come here with the idea of getting her back, I can assure you, that is not a war you can win.”