Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(39)

“Do we understand each other?”

“I don’t know. Should I have asked these questions before or after I ‘dropped the sexy grin’?”

Heat bloomed in my cheeks, but I forged ahead. “Before. You’re not as big of an ass when you smile.”

I had no idea what was going on in his head as we stood there, our gazes locked, but neither of us moved. We were close enough to breathe the same air, and I fought to convince my hands to remain at my sides.

I was all too aware that Caven felt nothing but contempt for me, but the wild hum I’d had for him in my veins since I was only eight years old couldn’t be tamed.

God knew I’d tried.





CAVEN


Clearing my throat, I stepped as far away from her as I could get in a single stride.

Why did she always look at me like that? It was the most bizarre combination of anguish and adoration, like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to burst into tears or launch herself into my arms.

And even more bizarrely, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run as far away from her as I could get or… No. There was no or. Not with her.

I didn’t want to feel anything for Hadley, but in the week since she’d reappeared, she was the only thing I’d been able to think about.

Every day as I’d watched Rosalee playing on the beach, I’d done nothing but think about Hadley.

What if she took me to court?

What if she somehow won?

What if she managed to get custody?

Even the idea of joint custody where I’d lose Rosalee every other week and alternating holidays made me feel like I was burning at the stake.

It was a week spent in Hell, forcing smiles for my daughter while silently preparing for the worst. According to the team of attorneys Doug had gathered, losing Rosalee at least partially was a definite possibility. They were all in agreeance that Hadley didn’t have much of a case at the moment, but eventually she would. She appeared to have money, owned a home, and had a good attorney. Hell, even the letters from her therapists, which she’d preemptively turned over to Doug, were glowing with just how well she’d been doing in the recent months.

But months weren’t enough for me. Not when it came to Rosalee.

At night as I’d lie in bed, staring at my daughter, I’d wonder, had the roles been reversed, if I’d have had the foresight to leave Rosalee with her.

I would have liked to say I would have.

But nothing made sense when you were lost in the past.

When I was eighteen, just two weeks after I’d started college, the kids outside my dorm had set off a round of fireworks. I’d thought I was going to die. My visceral reaction trumped any kind of rational thought. I knew that it was fireworks. I could see them outside my window. Yet, at the sound of the first blast, I could smell all the food and blood as if I were right back in that mall food court again. Fireworks. Fucking fireworks, and I was a six-foot-four, one-hundred-seventy-pound young man hiding under a bed, convinced that it was the end.

I didn’t know if I would have been able to separate that fear from reality long enough to focus on a baby, not even short-term to get her somewhere safe.

It took a lot of years, a lot of anger, a lot of medication, a lot therapy, and a lot of trial and error for me to figure out how to manage the reality of my past. It also required a lot of help.

Ian saved my life that night when he came home from a date and found his college roommate—a kid he’d only known for two weeks—hiding under the bed. He didn’t ask a million questions or laugh the way he probably should have. He simply sat down on the floor and assured me that the world wasn’t ending.

I didn’t believe him.

But for the next half hour, as I worked my way out of the past, he never left my side. When it was finally over, Ian never asked why. He made us both a Hot Pocket and put a movie on. The credits hadn’t started rolling before a dam broke inside me. The secrets I so closely guarded tore from my throat like rusty razor blades. I told him everything, from the abuse of my childhood to the shooting at the mall. He didn’t say much as the filth of my life saturated that tiny dorm room, but I didn’t need him to talk. I just needed someone to listen.

After that, he took to driving me to therapy twice a week and even sitting with me in a few group sessions. In all the years we’d been friends, he’d never looked at me the same way as he had before. He’d also never run for the hills, so I chalked it up as true friendship.

I wasn’t sure where I stood on Hadley in relation to Rosalee. But the fact was that I didn’t get the choice. Hadley was her mother. Full stop.

It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair.

But it was a fact.

The only thing I could think to do was to prepare for when I was no longer able to keep my daughter out of her reach.

And if that meant putting my personal feelings aside and becoming Ian, sitting on that floor in the middle of Hell, to ensure that my daughter never felt the blow back of my father’s reign of terror, then so be it.

There was something to be said for the old adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Hating Hadley wouldn’t keep my daughter safe.

Pissing her off wouldn’t make me the first person she called if anything went wrong.

And being a dick and driving her away would never stop her from coming back.