Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(19)

I inched forward to the edge of my chair, trying to see the paper in his hand. I’d read that damn thing a dozen times after Doug’s assistant had emailed it over. There was nothing on there that would be news to Ian.

“What?”

He looked up at me and I could almost see the gears turning in his head.

When I was ten, the death of my mother had changed my life.

A few years later when I was fifteen, a single bullet had changed my life again.

At twenty-nine, a shrill cry from an abandoned newborn had flipped my life on end.

At thirty-three, in the middle of my daughter’s fourth birthday party, Hadley Banks had changed my life once more.

But in that tiny office, with my daughter upstairs and her mother—the woman who was stealing my heart—on her way home, Ian changed it all over again.

“Who the hell is Willow Banks?” He turned the paper around and pointed to the signature line.

Clear as the day is long, it read Willow Banks.

Willow.

Willow.

Willow.

My head got light as all the blood drained from my face. There was only one person I’d ever known named Willow.

A terrified little girl.

A terrified little redheaded girl who had haunted me for the majority of my life.

I shot to my feet and snatched the paper from his hand. Turning it at different angles, I tried to see the word Hadley in the perfectly formed W-I-L-L-O-W.

It wasn’t possible. I’d seen Hadley sign that paper. She had been standing in my kitchen.

“Wasn’t Willow the name of the—”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “She has nothing to do with this. This has to be some sort of mistake.”

I couldn’t even think of that kid without feeling like a spike had been driven through my heart. Fighting to stay in the present, I was overcome by an onslaught of memories. The last time I’d seen my Willow, she was being wheeled out on a stretcher with a bullet hole in her abdomen. It didn’t matter that I was bleeding to death, barely able to lift my head off the ground—I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore, and then I stared at the door they’d taken her out of her long after she was gone.

I was a wreck, drifting in and out of consciousness, but every time I would rouse, her green eyes were the first thing I saw on the backs of my eyelids.

I’d contemplated reaching out to her over the years. But what would I ever say to her? Gee, thanks for saving my life, but I’m sorry my father shot you in the stomach? She’d sworn that she’d forgive me as long as I didn’t die. But those were nothing more than the words of a frightened child. If she knew me—the real me—she’d hate me for the rest of her life.

And it made me a coward of the worst kind, but I didn’t want her to know that side of me.

Because then she’d know that it was all my fault.

The kindest, most generous thing I could ever do for her was let her forget. Let her move on with the rest of her life.

Even if I never could.

She deserved that.

But that didn’t stop me from thinking about her. She would have grown into a woman over the years, and in the back of my mind, every redhead I ever passed was always Willow.

If a redhead was smiling, I’d smile too because she wasn’t crying and covered in blood anymore.

If a redhead was walking down the street, I figured that meant she had a life she needed to get to, one that didn’t involve pain and fear.

But every so often, my curiosity trumped my conscience and I’d stop a redhead to ask her name.

None of them were ever Willow.

But one of them had been Hadley. Her cascade of deep-red hair had caught my attention the moment I’d walked into the bar that night. I’d held my breath as I’d made my approach. And as she’d told me her name, much to my disappointment and relief, she hadn’t been the little girl who haunted my dreams.

Ian stood and walked around to me. “Was there any way Hadley knew about Willow?”

“How the hell would she know that?”

“Well, she knew something, because she signed the name Willow Banks to fuck with your head.”

“She’s not fucking with me. Maybe it’s her middle name nor something?” I rasped, my voice not quite working properly. “Get Doug on the phone. Now.”

I stared at the paper as he pulled out his phone and called up our attorney.

Willow was not a common name by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t impossible that two complete strangers could have shared it. And that was exactly what they were. Strangers.

Who had both been at the mall that day? Fuck. There had to be a logical reason for all of this.

“Here.” Ian handed me the phone.

“Tell me everything that was in the file about Hadley,” I demanded. “What’s her middle name?”

“Why? What’s going on?” Doug asked.

“What’s her fucking name!”

He paused. “Hang on, hang on. Let me get into her file.”

Exiting the office in exchange for more room to pace, I listened to his clicks on a keyboard, which were not nearly fast enough to tamp down the panic racing through my veins.

Finally, on an exhale, he only confused me more. “Hadley Marie Banks. Now, tell me what the hell is going on?”

“She signed the nondisclosure agreement Willow Banks. Please tell me there’s something that I’m missing?”