Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(31)

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to take it all away from her.

I’d caused this. I’d allowed it to happen. I’d let my defenses down, assumed that the cloud of chaos was done with me. I put my trust in a woman and ended up with not one, but two broken hearts—three if you counted Willow’s.

God. Willow.

I was pissed. I was hurt. I was bitter.

But every single one of those emotions was mine.

Yes, it was my job to protect Rosalee. But what was this protecting her from? Glitter? Smiles? A piece of her family that was nearly extinct?

Willow had wronged me.

Me.

But she’d never once done anything but the best for Rosalee.

“Please, Daddy,” she repeated.

I sucked in a deep breath and looked down at my baby—who was no longer a baby—as tears dripped down her cheeks.

When a man did stupid shit, it could usually be traced back to one of three things: a woman, alcohol, or his kid.

As it turned out, this one was two out of the three.





WILLOW


“I’m coming!” I yelled, walking to my front door as my bell rang for the third time in less than ten seconds.

It was probably Jerry dropping off his recycling again. Apparently, his son had started bringing his recycling to his father’s house so he too could use the magical recycling bin. I was all for helping the environment, but this was getting ridiculous.

I ground my teeth when the bell rang again just as I hit the foyer.

I will not cuss out an elderly man.

I will not cuss out an elderly man.

I snatched the door open and my heart came to a screeching halt as I took in Caven standing on the other side, sporting the world’s darkest glower.

But the little girl standing at his side was what ripped the breath from my lungs.

“Hadley, guess what?” Rosalee exclaimed. “Your name is Willow and you were my mommy’s sister. You look just like her because you were twins! Isn’t that cool?”

I sucked in my lips, biting them as I tried and failed to hold the emotion back. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my chest clamped down until I feared that my ribs were going to break.

He’d told her.

He’d told her and they were standing on my front porch.

Both of them.

And while my whole body ached at the sight of Caven Hunt, I didn’t give the first damn that his eyes were boring into me with a contempt that would have made Ian proud.

He’d brought her. Knowing everything. He’d brought her.

“Hey, Rosie,” I managed to choke out, dropping into a squat.

She wasted exactly zero seconds before throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing tight.

I was going to die. That was all there was to it. I was going to burst into tears and cry until there was no moisture left in my body and then I was going to die from dehydration.

With her red waves tickling my nose, it was a hell of a way to go.

She leaned away. “Daddy said we can only stay if you aren’t busy. Please don’t be busy.”

Oh, God, they were staying. I slanted my head back to look up at Caven, but he had his hands shoved inside the pockets of a pair of khaki shorts and was blankly staring at the brick exterior of my house.

Every instinct I had told me to dive into his arms, but every instinct I had had been wrong more than once recently.

Instead, I looked back to Rosalee and croaked, “I am actually free every day for the next twenty years.”

“What do you have to do in twenty years?”

I shrugged. “Probably get dentures since I didn’t go to the dentist for two decades. But it’ll be worth it. Come on in.”

She did not need a second invitation. I’d barely risen to my full height before she’d squeezed past me.

“Oooo, your house is pretty!”

“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder, unable to tear my eyes away from her father.

The hum I felt when I was with Caven was as present as ever, but when his steely gaze finally came to mine, it was my nerves that buzzed the loudest.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Don’t thank me,” he said tersely. “I didn’t do this for you. It’s Wednesday and she wanted to see you. I told her about Hadley. I told her about you lying. But I haven’t mentioned anything else about our past together. I’d appreciate it if you would do the same.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Of course.”

His face remained hard and stoic. It was the angry man from her birthday party who could barely look me in the eye, not the man who’d held me and kissed me and made love to me.

I’d come to terms that that man was gone forever.

But this was agony all the same.

“I gave you Mondays as a part of the deal for the painting,” he continued, gruff and to the point. “I’m a businessman. I’ll keep my word. Pick another day of the week that suits your schedule and I’ll bring her over for you to teach her art. I don’t want you at my house. I don’t want you texting me. I don’t actually want anything to do with you. But she does. And despite your absolutely asinine stunt over the last four months, I love my daughter. So here we are. No need to thank me. No need to even acknowledge that I’m here at all because I assure you I wish like hell that I wasn’t.”