Hell on Heels(35)

Singing along to Adele on the radio, I pulled up outside my building and shifted the Rover into park. My unease from earlier had worn off after a few exchanged text messages with Beau and the fact that Tom and I found a way to settle with Mr. Weizmann on his desired stage requirements.

The workday was done, and I was coming home to change and then meet Leighton. We were going for dinner and a glass of wine at Chill Winston in Gastown.

If I was lucky, we could avoid talking about me at all and focus on her budding relationship with Morgan, the lawyer she’d met in the elevator at work.

Yes, we were well into the colder months and they were still together.

I was happy for her.

Well, I was happy for her so long as she was happy.

I also knew there was no chance I’d get away with not discussing what was happening in my life.

Leighton, of course, was a romantic after all. Thus, she rarely forgot about matters of the heart.

I folded out from behind the wheel, with my shoes on, as I seemingly had to do more and more due to the mess that was the current state of my building, and walked around to grab the items from the passenger side.

Emma wanted an answer for the colour scheme on Caroline Clarke’s party and had sent nearly a dozen concept boards home with me so I could make a decision by Friday.

She was little but ruthless.

Opening the door, I slung my purse over one shoulder and began to pile the concept boards onto one arm. Somewhat sure they would fall if I didn’t add my second arm to assist, I used my hip to shut the car door and started up the stairs to the front entrance.

“Charlie.”

I was fumbling to get a free hand to enter my access code when his voice arrested my progress.

No.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Dean at the base of the stairs. He was wearing a different plaid today, this one red, and he wore black jeans that were equally as worn as the last pair I’d seen him in.

I noted briefly that though he had aged, he was still very good-looking.

He also looked determined.

No. No. No.

My heart started to pound and my stomach dropped so low I wondered if it had been lost all together.

“Charlie, we need to talk,” he said, and I visibly winced.

He noticed, but he didn’t stop.

I felt pressure on my chest so tight I thought I’d completely stopped breathing from the pain.

I couldn’t trust my own heart.

That was what twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine years on this earth had proved, and I genuinely believed it would lead me astray.

And I knew it would where Dean Porter, my first love, was concerned.

I didn’t have the courage to speak. My lips physically wouldn’t form the words to tell him no.

He took a step up, and I backed up into the front door.

There was nowhere to go.

I could try to make it inside, but he was faster than me. Last Tuesday had proved that.

My mind reeled at the loss of an escape.

“Daddy!”

Dean’s face paled.

I searched for the voice and my eyes flew to the minivan at the curb.

Jumping down from the backseat was a little girl with caramel-coloured hair, just like his, and a backpack across her right shoulder.

No.

She looked about ten.

That meant…

No.

“Charlie,” he begged, and my eyes welled up of their own accord without my consent.

He has a daughter.

The little girl collided with one of his legs and wrapped her arms around him.

Is he married?

I could feel my body shifting into panic.

My breathing was so erratic it was bordering on hyperventilating.

Dean looked down at his daughter and started to move, but he was stopped when she tugged at the hem of his shirt. She asked him something, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat in my throat.

There were fight people and there were flight people in life. I was most definitely the latter, and this was my only chance to flee.

I turned my back to them and, with shaky hands, tried to punch in my access code.

Access denied.

“Charlie, wait.”

Shit.

I prayed silently that I could get it together and punched the code in again for the second time.

The little light went green and I yanked the door open. One of the concept boards fell, but I didn’t stop to pick it up. I couldn’t.

He couldn’t follow me with his daughter there, or so I’d hoped. But I wasn’t willing to take the chance of waiting to find out. Instead, I bypassed the elevator and ran into the stairwell.

I ran up all three flights in knee-high heeled boots, like some descendant of Wonder Woman, but I didn’t cry until I hit the hallway to my apartment.

Then the tears fell in rapid succession. It still amazed me I had any left to give, but this was too much, so, without fail, they came.

Dean had been gone almost ten years.

He had a daughter.

His daughter looked about ten years old.

He’d abandoned me for another woman?

He didn’t come back when Henry died, not even for his funeral.

He never loved me?

It took me three tries to get my key in the keyhole with my tears blurring my vision. Finally inside, I slammed the door shut and slid down it until my butt hit the floor.

I couldn’t breathe.