Chapter Eleven
Graham
I couldn’t breathe, and for the first time in our life together I was afraid of what I’d do if I didn’t get away from Leland fast.
Without a response, I marched to my walk-in closet and shoved some shit into a bag. I could feel that he’d followed me and was watching from the doorway.
Damn him.
Having him near was worse torture than waterboarding.
The baby was his…I shut that down, but I couldn’t block out the full range of implications.
He’d lied to me.
Cheated on me.
Procreated without me.
Spun a web of fake happy for an entire day as a prelude to ripping out my heart. I didn’t doubt every minute of the last twenty-four hours I’d just lived through had been deliberately choregraphed by him.
A blissful calm before shock and awe via marriage à la Leland. And now he stood there with that determined expression on his face as though he expected me to find a way to be all right with it, quietly observing as, internally, I lost my shit.
No.
Not happening.
Bag packed, I brushed past him into the bedroom and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked, trailing behind me. “You can’t walk out. We’re a family. That’s not how we fix this.”
“Can’t? Watch me. Nothing left to fix.”
His gaze flashed—a masterful display of hurt—and damn, I should have avoided his eyes because his look landed in the center of the hurricane inside me.
“You’ve got to believe me. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world if it were avoidable. You must know that. On some level, I know you do.”
Correction—on all levels I was through with him. That was the only thing I knew with certainty.
I jerked open the door. It slipped out of my hand and hit the wall with a loud bang. Then I was in the foyer, not aware how I got there, without Lee, and memories of Mexico rose in my head.
He’d let me walk out then.
My gut tightened.
Fuck him.
In the front driveway, I was stopped cold by two ugly realities. Every inch of blacktop had a vehicle parked on it from whatever company Patricia hired for cleanup, and my car was blocked in the garage. I was fucking trapped. Anything short of creating a scene, I couldn’t hightail it outta there.
Damn him. In my current state I believed even that was deliberate. Box me in—Leland was ten moves ahead of me like always—so I couldn’t box him out.
Well, the workers wouldn’t be there forever. A short-lasting deterrent. I could hole up somewhere away from Lee until I could burn rubber from this house for good.
I went back into my soon-to-be ex-residence, down the stairs to the ground floor to the room I’d first stayed in back when Leland had hired me as a bodyguard. Emotion strangled me as I flipped on the lights. There were memories here. Memories in every inch of the house. Good memories turned to shit in a single word: mine.
Bolting myself in—since I’d put no move beyond Leland—I tossed my bag on the chair, sank down on the foot of the bed, and killed the impulse to smash up the furniture. I felt tears in my eyes instead.
I ground my fingertips into them—damn, not helping. No point fighting it; if any circumstance deserved tears it was this.
It took a full hour to drain my body of what I was sure was every ounce of liquid a man could spew from his eyes. When it was over, I felt numb. Gloriously numb. Enough that I could lie back and let darkness claim me.
When I woke it was light out and an emotion hangover was splitting my temples. I’d slept longer than I intended, and fuck, what was the stomp, stomp, stomp from the stairs closing in on me?
The pounding on my door landed as pounding in my head. Confident it was Leland, I ignored it—well, as best I could. Each thump landed as a new depth charge in me.
I went toward the bathroom to splash water on my face before heading out, and I heard, “Please, Poppy. Open the door.”
My heart stopped.
Ella, sounding anxious and upset.
Oh no, he couldn’t have aired the details of our private nightmare to our daughter. Then I remembered Layla was there, and panic shot through my veins.
My heartbeat escalated as I raced toward the door. I tried to compose myself while I fumbled with the latch. I owed Leland nothing, but this girl was a different story. I swung open the door and my heart clenched.
How she looked confirmed Lee had told her things I’d never tell a child, and it tore me apart. It was that leveling of a thing: the pain, my consuming want to protect her always and in everything, and the stricken amber eyes looking at me from a tear-stained face.
“How could you not tell me, Poppy?”
I choked down the lump in my throat because I wasn’t sure what she was asking. I struggled to keep my expression from cracking, betraying I wasn’t in any better shape than she was.
“Did you know?” she demanded on an anguished voice.
Speaking was impossible; I shook my head and her angry posture went limp as she melted into me, her arms like an iron vise around me.
I held on to her and hid my face in her hair. “I’m sorry, Ella. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.” There was more that had to be said, but it darn near killed me to say it. “Neither would your dad. We both love you, Ella Bella. We always will.”
“How could my dad do that to me and you? Bring my mother here without asking either of us? She’s upstairs in the kitchen, having coffee, and out of nowhere they spring on me who she is.”
They?
Leland and Layla were now they in our daughter’s mind? The parental unit with me pushed aside in one dose of awful. Worse, that forced our daughter into thinking she had to take sides—my side—but that nonsense had to stop.
There were no sides. Not for our girl. But like always, it was up to me to be the bigger man and stronger parent for Ella. Typical Lee: create a mess and have Graham smooth it out for him.
Worse, like a glaring red sign I could see it, how he’d maneuvered this into being: me here in the house when what he’d done hit Ella. He’d gambled—correctly, damn him—that I’d have his back and there was no way I would be able to do the wrong thing where Ella was concerned.
“It’s never easy to find the right time to do hard things, sweetheart,” I told her gently, amazed by that carefully articulated response, and wished to hell I could breathe. “Your mom just wants to meet you, Ella. That’s all. Nothing more. How could you fault her that?”
“Have I ever told either of you I wanted to meet my birth mother? Why didn’t one of you ask me if this was what I wanted? I have the only parents I want. I don’t want to meet her, know her, or anything!” She ran her hand across her dripping nose. “Why are you OK with this? I don’t understand.”
She sounded wounded, vulnerable and afraid.
I guided her into the room to sit beside me on the bed. “Because in time, this is something you’ll want even if you can’t see that today.”
“Never. She gave me up without asking me what I wanted. Then she comes back without asking me what I want. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to know her. And I’m not going to ever.” Her toes pointed inward and she stared at her feet. Her posture reminded me she was still a little girl in most ways.
“Give her a chance. Think of this as an opportunity to learn things about yourself you couldn’t discover any other way than by meeting her. Everything’s going to be fine, Ella.”
Her swollen eyes shifted to my face. “Then why did you sleep downstairs? Why are you packed and about to leave Dad? Won’t one of you tell me the truth about anything?”
As I kept shock from registering on my face, I couldn’t do shit about the flush that rose. Had Leland gone so far as to tell her that, too? “That’s not what’s happening, Ella. You can set that worry aside.”
She pointed. “Then why is there a suitcase sitting in a chair?”
Slipping an arm around her, I held her against my side, close to my heart. “I’m taking Grandma home today. She needs to get back to Newport Beach. That’s all, Ella.”
She searched my face and lost a measure of her anguish. “Can I go with you? Don’t leave me here.”
Fuck.
“Please, Poppy. Let me have a little time to adjust to this. One day. Can’t you do that?”
Those pleading eyes were sobering. It wasn’t just my life that’d spun out of control last night; hers had as well.
“Ask your dad. If he says yes then you can drive to Newport Beach with me today.”
She threw her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my cheek. It took so little to make this less overwhelming for her. I had no choice but to give in, yet I felt like a bastard.
I wasn’t coming back from Newport Beach.
Not ever.
That part I’d have to tell her tomorrow.
Though I wasn’t sure what the fuck I’d say then.
I only hoped it wasn’t a repeat of this.
I counted them in my head.
Five lies in five minutes.
I’d never lied to our girl.
Damn Lee—he was responsible for this.