The next few days were torture. Reporters swarmed the building. There was news on the horizon, a leak about a big story, but no one had the specifics. I watched Esme play in her room, wearing little elf ears pretending her chairs were reindeer. It was only a few days before Christmas. She kept asking where Mel was. When they were going to bake cookies. I didn’t know how to tell her. I couldn’t form the words in my head, let alone say them aloud. But she was gone and I couldn’t let her back into our lives, no matter how much it hurt. The raw angry hurt so much, that I didn’t know if I’d ever recover from it.

From the moment they had laid baby Esme in my arms, I knew. Not my blood, but she was mine all the same. I made that choice. I saw the pictures of Beth together with Allan, I knew we hadn’t slept together for months before she got pregnant, but I was so ready to have a family. A real family. I wanted so fiercely to make it work that I turned a blind eye when I shouldn’t have, and that was the burden I had to bear. It wasn’t until the blood test, that the bomb I’d been able to avoid for most of her life, blew up in my face. Then my plans for life after my inheritance changed.

I’d tell her someday soon, but it would be on my terms, not Killian’s or Allan’s, but mine. I knew what was best for her, she was my daughter. I’d thought about running. Running away with her. But we wouldn’t get far, not with my face, not with my reputation and I didn’t want to have to take her from everything she knew.

My lawyers were working on getting everything together. Stalling the paternity test. We’d require a court order to make that happen. I’d keep her safe, no matter what. Mel should be here at my side, helping me figure this out. She’d showed me what it was like to have someone there, what Esme was like with a mom in her life. How could she have done this to us?

* * *

Mel

For the first time in my life I had some money in my pocket. I wasn’t worried about where I’d get my next meal, where I would sleep or what my next job would be. I could stand on my own two feet. The dull ache living in my chest, pressing against my heart turned into a sharp stabbing pain when Rhys and Esme crossed my mind. As long as I didn’t let them in for too long, it only took my breath away for a few seconds. Not every minute of every day like it had in the beginning.

Christmas had come and gone. I’d been so looking forward to my first one with those two. My presents for Esme had been forwarded to my new apartment. The tears that constantly prickled the backs of my eyes finally spilled over then. He wouldn’t even let her have my presents? Did she think I’d abandoned her? That I’d left without a word? I never thought I could hate him, but I did as I clutched the pretty pink wrapping paper in my hands. I blocked his number and filtered his email, even though he never called or sent any. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any angry messages from him.

It had been the first Christmas in a long time that I was actually looking forward to, but I’d made due with what remained. I had enough money in my bank account to start over. Living in the penthouse meant I didn’t have many expenses, other than some new clothes. I’d saved almost all I’d made in the time I was there, except for the chunk I gave her to disappear from my life forever.

I wrote letters to Esme every day. I kept them once the first few were returned unopened. I hoped one day I’d be able to give them to her. I tried to call, but every single call went unanswered. I even showed up at the building a few times before security had been informed I wasn’t allowed within fifty feet of the entrance.

I held myself back from going to her school. I didn’t want to cause a scene. I didn’t want to traumatize her. The temptation was heavy. I had to occupy myself when I knew school was letting out, so I didn’t find myself waiting across the street for her.

I wrote Killian a check for the money he deposited into my account. I slammed it down on his secretary’s desk before rushing out of there. I did not want to have another run-in with him. I still couldn’t believe someone could be so callous and vindictive.

Derek dropped my stuff off at my new apartment I shared with four girls I met on an online message board for the college. The rent was manageable and the girls were nice. They were in graduate school or working. Their laughter and nights out made me envy the carefree way they moved through life. Not a care in the world. I stayed in my room and studied for my GED. It took me less than a month to pass it. I’d been so happy, I wanted someone to share it with, but there was no one. I had no one again. It seemed I was destined to only be part of a family for a short time. A glimpse, before I was shuffled back out into the cold.

I signed up for online college classes while I figured out what I wanted to do. I painted a smile on every day, and prayed that one day it would be real. I had everything I’d ever wanted, including my independence, so why did I stay awake at night, staring at the ceiling wondering how it all went wrong? Was Esme getting enough stories before bed? Was Rhys able to sleep or was he back to doing laps in the pool night after night.

I’d been so afraid and ashamed to tell Rhys the truth about me, about my life that I’d lost them both. But he was so quick to believe the worst of me. That’s what hurt the most. After everything we’d been through, he didn’t trust me. I hadn’t seen him since that day. The day everything went to shit. I’d texted every day after I left for the first month. My fingers itched to text after that. I told him everything. How he ripped my guts out that day. A searing, all encompassing pain that radiated through my whole body when he stared at me. Like I was capable of something so horrible.

He hadn’t trusted me that night on the balcony, he didn’t trust me in the park and he didn’t trust me when the money showed up in my account. How many more times would it take before it was the final straw? I couldn’t take that chance again. I couldn’t be with him knowing that at any moment the other shoe might drop. That I might end up even worse off than I was now. What’s worse was he wouldn’t let me say goodbye to Esme. I didn’t know if I could ever forgive that. At least now I had my dignity, well some of it, but would I have it in six months or a year? I’d come begging him on my hands and knees to believe me, every time he thought the worst, if I didn’t stop now.

No, I had to stop it now. I deleted the number I’d committed to memory from my phone and I needed to leave it. I’d said everything there was to say. Maybe Esme would find me when she was older. She’d always have a place in my heart.

* * *

Days turned to weeks and then it had been a month since I’d left, well, been kicked out. There hadn’t been anything in the news about a custody battle. He’d managed to keep things under wraps somehow. He always found a way, didn’t he?

Esme’s pictures and drawings in the dresser drawer in my room were the hardest to lose. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I prayed she didn’t think I’d abandoned her. He should have known that would be a knife through my heart. No pictures of her opening her presents at Christmas. Not getting to sit there with a mug of hot chocolate while she opened the gifts I’d picked out for her. I wanted to sit her on my lap, wrapped in our blanket and read those books to her.

January was even worse than usual. The holiday hangover meant everyone trudged through life, waiting for the first signs that winter was ending. The first moment when the sun peeked through the clouded dreariness and the rays of spring felt within reach. Those days weren’t there yet. The slush and grime were back after the decorations came down and I went on, trying to make it through one day at a time. I grabbed a cup of coffee from my favorite shop. My weekly treat and sat at the window. People-watching had become my new favorite pastime. I had never seemed to slow down enough to just observe before. I was always running from table to table, interview to interview, disaster to disaster. Here I could sit and pretend I was someone else for a while.

A headline on the paper someone had left behind caught my eye.

Dead. Overdose. The words didn’t compute in my mind. It took a long time rolling them over before it made sense. He was dead. Allan was dead. The tightness in my chest relaxed for a second and I could breathe again. I felt horrible that I celebrated the death of a human being, but knowing that Esme wouldn’t have to go through some horrendous court battle or run into him again made me think fuck it. The fact that he was still using only meant things would have been that much worse for her.

The hustle of the coffee shop did nothing to distract me from the story. He’d died in an apartment owned by Killian Thorne. Killian hadn’t been there, but it mentioned they’d grown up near one another. I thought back to our conversation in his office. He said he’d “handle it.” Was this his way? After everything he’d done to completely destroy everything Rhys worked for, was he willing to kill to correct his mistake?

I breathed a sigh of relief knowing Esme would be safe with Rhys. No one would be coming to take her away. As much as it hurt knowing he hadn’t trusted me, at least she wouldn’t have to go through something worse than I had. I ran my knuckles against the ache in my chest. The tightness ebbed a tiny bit.

My phone vibrated on the table beside me. The notification blinked in and out. It was a video message from Rhys, somehow that bypassed the block I’d put on his number. My fingers shook as I picked up the phone. My eyes didn’t quite believe what I was seeing. I gathered up my things and raced back to my apartment. Closing my bedroom door behind me, I sat on my bed, knees tucked up to my chest. With fingers of icy dread curled around my stomach I pressed play.

He looked like I felt. Dark bags under his eyes and stubble for days. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in awhile.

“I’ve been trying to give you space, Mel. Trying not to push you to do what I want.” His voice rolled over me and I had to close my eyes. I didn’t know if I was strong enough for this. “I don’t want you to come back to me because you feel you have no other choice. I want you to come back because you can’t go on without me. Without us. We miss you.”

He rubbed his hand over his face, the sound of his scratchy beard coming through on the video. He missed me now, but what about the next time? What about the next time something bad happened? Would I be kicked out again? Being ripped away from them once hurt so much. I couldn’t put myself through that again. My heart pounded in my chest.

“I know this is a chicken shit way of apologizing, but you’ve blocked my number and haven’t responded to any of my emails. I’m sorry, Mel. I’m sorry and I miss you. Esme misses you. This place isn’t the same without you. But I understand I screwed up. And I understand if you don’t believe in me anymore. I didn’t want to apologize like this, but I don’t have a choice. Derek’s refusing to tell me where you are, even after a threat to force him into daily tea parties with Esme.” A small smile curved his lips. Like he was hoping it would make me smile too. “

I love you, Mel. Come back to me.” The door to the apartment opened. Laughter and talking filtered in through my closed door. Life went on. Like I wasn’t sitting here on my bed trying to hold myself together. Trying to be strong in the face of something I had never before experienced. Someone coming back for me.

Tears spilled down my cheeks and I couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. The words I’d longed to hear. The words I thought would save me before and here they were. His face blurred as I clutched the phone against my chest, sobs breaking free as I muffled the sound to keep my roommates from hearing me. They already thought of me as the shut-in, I didn’t need them thinking of me as the basket case as well. I checked my email, went to the folder I’d created for any emails from him. I never thought he’d send one, but just in case. There were dozens of emails. One, sometimes two every day. I scrolled through them. He was sorry now, but he had kicked me out. He wouldn’t let me contact Esme. What would happen the next time he didn’t believe me? I would be in even deeper than I already was. I’d had my heart broken too many times. I couldn’t just go back. I couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t.