Chapter 8

~ Danny ~

Present Day

“I don’t know, man.” Big T, who was now head of my security teams and my personal assistant, rubbed the back of his neck with his big hand. “I’m not loving the theme.”

“What did you have in mind?” Brad flashed a bright salesman grin.

I tried not to sigh. I didn’t trust the guy and I didn’t like him. He was fake and trying too hard, but Dollar wanted me to work with this firm, so I would deal.

I studied the paperwork in front of me, the words blurring, and I fought to concentrate on what it all said. I widened my eyes, forcing myself to read it over again as I couldn’t blow this off. This tour was important for me to get my career back on track. It had to be perfect.

“Holy shit,” Big T murmured, and for some reason, the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“There you are.” Brad glanced to the doorway. “Come in here and meet everyone.”

“Sorry. There was something I needed to take care of.” The soft, familiar voice sent goose bumps floating over my skin. “Hey, Teddy Bear.”

“Oh my, my, girl.” Big T stood with a deep chuckle and enveloped her in a big hug.

I didn’t need to be told who was in Big T’s arms. One whiff of her powdery fragrance, the same she’d worn years before, stopped my heart before launching it into a skittering beat. I froze, drinking in the sight of the love of my life materializing before my eyes, appearing out of thin air like a ghost.

Gabrielle looked amazing, still so beautiful and stunning. She’d filled out some, but she was still long and slender. One glimpse at her and the lie I told myself every day, about being able to find someone else who made me feel the same way she did, slapped me hard across the face. There would never be anyone but her, just as I’d always told her.

She took a big breath as she prepared to meet my eyes for the first time in six long years. When they landed on me, trapping all the air in my lungs, it was suffocating. Her green eyes were huge and glowing, reminding me of how they had always sparkled, just for me.

“Hi, Danny.” Jesus, that voice. The mere sound of it did things to my body that no drug had ever been able to do, no matter how many I tried.

“Danny?” Brad repeated, confusion coloring his tone. I wanted to tell him to shut up.

I stood slowly, clenching my hands into fists in the pockets of my loose jeans so I wouldn’t reach out to touch her. “G. You look good, girl.”

“G?” Brad asked, but everyone continued to ignore him.

“Thanks.” Faint rose circles bloomed on her cheeks. “You do too.”

I nodded, but couldn’t get any other words to come out, feeling like a tongue-tied idiot. She smiled at me before looking down at Dollar, who still stared at her in amazement.

“Hi, Dollar. It’s good to see you.”

Snapping out of his shock, he shoved his chair back and rushed around the table, giving her a quick one-armed hug. “Oh yeah, girl. Yeah. Good to see you too. Real good, yeah.”

Her eyes landed on the two large men sitting in the corner watching, but no one introduced her to them.

Brad let out a huff of exasperation. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Oh, sorry. I actually lived in the same neighborhood as these guys. I knew them from before they were famous, as the saying goes.”

Her dismissal of what we’d had felt like a knife to my heart and had me reaching for my chest to rub away the pain. If only things had been that simple, but I wasn’t going to correct her.

“And you didn’t tell me?” He didn’t bother trying to hide his irritation.

Her spine stiffened at his tone, but she kept her smile easy. “I didn’t realize I had to. I didn’t know you would be working with them until I came home five minutes ago, remember?”

“You live here?” I made myself focus on her so I wouldn’t punch the asshole in the face for talking to her like that.

She turned back to me. “Yes. Brad and I live together.”

“Are you married?” I struggled to ignore the jealousy bubbling up inside me. That she was with this slime made me sick.

“Uh…no, we’re not.” She refused to make eye contact with me, and her eyes flitted toward Brad.

“Gabby and I recently decided to take our relationship one step further.” He whipped out another a bright, toothy grin, attempting to connect to us man-to-man. Why rush into marriage, he seemed to say.

“But, you said you had a kid?” Big T said.

“Oh, well, I don’t actually have a child. Gabby does, but of course, I think of her as mine.”

All eyes came back to her, and her face flamed.

“G?” The only thing that gave away my shock was the small tremor in my voice.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Like you didn’t know.”

Her tone made me take a step back, as if she’d slapped me. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Now isn’t the time to lie, Danny.”

She was clenching her teeth so hard that my mouth ached looking at her tight jawline. I didn’t understand why she was so angry.

“G, I’m not lying. I didn’t know you had a kid.”

“Okay, fine. You didn’t know.”

I frowned. “So, were you married to someone else before?” I attempted to fill in the gaps since she wasn’t being free with the information, especially since she thought I already knew. “Since you’re not…”

Her gaze flew up to the ceiling as she fought the tears swimming in her eyes, and an awkward silence settled over the room. “This isn’t happening. You have to have known…”

“I don’t understand why this is so upsetting to you, Gabby,” Brad scolded. “These gentlemen don’t need to be a part of whatever drama happened between you and her father.”

“Her?” I asked. “You have a daughter?”

She pointed at Brad and ignored me. “I want you to remember this is all because of you. I asked you to leave me out of this.”

Gabrielle turned and left the room, leaving everyone watching after her thoroughly puzzled. I noticed Dollar slouched down further in his chair with a pained expression, the same one he’d had the whole time I was with her. But he also looked like he had a bad feeling about what was about to go down, and I did too.

I couldn’t explain why, but all the hairs on my body stood in anticipation of something. What, I had no idea, but I had my answer when she strode back around the corner with a little girl trailing next to her, reaching up to hold her mom’s hand, dressed for ballet and her black hair in a loose bun.

I didn’t need a mirror to tell me I was setting eyes on my daughter for the first time. My breath clogged my throat and my blood roared like a tidal wave through my head, as my mind reeled, struggling to supply explanations to what I was seeing.

She stepped into the room and the little girl glanced around with big, blue eyes. “Everyone, this is my daughter…Dani.”

Dollar chuckled from where he sat. “She even has his name. Damn…”

She eyed me, waiting for me to say something, but I was at a loss for words. It was as if everything drained from me, and then came roaring back in out of control. When I continued to stare at Dani in shock as she gazed back at me, twin blue eyes inspecting each other, Gabrielle broke the silence. “I don’t need to say anything more, do I?”

I shook my head and tried to swallow. “No.” My throat tightened, making my voice hoarse.

“Good.” She shifted toward Brad. “Do I need to clarify anything further, now that you see them together?”

He wasn’t stupid. The resemblance was obvious. “He’s her—”

“Yes.”

“Holy…” He slumped down into his chair.

She glanced down at our daughter and her tone gentled. “Dani, honey, I’d like to introduce you to some people. This is Big T, but Mom always called him Teddy Bear.”

He stood to his full height and grinned at her. “You can call me Teddy Bear too.”

“Okay,” she said in a soft voice, her eyes wide at his size.

Gabrielle pointed. “That’s Bill over there, but everyone calls him Dollar.”

Dani frowned. “Dollar?”

“Yep. It’s a silly name, isn’t it?”

“My name ain’t silly,” he said with a mischievous smile. “Nice to meet you, Dani.”

Gabrielle turned so they faced me, and I couldn’t move, everything in me frozen. “And this…this is, uh…oh, God.”

Her eyes pleaded with me, snapping me out of my stupor. I knelt so I was eye level with her, my little girl, and my voice quivered. “I’m Danny…Dani.”

“Hey!” She giggled. “That’s my name!”

Her laugh was like sunshine and everything within me thawed. I smiled at her. She was beautiful. “Yes, it’s your name. Just like mine.”

“That’s funny because you’re a boy.”

“I had my name first, so it’s funny because you’re a girl,” I teased.

“No!”

“No, you’re right. It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” I looked at Gabrielle, her eyes glistening at our exchange. “She’s…amazing.”

She nodded and pulled her closer to her before clearing her throat. “Tell everyone nice to meet you, Dani, and see you later.”

“See you later!” She waved before her mother turned and walked them out of the room.

I remained rooted in place, watching them walk away, until they disappeared around the corner. I turned back to my two best friends in the world. “Did you know about this?” I asked Big T.

“No idea, D. I would have told you, you know that.”

I turned to Dollar. “You?”

He shook his head as he sat back in his chair in a lazy fashion, but he couldn’t quite wipe the disgusted look off his face. “Nah, man. No idea.”

“She said she tried to tell me.” I pushed to remember receiving any messages from her that I hadn’t read, or any phone calls I hadn’t returned, but nothing came to mind. Despite the last six years being nothing but a blur for the most part, I was certain I would’ve recalled being told I had a child.

When she came back, I stepped up to her, unable to stop the anger suddenly flowing through me, having lost so many precious years with her and now, my daughter. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t…?” she started to repeat, flustered. “Danny, I did tell you.”

I tried not to blow up, but my blood was boiling. “I’m telling you, I had no fucking idea,” I gritted out, trying to keep a tight rein on my control, even though I wanted to rant and rave at all that I’d missed. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t have said anything to you about this? That I wouldn’t have wanted to be involved in her life? After everything I went through as a kid?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, unaffected by my anger. “I have no idea what you might have wanted, Danny, since you made it perfectly clear how you felt about me,” she yelled at me, momentarily forgetting about our audience before clearing her throat and lowering her voice. “I don’t know what to tell you. I tried.”

“Well, you didn’t try hard enough.” Chest heaving, I put my head down and my hands on my hips, grappling with everything, before pulling my keys out of my pocket. “I’m fucking out of here.”

“Now, wait, DOA.” Brad jerked out of his trance and rushed around the table. “I appreciate this is a lot to take in, but we haven’t finished going through the contract yet.”

I caught the glare he threw Gabrielle out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned back, he gave me a big, bright smile. Prick.

“Nah, man. I’m done here. We’ll be in contact.”

Opening the front door, I glanced back at Gabrielle and our eyes met for a split second, and the old, yet familiar, pull pulsed between us, but I was too angry to appreciate it. I stepped out and Andre’, my security guard, was right behind me, closing the door in Brad’s face.

The door opened again, and Dollar and Big T followed us out.

“D, hold up,” Dollar said as he jogged over to my side.

I stopped and jingled the keys in my hand.

“What you thinking, man?”

“Honestly, Dollar.” I turned to face him. “I’m so fucking mad right now that I can’t think straight, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking. I have a little girl in there that I knew nothing about, and she knows nothing about me. I missed six years of her fucking life, and now I have to figure out how to get that back, which I can’t.”

I was shouting as I pointed at Gabrielle’s house, and I stopped myself, not wanting to make a scene. Taking in a deep breath, I rolled my shoulders. “Look, I just need to process this, and then I’ll do…something, I don’t know.” I glanced back at Dollar and Big T. “But this stays quiet, all right? Nothing is said until we get a fucking handle on it.”

“D,” Dollar said. “You can’t possibly be buying into this right now. This isn’t the time to start playing—”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? I just learned that I have a daughter and you’re going to tell me this isn’t the fucking time?”

Dollar held his hands up. “That’s not what I’m saying. Hear me out.”

“Nah, man.” I shook my head and turned toward my car. “Nah, I’m not listening to your bullshit right now. You’re just going to have to fucking deal, Dollar.”

And just like that, we were right back where we had started.