Prologue
Leah
“Are you okay, Mommy?”
The small voice startles me from where I’m sat at our crooked dining table.
I quickly brush away the few tears of frustration that were ready to fall, then turn around with a smile for my daughter.
It’s forced, but the moment I see Maddie’s head poking around the door, my smile softens into something real.
I hold out my arms and she walks over to me slowly, looking up with big, too-serious eyes.
“What’s wrong?” She asks as I pull her onto my knee, reaching her little hand out to touch my cheek and frowning in the same way as when we’re playing doctors and she’s trying to diagnose me.
“I should be asking you that question.” I say lightly, though it has more truth to it than I’d like. Sometimes I wonder whether my little girl does a better job of looking after me than I do for her. “Why aren’t you in bed, Madison?”
I poke her nose and it startles a giggle out of her, making her wriggle around on my lap and lean in closer for a cuddle.
“I can’t sleep.” Maddie complains, though she starts yawning as she says it, resting her head on my chest.
I run a hand through her hair, murmuring softly.
She’s been waking in the middle of the night more and more recently, and it - like just about everything else - makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong.
I don’t know if it’s just a normal kid-can’t-sleep thing or whether she somehow senses the anxiety that keeps me up each night, and it’s disturbing her too. Especially because she’s always restless on nights like this - when I’m sat in front of a pile of bills, trying to make numbers add up that just don’t. And it’s not my sucky math skills that are the problem, either.
As if Maddie hears my thoughts, she pushes away from me, balancing on my knee with one arm on the table as she twists around and grabs one of the PAYMENT DUE letters with a small fist. It crumples slightly in her grip, but I don’t stop her - I’ve just about managed to resist tearing the damn things up, but if she ends up ripping it…well…
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” She asks again, looking between the letter and me, studying it as if she could actually read the damn thing.
“I’m just dealing with some grown-up problems right now, sweetie.” I say gently, stroking her hair back. “But you don’t need to worry, baby girl - it’s going to be okay.”
I hope.
Except I know she does worry. Even at four-years-old. I make it a point never to lie to her, but I still try so hard not to let her see how difficult things are. I want to give her the childhood she should have - with games and cuddles and laughter, and all those carefree moments I always imagined I’d share with my kid.
And I know I fall short far too often.
I feel a familiar stab of guilt and despair, but I try not to let it overwhelm me. Even if her big, gray eyes seem serious and reflective more than I’d like, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’ve never had as many moments of awe and wonder and pure joy than I have in watching her grow and develop into her own - rather determined - little person over the last four years.
“C’mon, sweetie. We should get you back to bed.” I bounce her on my knee as her face scrunches up, tickling her sides to get her laughing before she start to object. “Or you’ll be tired and grumpy tomorrow.”
She makes a grumpy face at me now, but I pick her up with a smile anyway, kissing her forehead.
For once, she doesn’t fuss or try to wipe it away, and she wraps her arms around my neck as I carry her back to bed.
“Can I play with Tommy tomorrow?” She asks as I settle her down, her voice turning sleepy.
“Not tomorrow, little one.” I say gently, keeping my voice soft to ease her back to sleep. Hopefully she’ll settle this time. “Tommy has gone to visit his Daddy.”
Her eyes flick open again, and I feel the weight of the pause there.
“Can I visit my Daddy?” She says, in an even smaller voice.
I knew it was coming, the moment I said that word. The one that’s haunted me for the last four years.
Daddy.
“No, sweetie. We can’t do that.” I brush her hair back from her forehead, and try not to notice the way she’s started to look at me sometimes - the hope there.
“Why not?”
“It’s bedtime now, little one.” I say softly. “I’ll tell you when you’re older, okay?”
Maddie frowns again - she hates that answer. My little girl thinks she’s old enough to deal with all of life’s complicated, difficult problems now. But this time she doesn’t argue with me - either because she’s too tired or…sometimes, I wonder whether she has some instinctive idea of when it might upset me.
I tuck her in and watch as she nestles further under the blankets, her eyes drifting closed.
It makes me smile as I look down at her - the most beautiful girl in the world, feeling that familiar wave of I-can’t-believe-I’m-so-lucky. Even if I’ve somehow managed to fuck up most of my life, I created her. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the idea of that.
When she seems settled, I sneak out of her room and close the door quietly - only to find myself alone again, and the lingering dread she’d interrupted settles back in my stomach.
I lean against the wall beside our shared bedroom, somehow unable to make it back to the kitchen, and let it support the heavy weight of my head as my own eyes close. I’m bone-tired and I can’t wait until I can collapse into bed too - for the paltry four hours sleep I can expect before morning - but I promised myself I’d deal with those bills tonight.
Not that staring into space and fantasizing about a way out of this nightmare really counts as dealing with them.
Two jobs and a life of juggling never-ending curve balls and chaos, living day-to-day and praying simply to get by…and I’m still left with the same choice at the end of every month: ‘what can I afford to be late on…again?’.
The thought of returning to those jobs again tomorrow almost makes me groan out loud…especially after Maddie reminded me that I can’t rely on Mathilda and Tommy tomorrow. I’ll have to take Maddie along with me again.
Mathilda and I usually find a way of balancing child-care for Maddie and Tommy with our wildly unpredictable shifts, but since she’s traveling up-state to see if her deadbeat, heroin addict ex-boyfriend might actually have kicked the drug habit this time, I’m stuck.
The morning - cleaning for a large office block - that’s usually fine, but at the bar in the afternoon…if my manager catches me hiding Maddie away there again, I can say goodbye to one more no-good, dead-end job.
I shake my head. It shouldn’t really surprise me that Maddie seems so much older than she should sometimes, when she has to see that kind of crap…
Not for the first time - not even the first time today - I wonder if I’ve done the right thing.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
With a sigh, I run a hand through my already untidy hair, and walk back to the small dining room. I glance at the papers on the table, but I don’t sit down. Instead, I find myself in front of the TV.
I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I promised I wouldn’t.
But I turn it on anyway.
And almost without conscious thought, I navigate through the channels to land on the one thing I was definitely not going to look for.
He appears on the screen, and my heart jumps. And sinks. And flips. And does a dozen things that aren’t supposed to happen after five years.
Five years and one child later…
Fuck.
Alistair Sinclair. The most eligible bachelor in New York City.
The sound is off, but I don’t even need to hear his voice to get that kind of crazy reaction - though I hear it anyway, a murmur that shivers down my spine.
“Tell me what you want, Leah…I’m going to give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of…”
I close my eyes and take another deep breath, steadying myself.
Trying not to remember his breath on the back of my neck, or the way his hands slipped down my body. Sliding the straps of my bra off my shoulders and following the path with his lips and tongue and teeth. Making me gasp and pant and want before he’d even done anything.
Fuck.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw him on this program last night. Exposing himself to the public and media by being profiled on a popular evening show is definitely not something the Alistair Sinclair that I’d known would have done - at least not by choice. And he was the kind of man who always had a choice.
But then, maybe you never really knew him. And it was years ago.
I can’t help wondering whether he’s changed…how he’s changed…if, maybe…
But they’re stupid thoughts. Foolish dreams. I know better than that.
He’s the epitome of charm and ease on the show - flashing that sinfully hot smile and bantering with the woman interviewing him. The woman who obviously wants to get to know him a whole lot better. Hell, maybe she already has, for all I know. It wouldn’t surprise me.
But then, the charm isn’t surprising. You don’t build the business empire he has without that unnerving ability to make anyone he encounters want to do anything he wants - or without the ruthless control and arrogant demands that don’t-quite-hide underneath it.
Alistair Sinclair could make himself any woman’s dream. Any fantasy you could ask for.
But the price was everything else.
To live the life that he wanted, in a way that fit with his ideas, plans and goals. Knowing every day that you’re not his equal and never will be - because he doesn’t even know how what that means. I doubt he’s ever had any kind of relationship that didn’t involve his assumption of power - and I’m sure he’s never met a problem that he couldn’t solve by throwing money and status at it.
Sure, he’s got enough masculine heat to drive any woman insane - that deadly combination of elegant-aristocratic features with a rugged charm and the kind of strong, athletic body that most men spend their lives working for. Enough to melt the panties off any woman he’s ever wanted.
And enough that, for a while, I mistook that blinding sexual heat between us for actual warmth.
But it wasn’t.
The fire he could ignite with just a touch, a look, a word…all it did was cover how cold his approach to life really was.
Calculated, distant and unyielding.
“I need you at dinner tonight - I’m trying to make a deal with John and you’ll balance out the numbers.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve got to study.”
“You know, you really don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Leah.”
“I do want to - I want to be a physiotherapist.”
“Why? You don’t need to - and it’ll take you far too long anyway. I’ve got anything you could possibly need.”
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with that kind of life.
So I left what should have been the best thing to ever happen to me, to pursue what I wanted instead.
And, months later - when I found out the parting gift I’d left with - I decided I couldn’t let my child live that way, either. With a father that assumed that kind of control and direction of her life.
That’s assuming Alistair would have even been interested - which was a big if, since a kid definitely wasn’t part of his plan for the year he was launching his major business venture, and it had been incredibly clear he’d moved on from our brief fling.
But despite all my reasons - my good reasons - I’ve still had the guilt eating away at me ever since.
The unrelenting question.
Did I do the right thing?
It’s not like I’m achieving the dreams I fought so hard for, anyway.
And it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I thought that I could count on my parents for help. That I could work out some way to study on the side of a job. That I’d have some fucking support with this. Somehow.
But having their daughter come home with a child out of marriage was too much of a scandal for my parents, and since then…it’s been one long, bitter struggle just to get by.
I watch Alistair on the screen for just a little longer - four hundred miles and a lifetime away - and then switch it off before it overwhelms me completely.
I used to be so sure that I was right. I’ve been so happy knowing I’m raising the most beautiful, amazing little girl and giving her the kind of love that she deserves - filling days with as much fun and laughter and games as I can. Sure, that ended up having to fit around the never-ending work schedule that seems like it is my life sometimes, but it was worth it.
I had the sort of fire that told me that we were better off like this and I could do it - I could provide for us, give Maddie everything she needs and deserves, and make her life special.
But somewhere along the way, so slowly that I hadn’t even noticed, that conviction has been weighed down by the reality of life. By the idea that maybe, it won’t get any better. Maybe this is it. All that I have to offer my beautiful baby girl.
It’s a slow, gradual sort of despair.
And Maddie’s old enough that she’s starting to ask, now. About where her Daddy is. Why she doesn’t have one.
What’s she going to think when she discovers the truth?
When she grows up and sees the childhood I’m giving her for what it really is - a dirt-poor, broke single mother working her ass off just to get by. What kind of life is that?
And then when she finds out who her father really is...
She talks about her Daddy being a prince sometimes, or a king…pretends that she’s a princess. I don’t make any comment at all, but it twists at me every time - how close to the truth that really might be.
When she compares the life that he could have offered to what we have now…
Or, maybe could have offered. I still don’t know if his response would have been anything other than hiring a fuck-ton of lawyers to get rid of the problem.
But that’s on me, too. I never found out.
I walk back to the table and look down at the pile of unpaid bills.
It’s not really them that I’m bothered by. Juggling bills has just become part of life. I know what’s really getting to me - the reason that I haven’t been able to shake these thoughts for the last few months.
I shift the bills apart and look at the letter underneath. The one that came this week.
From the kindergarten that looks like the only option I’m going to have for Maddie.
I’ve been there. I went to look around. And I think that was the first time it really hit me. All the things I want to provide for her…that I simply can’t.
I mean, I knew I wasn’t in a good neighborhood here in Pittsburgh. I knew the schools around here weren’t great. But…the resources there are so much worse than the school I went to. And mine wasn’t exactly a shining example of quality.
The kids at this place were practically running riot, rough-housing and barely noticing the few lame attempts that the uninterested staff made to control them.
It’s like everyone there had given up on anything better. And it made me realize that I had, too. And wonder when that had happened…and why.
Since then, it’s been a constant stream of what might have been…what if…maybe…
I pick the letter up and read it through again.
I swore I’d do anything for my little girl.
That I’d do everything I could to give her everything she should have. The kind of life I could be proud of.
And this sure as hell isn’t what she deserves.
The despair turns to anger in a sudden rush, and I tear the letter I’m holding in two. Then I start ripping it to pieces, frustration fueling the kind of energy I haven’t felt in weeks.
I throw the pieces into the air and watch them flutter down around me. It feels like the tatters of everything I thought I could achieve alone, and it’s more painful to face that thought than I’d like to admit.
The idea that all I’ve been doing is struggling, one small step away from complete disaster.
And that’s not what I want for Maddie.
If I’d do anything for her…that includes giving up my pride.
Finding Alistair. Telling him the secret I’ve held for years. And using the kind of strength that made me walk away in the first place to deal with the consequences.
I’ll get down on my knees and beg if I have to, for the sake of my daughter…and hope that he doesn’t slam the door in my face.
I can’t really say I expect anything from him. But at least I’ll know. I’ll be able to tell Maddie what actually happened with her father.
I’ll finally shake the ‘what if?’ that’s been haunting me for years.