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Six months later...
Standing behind the long edge of the bar, Kane Steele watched as his boss descended the stairs from the second floor. If he’d thought a shitty day couldn’t get worse, he hadn’t considered the fact that Luke McCoy had been in rare form for the better half of the night.
“Kane!” Luke’s powerful voice boomed from across the room and raked like fingernails down a chalkboard across Kane’s last nerve.
It was the end of the night – or rather morning – for crying out loud. Didn’t the man have something better to do? Or better yet – someone... no, make that two someone’s to do?
“What’s up?” Doing his best not to sound frustrated, Kane pasted on what would pass as a smile and turned his attention to the imposing man making his way across the now empty club floor.
Call him a pessimist but after having spent the last few nights watching all of the happy fucking people wandering around the bar – namely the McCoy clan who’d been congregating at Club Destiny in celebration of one thing or another it seemed for weeks now – Kane wasn’t finding it easy to be in a good mood these days.
The fact that Luke had thought it funny to introduce karaoke night to the already rowdy crowd hadn’t helped either. If he had to listen to another garbled rendition of one of Adele’s songs, he’d be inclined to gouge his own ears.
Ok, so Kane doubted he would win any awards for his personality and to his credit, he made a point not to walk around pissed off – or he tried to anyway. If he were being scored for his optimistic outlook, sure the results would be subpar, but at least he’d have some points. Maybe.
He was having one hell of a time finding much to be optimistic about lately. Unless of course, someone mentioned his daughter, then the smile was genuine.
“Why are you still here?”
Because you’re hollering my name, maybe?
Kane wasn’t about to voice his thoughts, but that’s what dashed through his brain as he stared at Luke from across the pristine bar top. As a matter of fact, he had just finished up the last of his inventory count for the night, he’d checked to make sure everything was clean and ready for the next night, and was planning to head out, but it appeared that might be changing.
“I’m finishing up,” he offered, his gaze landing on the woman walking across the room at a fast clip.
Trying to get away, was she?
“Lucie!” Kane called out, leaning to the right so that he could see around Luke’s massive frame.
He fully expected Lucie to continue walking right out the door and ignore him altogether so when she stopped suddenly, he bit back a grin. At least she was getting better about tolerating him. At least in public. Then again, maybe she just didn’t want to cause a scene with Luke present.
Lucie Werner was the bane of his existence. He wanted to both hate her and love her all at the same time. Oh what a difference the last six months had made though. What with all of the drama with Club Destiny and the McCoy’s, Kane hadn’t had much time to dwell on what was or wasn’t going on between him and Lucie at the moment.
Ever since Lucie’s admission that Kane was, in fact, the father of her daughter, he’d been eaten up with both guilt and anger, and unable to explain the reason for the former.
Initially, right after Lucie shared her earth shattering news, Kane had been livid. He could hardly stand to look at her; he had been so fucking mad that she would’ve kept something like that from him. He’d insisted on a paternity test and successfully managed to treat Lucie like the scum of the earth.
Now, well... Now things were different.
Sort of.
For the last few months, Kane had spent the majority of his time with both Haley and Lucie and found that if he had a choice, he wouldn’t be anywhere else. Even on the days that Lucie allowed him to take Haley to do something on his own, he found he wished she were right there with them. For some reason, he just felt more complete with her there.
Explain that one!
Although he had always sensed that something had actually happened between him and the beautiful woman now turning to face him with a scowl on her face, Kane had chalked it up to an overactive imagination, and an even stronger desperation to fuck her. As it turned out, all of those images that had been flashing through his brain for months hadn’t been dreams as he originally thought. No, he was pretty sure they were suppressed memories coming back to torment him.
According to Lucie, those images were real, at least according to the way she described in very high level detail what had happened between them. He’d just somehow managed to do what he had longed to do without as much as a single conscious memory of it.
Which sucked like hell.
How could he have fallen into bed with Lucie and not remembered a damn thing?
The alcohol was undoubtedly a monumental factor in his memory loss that night. He’d had more than his fair share and rightfully so. That had been a rough time for him and obviously taking advantage of Lucie had topped off a really awful period in his life.
Since then, after she spilled her news and he got past the blinding rage, things had gotten somewhat easier for him at least. Not that he could say the same for Lucie. She’d gone from having a baby without a father, which he could only imagine was hard as hell to manage on her own, to having to figure out what the best way to include him was.
While her life was getting significantly more difficult, Kane had been working hard to right the wrongs of their past as best he could. He didn’t think Lucie cared much for his interference, but he admired her patience. She certainly had more than he did.
“Are you heading home?” Kane asked as he moved out from behind the bar, leaving Luke behind. It wasn’t that he was purposely ignoring his boss, but at the moment, Lucie was more important.
“Yes. Haley’s at home with Erica and I need to get there as soon as possible.”
Kane had met Erica, Haley’s nighttime babysitter, only a few times. Being a complete and utter jackass, thanks to his original disbelief and anger, he’d actually questioned Lucie at length about the woman. Lucie had assured him – with the patience of a damn saint – that Erica was one of the best things to have ever happened to Haley. Now that Kane knew her, he couldn’t disagree. The twenty two year old, college student watched Haley from the time Lucie left for work until she walked through her door at the wee hours of the morning.
In all fairness, Kane had never been a hard ass when it came to his employees, especially those with children. He always tried to ensure that they never had to stay later than the normal closing time if at all possible. Although he had grown a bit protective of Lucie in recent months, he still tried to ensure he didn’t show her any preferential treatment.
Well, except for the fact that he wanted to ensure she made it home as well. Which was why he’d resorted to catching her on her way out, just to remind her that he expected a phone call to let him know she made it home safely.
“Call me when you get there,” he told her, locking his eyes with hers and daring her to argue with him.
Interestingly enough, she had only argued one time, and that had been the first time he insisted which he knew had taken her by surprise. She had called him heavy handed, and he had all but laughed it off. Ok, so maybe that was partly true.
At least since then, Lucie stopped being so stand-offish with him, but he definitely would not consider her warm when it came to their interactions.
“Ok,” Lucie said abruptly, then turned and made a beeline for the back doors that would lead to the parking garage. Little did Lucie know, but Kane would watch her until she was in her car and on her way out of the parking garage. He figured she certainly wouldn’t have taken too kindly to that, so he’d managed to hide it for the last few weeks.
Five minutes later, after he ensured that she was safely on her way, he pulled out his cell phone, made sure the ringer was on before sliding it back in his pocket. Fifteen minutes tops. That’s how long it would take her to get home and like clockwork, she had always called. Even though she didn’t linger on the phone, Kane still felt better knowing she was safe.
The impatient part of him wished they could gloss over all of the anger and pain that they’d caused each other in recent months, but he knew that was easier said than done. Mending what was broken between them was going to take time, even if he didn’t like it.
At least he could say that there weren’t any issues currently between him and his beautiful daughter, Haley. He’d taken baby steps with her, reaching out to a counselor from the very beginning to help them through the transition. Lucie had refused to go with them, but Kane couldn’t necessarily blame her. But, he was happy to say Haley was warming up to him much faster than he ever imagined, even if her mother was keeping her distance.
He was hoping he could change that because, despite her deceit, Kane knew Lucie, and he knew she was only trying to do what was best for everyone involved. Well, except for herself. She never had been one to put herself first. But she had tried to make the best out of a bad situation, and he truly believed she thought keeping Haley’s paternity from him was the best thing for both Haley and Kane.
He obviously didn’t agree, but that was in the past now and they had so much to work out. It was just going to take some time.
~~*~~
Lucie hurried to her car, feeling the heat of Kane’s gaze burning a hole in her back as he tracked her through the parking garage. A single woman made sure she knew her surroundings and Lucie had felt his presence since the very first time he watched her leave.
Hell, she knew every single time the man so much as glanced her way because she could feel the warmth of his gaze like a physical caress. No matter how much distance she tried to put between herself and Kane, Lucie had a damn hard time getting him off of her mind. It wasn’t like anything had changed in that regard though, even after recent events. She’d felt that way ever since that fateful night five years ago when she’d easily fallen for the man in the span of just a few hours, only to find out he didn’t remember a single minute of it.
Before she’d done the unthinkable.
Looking back on it now, Lucie knew that keeping Haley’s paternity a secret from her father wasn’t the brightest move she’d ever made, and she didn’t need a damn psychologist to confirm that either.
It also didn’t change the fact that she still stood by her belief that it was the right thing to do.
At the time.
She also knew that no one else agreed with her. Not her mother, not Cole, the one friend who had stood by her the entire time, and especially not Kane.
Had she not gone into complete and total panic over her daughter’s chronic health issues, Lucie probably would have never dropped the bomb on Kane either. Had she ever decided to tell him on her own, she knew she wouldn’t have chosen those circumstances as her reason.
He’d been understandably furious, and Lucie couldn’t blame him at all. She’d somehow managed to hold herself together after he ranted and raved and called her every vile name he could think of all while telling herself that she deserved every bit of his hatred.
When he insisted on a paternity test, Lucie offered to pay for it. He had refused her that though, and she realized that Kane knew full well Haley was his, but he had to go through the motions. It had hurt to see how he looked at her with such disdain, but Lucie saw the same expression every time she looked in the mirror. She was more disappointed in herself than anyone else ever could be.
Seeing Haley’s recent changes, both after the surgeries to help her to get over the chronic strep throat and ear infections, as well as her recent interaction with her father, Lucie was in a different place.
Admitting you were wrong was hard enough. Admitting you were wrong about something that altered the course of so many people’s life was even worse. Knowing she was the only reason Haley and Kane had missed out on so many wonderful milestones together had Lucie riddled with guilt.
Not that Lucie could have been convinced otherwise; even when she’d resorted to stealing from Club Destiny just to try and come up with the money to pay for Haley’s medical bills. Thankfully, Luke wasn’t the complete and total hard ass everyone said he was. Or maybe he’d just been easy on her because he was in love with Cole, a man who had stood by Lucie through some extremely dark times, one of the only people she could call a friend.
But right now, just like back then, there was no room in her thoughts for Kane Steele and the what might’ve been’s that plagued her on a daily basis. She had a job that she needed to focus on, and a daughter to care for – and not a second extra to spend on anything more than that.
Ten minutes later, Lucie was turning into her apartment complex, surveying the dark corners of the parking lot and the hidden nook’s and cranny’s of the dilapidated building she lived in. Unfortunately, she had learned the hard way just what lurked in the dark of the night in the less than stellar neighborhood she lived in. She’d been lucky that night, she knew. Armed with only her car keys, Lucie had managed to fend off her attacker at three o’clock in the morning, when not a single soul had answered her cries for help.
Now she was paranoid, and rightfully so. She hadn’t told anyone. Not the police, not her mother, and certainly not Kane. She had too many people trying to look after her as it was. She also feared that Kane would try to take her baby girl away from her if he knew, which meant she only had one option. Be prepared in order to ensure it didn’t happen again and continue saving money until she could move to a better neighborhood. She was so close, but that didn’t make getting out of her car any easier.
There was one bright side to the whole situation, and that was that Lucie had found Erica, Haley’s full time babysitter. The woman was Heaven-sent in Lucie’s opinion.
Each night, Erica graciously brought Haley back to the apartment – before dark – just to make sure the little girl got to go to sleep in her own bed. And when Lucie arrived at three or four o’clock in the morning, Erica would sometimes remain on the couch, or she would drag herself home if she had an early class. On those nights, Lucie would lock Haley inside the apartment, and then dutifully walk Erica to her car just to ensure her safety.
Of course, there were days like yesterday when Lucie would take Haley to Erica’s and the little girl asked if Kane would be coming over to see her. Never did Lucie know for sure whether he was, but his track record over the last few months pretty much allowed Lucie to ensure Haley that he would. Kane did little else other than visit his daughter each and every day.
Since they both worked until two in the morning, or later, he didn’t get to see Haley in the evenings, but he made sure he was over each day, either bringing lunch to them, or taking them somewhere – usually McDonald’s if Haley had her say.
Although their interactions were awkward at best, Lucie and Kane managed to be civil to one another when Haley was within ear shot. Not that he had talked to Lucie much any other time, but she knew the day would come. He had some big questions he wanted answers to, and she was trying to avoid that conversation like the plague. Even after her high level account of what happened, she knew Kane wasn’t satisfied with her answers.
Hurrying up the stairs to the second floor landing, Lucie approached with her keys ready. As was her routine, she had both of the locks unlocked, herself inside, and the reverse completed within seconds. With her phone at the ready, she hit the call button, dialing Kane’s number and then waiting for him to answer.
“Everything ok?” Without fail, he asked the same question he asked every time she called.
“Yes. I’m here and Haley’s sleeping.”
“Ok. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Lucie hung up and wondered if that would be the extent of their conversations from here on out. Each day she hoped for minimal interaction with the man because, despite the relationship he was building with Haley and his ability to at least look her in the eye these days, Lucie had a difficult time getting over the attraction she still felt for him. It seemed to burn hotter and brighter every time she was close to him.
It wouldn’t be so terrible if she thought there might be a chance in hell of them ever replaying that one spectacular night all over again. Or better yet, if she thought there was even a remote chance he might feel a fraction of what she felt for him. Despite the repeated lectures she gave herself, it all boiled down to the fact that Lucie was still in love with Kane.
There was no doubt in her mind that Kane would never be able to forgive her completely for what she did. Nor would he ever be able to truly trust her. And that meant these feelings that she had for him were better left tucked away, deep down, and hopefully, if she was lucky, eventually forgotten.