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If I could get the truth from Skye, I was going to listen and put myself in her shoes. I was ready to fight for us if she was ready to never lie to me again.
Dammit! There had to be some compelling reason for her not to be truthful.
And Maya would be my daughter. I wasn’t all that concerned about whether or not she shared my genes. Seth was right. Love wasn’t about DNA. I was pretty sure I already adored her a lot more than her natural father—wherever and whoever the hell he was. If it wasn’t Marino, I certainly hadn’t seen any other male ready to step up to the plate.
The house was dark, and the first thing I noticed when I pulled into one of the garage stalls was that Skye’s beat-up old vehicle was gone.
Where in the hell would she go at this hour?
I glanced at the clock and realized it wasn’t really as late as it felt. For me, it had already been a damn long night. Still, it wasn’t like Skye to take off with Maya late on a school night.
I went into the house through the garage and hit the lights.
I heard something I hadn’t experienced in a while, and I discovered that I really didn’t like the sound.
Everything was dead silent.
I ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, and found Skye’s bedroom empty. I went to my room, because more often than not, she slept there since we’d returned from Vegas.
The bed was neatly made, and no Skye.
Hoping she might have fallen asleep in Maya’s room, I ran there.
My heart started to race as I found my daughter’s room unoccupied, too. The bed was still made and hadn’t been slept in at all.
“Dammit,” I cursed as I went back downstairs. “Where in the hell is she, and why did she go?”
I’d said some pretty shitty things to her, but I’d never given her a reason to be afraid of a confrontation with me.
But she’s never seen me as angry as I was earlier.
And then I saw the note.
There were only four words, scrawled on the back of the paper where she’d written the name of the sandwich I’d tried out earlier in the day:
Maya is your daughter.
She’d left the bracelet I’d given her and my mother’s necklace, right next to the note.
I picked them up and toyed with them, noticing that the stones felt cold.
Where in the fuck did she go?
And where in the hell was my daughter?
Did leaving the jewelry mean something? Maybe that she didn’t want anything from me?
I placed the bracelet and necklace back on the counter.
I need to find them.
A fierce protectiveness overwhelmed me, made me forget that I was ever angry.
I had no idea where she’d go at a moment’s notice. She’d given up her apartment, so maybe a cheap motel?
That thought didn’t go over well with me. Granted, Citrus Beach was a small city without a ton of crime, but I didn’t want her in a place where she and Maya weren’t completely safe.
But since I wasn’t sure about her financial situation, it might have been all she could afford.
I kicked myself mentally for never asking Skye if she had enough money in her personal accounts.
She’d never said she was short on funds, but I doubted she ever would. Skye and Maya had been taken care of here, but I had no idea what she had in the bank.
I’d encouraged her to close the restaurant, so it wasn’t currently bringing in income. Hadn’t been for weeks.
I grabbed my keys, and I was out the door a few seconds later.
CHAPTER 28
SKYE
The next morning, it took several cups of coffee to get my eyes completely open.
I’d fed Maya and put her down to sleep early enough the night before. But even though I’d hit the bed not much later, I hadn’t been able to sleep.
Around noon, I was still feeling completely exhausted, and more than a little jittery from all the caffeine I’d consumed.
And worst of all . . . I was missing Aiden.
Was I angry that he hadn’t listened to me when I’d told him that Maya was his child? Yes. I was hurt.
But did I understand his hesitance to accept my word? Kind of.
My heart ached, but my brain comprehended exactly why he’d been upset.
I just wished he hadn’t been so vehemently sure that I’d lied to him. His accusations were what really hurt the most.
I could have understood much easier if he’d just been . . . confused.
He hadn’t even had enough time to truly accept the fact that he was a father to an eight-year-old, so finding out suddenly that Maya supposedly wasn’t his blood had to have been difficult.
Aiden had readily believed me about the letter I’d left him, albeit with Seth’s backup of confessing that he’d taken it.
However, it was hard to accept that science could actually be wrong.
Really, how well did he know me anymore? We’d had a brief summer love that had ended in disaster. And we’d only been reconnected for a matter of weeks.
Unfortunately, my heart and my body hadn’t taken long to come to terms with how I felt about Aiden, but sometimes absolute trust took time.
I hadn’t trusted Aiden immediately.
And he’d had a load of things he’d taken on that had changed his life.
So rationally . . . I could give him a break.
But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t sad that he’d refused to listen to the truth.
I got up from the table and went to the kitchen for another coffee. I’d been working on the designs for the new restaurant, and my vision was blurry from lack of sleep.
I’d just have to live with being wound up on caffeine.
I had been trying to work since Maya went off to school, but my brain just wasn’t into it.
I knew I was going to have to go talk to Aiden. I couldn’t hang out at Jade’s place forever, no matter how nice it might be.
My best friend’s home wasn’t as big as Aiden’s. It was more of an adorable cottage that was bright with beach themes.
I dropped a pod into her coffeemaker and waited for the finished product.
I’d have to find another apartment, and it would tap my already-dry resources, but I’d figure something out. I always did. Since the restaurant wasn’t active and making money, things would be tight for me and Maya, but it wasn’t like we weren’t used to making do with whatever we could afford.
But I couldn’t afford to not be working to get the restaurant back up and running.
I need to focus.
No matter what happened between Aiden and me, the last thing I wanted was for Maya to lose her father again. She already loved Aiden so much, and she’d be devastated if he just walked out of her life. So I’d get to Aiden’s place shortly, and try to get him to at least commit to maintaining a relationship with Maya until the tests could be redone.
I let out a long sigh as I put cream and sweetener in my coffee. Really, I wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. Pretend that last night had never happened.
I wanted . . . Aiden.
He’d become my place of safety. Not his house. Him. And it had become pure hell to not be able to talk to him when I was feeling down. Or when I was feeling good.
It was torment to not have him near me . . . period.
I tried to blink back the tears that filled my eyes, but my emotions were wide open and exposed now. That psyche trick just didn’t work anymore.
