I held her gaze. “I do.”
THIRTEEN
LYKOS
Istepped into the room to find Violet sitting and chatting with Aria and I wanted to rip my hair out. Why was nobody fucking listening to me today?
My daughter sat on the armchair across from Violet, legs tucked beneath her, adoring eyes fixed on Violet. The resemblance between them made my chest hurt. But it wasn’t only that. The way Violet was looking at my daughter had alarms going off in my head. It was as if she wanted to pull her into a hug and take off, leaving me and Dimitros in the dust.
Over. My. Dead. Body.
She left Aria and relinquished any rights to her when she walked away. I still remembered the sound of the door shutting with a soft click while I stood there, hoping she’d come back while I held my child in my arms.
I remembered like it was only yesterday the last words I said to her and her response.
“Violet, don’t you fucking leave our daughter,” I hissed. “We’ll do this together. You can keep up your studies and?—”
“I can’t stand the thought of anything that reminds me of you, Lykos,” she spat, her lip curling as if the very air around me tasted foul. “Not a trace. Not a memory. I want everything about you gone from my life so it’s like you and Aria never existed.”
I stood frozen and hurt, holding my newborn daughter and staring into the empty space where Violet stood long after she was gone. The door shut behind her softly, yet it might as well have shaken the entire building because it rattled every fiber of me.
I was convinced she’d come back. The door would open any moment and she’d run over to our child, realizing what a mistake it was to leave her.
Newsflash: Violet never came back. I stood in that spot until Aria woke up in my arms, wailing and hungry, and angry that I’d been cursed with two women who’d abandoned my child.
I mentally cursed my best friend to the depths of hell.
“Papa?” my daughter called out. “Are you mad? I was in my room, but I was bored waiting and?—”
“I’m not mad,” I assured her. “Can you go find your brother and tell him we won’t be going to the clinic?”
She stood up.
“Of course.” She glanced at Violet before looking back at me. Children noticed everything; they just didn’t always understand.
“Now, please,” I added.
She nodded, taking my hand as she passed and tugging me to her level.
“Don’t be scary, Papa,” she whispered softly, then pecked my cheek. “I like her.”
She liked her. Dammit, that didn’t take long.
I gave her a terse nod in acknowledgement and then Aria slipped out of the room, but the moment she was gone, the tension in the room charged tenfold.
Violet stood up, her short frame barely reaching my chin, but she didn’t cower. I let my mind roam to all I had learned about her over the years. What her patients sought counsel for, where she lived, her failed dates—I made sure of those. I also knew she was rich. Very rich.
“So, have you and your friend decided who I’m treating?”
I gritted my teeth. “You certainly won’t be my therapist.”
She nodded as if expecting that. “Very well. Then take me to your… wife so I can start my evaluation.”
It didn’t escape me the way she hesitated at the word, almost as if she detested it. She certainly didn’t hate it as much as I did.
She sidestepped me.
“First, we’re going to establish some rules,” I started. She stopped abruptly, her floral scent invading my personal space.
