Maybe times will change after I’m gone. I can only hope I’ve taught her enough. Raised her to be strong and proud. But then, maybe I’ve hidden her so well that no one will ever find out who her parents are, and she will be free to choose her fate.
But destiny is a bitch, like Caroline. She always had her nose stuck in the middle of everyone’s life. Holding them down, telling them they didn’t have a choice. Telling them that destiny had already written their story and all they could do was read through the pages and accept what they were given.
Fuck destiny!
I want more for our daughter. I want her to find a love like I found with you. But more importantly, I want her to hold onto that love. I want her to live out in the open, without a care for the rules and the politics.
I want her to have more than I did.
Isn’t that what we all want for our kids? That their lives will turn out better than our own? That they will have more of everything: more money, more time, more love.
It was the only unselfish dream I had. And it was for her. She is the only good thing I have ever done inmy life. The only bright spot in a dark past over which I never had any control.
She is the reason I did what I did. Why I took the lives I took. The reason I ran when I had to. Why I hid from you. It was all for her. To protect her. To give her a life I never had.
And I pray she has enough of your DNA to counter the Dougal side. Because the Dougals were a line that should have ended with James, Caroline, and me.
CHAPTER TWO
Popeye
The coffee had gone cold, forgotten as I read the words Christina wrote. I kept the cup between my hands anyway. Needing something to hold onto. Something solid. Because everything else felt like it was slipping through my fingers like sand.
Christina’s handwriting stared up at me from the journal, neat and careful. Every letter perfectly formed, as if she’d been afraid the words would escape if she didn’t pin them down just right. That was Christina, always so goddamn careful. Measuring every move, every word, every breath.
“She is the only good thing I have ever done in my life.”
The words burned into my brain. Grace. Our daughter.
What the fuck did that mean? What had she done that was so bad that Grace was the only light in it? Christina hadn’t been like Caroline. She wasn’t evil, manipulative. She didn’t hurt people for sport. Christina had been kind and gentle.
“Why I took the lives I took.”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.
Lives. Plural. The woman who’d never raised her voice, who’d shrunk back when I raised mine, who’d gone along with every decision I made. The woman had been so goddamn compliant about everything. What lives had she taken?
I thought I knew her. Thought I understood why she ran, why she’d hidden Grace from me. Told myself it was about protecting our daughter from this life. From the clubs. From men like George Stone, who’d use anyone to get what they wanted.
But sitting here reading her words, I realized I didn’t know shit.
“Worth every second of pain. Worth the lies and the betrayal.”
What pain? What lies and betrayal? Was she talking about lying to me? Betraying me by running? Or was there something else? Something deeper that I’d been too blind to see?
We’d made the choice together to keep Grace in the dark about who I was. Told ourselves it was safer that way. But had it been her choice? Or had I just decided, and Christina had gone along with it like she went along with everything else I said?
Christ, I couldn’t remember anymore. Couldn’t separate what had been a mutual decision and what had been me making calls and her just... accepting them.
I heard the swish of the double doors that led to the kitchen, but I didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. I knew the sound of Trudy’s footsteps by now, the particular rhythm of her moving through the shop. Six months I’d been coming to this shop. The first time was out of necessity. I needed to see the place where Grace’s life had changed. Needed to know how. As soon as I walked through the door and saw her behind the counter, my world tipped upside down.
It was just like the first time I’d laid eyes on Christina, only... more.
In the past six months, I’d memorized everything about her. The sway of her hips when she walked. The curve of her ass in those jeans she wore, which were tight enough that I could see the line of her panties underneath. The way her tits moved under her shirt when she reached for something on the top shelf, fulland heavy, the kind a man could lose himself in. The way she breathed, chest rising and falling, made me wonder what sounds she’d make when she was under me.
The way she existed in this space as if she owned every inch of it.
Which she did, even if technically it was her granddaughter’s bakery.
