Page 164 of Pink

Jesus.

Gigi let out a shuddering breath, stopping her assistant from saying anything more when she told the woman, “Why wouldn’t you trust her? Why wouldn’t I? Thank you for telling me, though.”

“Gigi?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you ever coming back—is Gigi Rey still a thing?”

At the same time Kayla asked the question, a little pop of curly black hair peeked in the doorway of the master bedroom. While the townhouse was quiet, and it was way too late for Arely to still be awake, sometimes the girl surprised her by crawling into Lev’s bed. Gigi never said anything one way or another.

Nessa never asked about it in the morning.

She figured … Arely was just trying to get close to her dad in whatever way she could. She asked about him constantly; he was always on her mind. It was hard to hide everything from her but especially when the kid was so intuitive as it was. She picked up on a lot whether they told her or not.

“Gi?” Kayla pressed.

“Gigi Rey is dead,” she replied, thinking, or whoever that was, “and I’m fine with that.”

She didn’t linger on the call for much longer. The second she had discarded the phone to the bedside table, Arely leaned in the doorway a little more, her big blue eyes wide and silently pleading to be right where Gigi currently was.

They didn’t need to tell Arely something was wrong when it came to her dad. The girl knew; it was so painfully obvious that there was a giant Lev-shaped hole in her tiny heart. Nessa had even found three of Lev’s shirts hidden under Arely’s pillow, and the girl had gone as far as stealing photos of her dad from around the house to hoard in her bedroom.

At least, she had finally stopped asking when Lev would be back or other questions that neither Gigi nor Nessa could answer. Not without needing to delve into deeper discussions that a girl of her age couldn’t possibly understand.

“You wanna sleep in Daddy’s bed again?” Gigi asked.

Arely nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come here, then.”

She didn’t need to be told again. Gigi swore Arely’s bare feet barely touched the floor three times between the doorway and the end of the bed before she was up on the mattress and crawling across the comforter. She already had the blanket pulled back for the girl to slip under and hide away from the rest of the world.

Gigi needed that, too.

Tucked beneath the blanket, Arely peeked over at Gigi with a little grin as she said, “I don’t want you to miss Daddy, too. Right?”

She blinked.

Oh.

Maybe it wasn’t just about Lev.

Kids.

They were the purest of souls. The sweetest of hearts.

Especially this one.

“Right,” Gigi whispered, reaching over to push the dark curls out of Arely’s eyes. “You’re so right, kiddo.”

While the time Gigi had spent with Arely compared to Lev was much less significant in measurement, it didn’t matter. She was just as much a part of Gigi’s heart as her father, and she couldn’t imagine that ever changing. She loved the girl—in a different way than she loved her father, sure, but still. It was there.

Constant.

Growing.

Real.

Arely wasn’t her biological child, but she found that didn’t make a difference when the girl needed her. Because she needed her, too.

“But I do,” Arely said, sighing. “Miss him.”

Gigi swallowed hard. “Me, too.”

“You won’t leave, right? You’re not leaving, are you?”

It was a new thing.

Every time Nessa left the house, or Gigi, then Arely was suddenly in a panic that they weren’t ever coming back. Part of her knew it was because the girl believed her father wouldn’t come home, either. That killed her.

Snuggling down beneath the blanket, Gigi smiled when Arely pushed closer to her in the bed until the two of them were arm in arm and hiding away from the world. She pressed a kiss to the top of Arely’s head, settled and happy. For now.

“I’m not leaving. Ever. I promise.”

And that was that.