Page 68 of Bombshell

I choose my words carefully. After everything she went through without me, I won’t pile on another accusation, but why did she choose to go through it alone? “You didn’t have to do this alone. I wouldn’t have left you. Why…” A horrible realization dawns on me, and I bury my head in my hands. “The drinking. The fighting. I’m sitting here acting like I was some prize catch instead of a damaged sperm donor.”

“Don’t,” she says in a wounded voice. “Ellie’s amazing because you’re her father.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The question explodes out of me.

“I didn’t know where you were!” she fires back. “You just took off without a word.”

“I came back. I looked for you.” You didn’t come. I manage to swallow the last bit before it gets out.

“My friends thought it was better not to tell me,” she mumbles. “Poppy only got the guts up to say something a few weeks ago.”

“I sent you a note.”

“I didn’t get it,” she says in a small voice. “Did you get mine?”

“You sent me one, too?” I ask, shocked.

“Before you left. I think. Honestly, I’m not sure how long it took them to come clean that you’d gone. I wasn’t coping well after the video.”

“Video?” I echo the word, trying to make sense of it.

She takes a deep breath, her face as pale as the glowing moon outside, and I brace myself for whatever she’s about to tell me.

“The video of us having sex,” she says in a rush.

“The what?” I’m back on my feet, needing to dissipate the surge of adrenaline her words sent shooting through me.

“You didn’t know.” Her eyes close and she sighs in relief.

“That there’s a video of us having sex? No, and I have a few questions now.”

“I don’t have any answers,” she says with a shake of her head. “It had to have been my dad. He had private investigators looking into you.”

“I remember,” I say in disgust. I’d never forget having my sins dredged up by Angus MacLaine. I’d also never forgive him for it.

“He told me there was a blackmail note and he gave me an address in Queens and—”

“You thought I would do that to you?” I ask in a quiet voice.

“No,” she says honestly. “At first, I was too shocked to think. I just hid like I could make it disappear. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. By the time, I was ready to face it…”

“I was gone.” Anger vibrates through me, but as I turn to pace the opposite direction, I catch sight of her face and I realize that this didn’t just happen to me. It happened to us. For years, I’ve suffered under the delusion, I got the raw end of the deal. Now I know she went through things I couldn’t imagine. “You know, Shakespeare could make a great play out of this.”

Her answering laugh is hollow like a fading bell. “That’s the truth. Can you forgive me for thinking the worst of you?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Lucky. I might be angry—furious, even—but it’s only because I wasn’t there to protect you from being hurt.” I’m angry at her father and her friends, and, mostly, myself.

“You’re here now,” she says.

“And I’m all in,” I promise her. “We’re going to make this right. All of this right.”

“I’m not sure we can. They’re never going to let her go,” she says. “I don’t know if I’ll ever…”

“We’re going to get her back, Lucky.” I say it like an oath, because it is.

She turns tired eyes on me and gives me a numb smile. “It’s not going to be easy. They made sure of that.”

“Did they actually adopt her? Because that paper was a decree of guardianship.” My mind is already turning things over, making a list of people to call and favors I’m owed.