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“I told you he saved my daughter’s life—”
“It’s in the past now, right?” He threw the cigar on the ground and let the ash glow bright red. “He’s not someone you can trust—and you better not trust him either.”
The second we were in the back seat, he fired off his questions.
“What happened?”
“You fucked his wife, Bartholomew.” I cast him a glare. “That’s what happened.”
He crossed one ankle on the opposite knee, propped one elbow on the armrest, and looked bored. “She walked right up to me and asked me to fuck her in the ass. What was I supposed to do? Walk away?”
I rubbed my temple as I kept my eyes straight ahead.
“Like you would have done anything different, asshole.”
“I would have.”
“Because your dick is a pussy.”
“You could pay for any whore you want. But you still went for his wife? Still risked everything for a piece of ass?”
He gave a shrug. “That’s exactly why, and I don’t feel bad about it.”
“Jesus…”
“So, what did he say?”
“You mean, did I fix your mess?”
He stared, hard and cold.
“Yes. I fixed your mess.”
“So, we’re back on the books?”
“I’m back on the books. He wants nothing to do with you.”
His stare remained steady, as if he wasn’t the least bit surprised. “Problem solved.”
“Was that your plan all along?”
“You know me…I don’t make plans.”
“A heads-up would have been nice.”
“But that made the conversation spontaneous. Organic. Real. And that’s exactly what I wanted.”
It was one of the rare times I was home before Claire left for school.
And when she looked so damn excited, it made me feel like shit. She ran into my arms, asked me to make crepes even though Constance had already made breakfast, and it made me miss our old lives.
We’d had a great routine. We’d have breakfast together, I’d drop her off at school, and then I’d head off to work. We were both out of the house at the same time, so we were home at the same time too.
Now, seeing her in the morning was a luxury, and I was asleep when she got out of school most of the time.
We sat at the table and had breakfast together, and when she was done, we both walked her to school. It was a cold morning, but there were no signs of rain, and when March arrived, the sky would be blue.
I looked forward to the summer, when she was out of school for months and we were at the estate in the countryside. We’d take care of the horses, go swimming, and spend quality time together. I usually took the summers off from construction so I could spend all my time with her.
That was over too.
I hugged her goodbye and watched her run off to be with her friends.
Constance and I walked back.
“How was your night?”
I hadn’t said a word to her since I came home. My entire focus was on my daughter, and I’d forgotten she was there, to be honest. “Bullshit—like always.”
She was in a gray pea coat with black jeans and boots. With every step she took, there was a tap against the sidewalk, more taps than I made because one step of mine was equivalent to two of hers.
“Are you ever going to tell me exactly what you do?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Because you aren’t going to like it.”
“After being at the cult for so many months, I don’t think there’s anything you could say that would disturb me.”
“But you may not like the kind of man I am.”
She kept my pace, her eyes on the sidewalk in front of us. “There’s nothing you could say to change the way I feel about you.”
I believed her. I could hear it in her voice. Being on the streets granted me a level of intuition that nobody else had. I could read any room I stepped into. I could understand any person just by looking at them. I could tell if someone was lying just by listening to their tone. She never lied to me—not once. “Drugs. Blackmail. Prostitution. Murder.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“I know that’s not who you are anymore.”
“But that’s exactly who I was before Claire. If she’d never been born, nothing would have changed.”
“But it did change, and that’s all that matters.”
I gave her a side glance. “I don’t think another woman would be so accepting.”
“I’m not scared—not when I know you can protect me.”
My stare on the side of her face lingered. A rush of warmth flooded me, a mixture of desire, egotism, and a lot of other things. People were exiled from my life, so they never had the opportunity to know me—but she knew me better than anyone. She was the one raising my daughter with me. She was the one who protected my daughter when I couldn’t. She was the only person who understood exactly what both of us had been through.
