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I watched her slump into the couch as she wiped at her eyes.
“Thank you for having me and giving me a platform to speak my piece,” I said.
Sarah refused to look at me, and I couldn't blame her. But I also wasn’t going to lead her on. I had to talk with Brooke. I had to tell her how I felt. I had to try and reconcile things with the woman I did trust. The woman I did love. The woman I cherished.
I only hoped she would pick up the phone for me.
And that she would understand.
If I was lucky, she would feel the same way.
CHAPTER 32
BROOKE
I sat at my laptop staring at the blinking cursor. Seventy-five percent done, and I couldn't bring myself to wrap up the damn story. I groaned and slumped over, pressing my forehead against the keyboard. I didn’t care what random letters popped up. Maybe, by osmosis, they would punch the ending of my story into my mind and it would unfold exactly how it was supposed to.
But rarely did things ever work like that.
It’d been a couple of days since I’d heard from Kevin and told him what I thought he should be doing with the mother of his children. I kept chastising myself and wondering why in the world I hadn’t spoken what I truly thought. That I felt she was toxic and manipulative and looking for something he couldn't provide. That there were so many unanswered questions as to why she just popped up out of the blue and suddenly wanted a relationship again. That I got the feeling she also wanted him, not just her kids.
None of that was my place, though. She was the mother of his children and I had no right to come between him and the family he had created. No matter the circumstances and no matter their past, she deserved a fighting chance.
They both did.
Which was fine, because it was still hard to look at Kevin. And even harder to look at Sydney. I still blamed myself for her kidnapping. For being so negligent in allowing the kids to get away from me the way they had. I had had a false sense of security on an island I was completely unfamiliar with, and I’d allowed Kevin’s wealth to blind me to the dangers lurking around us. It didn’t matter that I’d gotten Sydney back. It didn’t matter that I’d rescued her. Had I not been so idiotic in the first place, she wouldn’t have needed rescuing.
I felt tears rising in my eyes as I sat up.
There were random letters filling up two pages at the end of my document, and I didn’t even have the energy to delete them. It was more satisfying than looking at a blank page, so I closed my laptop and allowed the document to save. All that work and inspiration, gone in the blink of an eye.
I had no idea what I was going to do.
Or where I was going to go from there.
My cell phone rang and as I looked over at it, I saw it was Kevin calling. I felt my heart leap against my chest as my hand reached for it, but I paused momentarily.
If I picked it up, I knew I would do whatever he asked of me. And if he was calling to tell me I could no longer see the children because of Sarah re-entering their lives, I knew it would break my heart. It would tear me into pieces, despite how I tried to push him away, to keep my heart locked up from him after what he had done to me.
But the longer the phone rang, the more I yearned for his voice.
The voice of the man I’d fallen in love with.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hey. It’s me.”
“Hey, Kevin. Are you okay? You sound like something’s wrong.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“It’s only two o’clock,” I said.
“I was calling to see if you would come over for dinner tonight,” he said.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Sydney’s been begging to see you, and Daniel’s right on her heels. They keep asking when you’re coming back over, so I was hoping you would have dinner with us again tonight.”
