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“No,” she replied. Skylar’s heart felt heavier than ever. “I’ve been living a lie.”
“How so?”
Skylar glanced over her shoulder at Luka who leaned against her fridge. His arms folded across his broad chest.
“I thought I was enough for Ava.” She turned back to the sink where she rested against the counter. “I told myself that from the time that I first held her in my arms. That is how I justified not telling you about her.”
“And now?”
Skylar dropped her head low towards her chest. She felt the tears stinging her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Skylar shook her head back and forth. “I hear the heartbreak in her voice because she never had you and my own heart is broken all over again because of my selfishness I kept her from you.”
“I have to admit that I was pissed as hell at you. At my mother and my brothers even more so for not telling me about Ava.”
“I’m sure.”
“After spending the morning with her I just want to move forward and enjoy her. I’ve looked at pictures of her from the time she was born and I have a sense of who she was as a baby until today. Her first ten years are something I can’t get back but I have to bare some of the responsibility. Sky,” he said her name. “Look at me.”
Skylar didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to get lost in his blue-green gaze. She didn’t want to see exactly what he was feeling. She wanted to keep her walls strong and high to keep him out but every time she looked at him she felt pieces of those walls crumbling away. She had to stop it. Skylar could not let Luka Shaw in again.
She finally turned to face Luka. “What?” She asked; a tremble to her voice.
He pulled his body away from her fridge and walked to her. Luka stood over her. Skylar lowered her chin. She just couldn’t meet that intense gaze. She couldn’t fall in love with Luka again if she had ever stopped loving him in the first place. “I know that I hurt you,” he told her.
She lowered her lashes to hide the tears threatening her. That was an understatement. They had made plans. She thought she would be his wife one day. Bare his children. She had given him one child but not under the circumstances she thought she would.
“I had to leave Sky.”
Could he see the soft shaking of her shoulders? The pain on her face those words caused her.
“We were supposed to have a future together,” she finally said. “We talked about the house in town and the babies that we would have.”
“I know.” His voice was gentle and low. Consoling her when she just couldn’t be consoled. He didn’t know. He wasn’t here to see the pain that he had caused her.
She turned her face up to his. The tears were rolling down her face. Luka reached out to her and wiped them away with his fingertips and Skylar gasped. A part of her wanted to melt into him and love him again. She was terrified of that part of her. She steeled herself and took a step back then another before she bumped into the counter. “Did you feel any regret at all when you walked away that night knowing you were leaving me?”
He put his hands on his hips to keep from pulling her against him. He sensed that she would not appreciate that at the moment. “I did.”
“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “Didn’t you ever stop and think how badly that would hurt me.”
Luka didn’t get a chance to answer. He turned and looked down the hallway. She looked past him. Ava had let Tag inside the house. “Where’s your Momma, Ava?” They heard his booming voice in the kitchen.
Luka turned back to Skylar. “Seems like you have company.”
She pushed past him and walked down the hall. Tag saw her over Ava’s head. “Tag.”
Ava turned and gazed at her mother. Skylar could see the disdain on her daughter’s face and she felt guilty. Guilty because she knew that he wasn’t fond of Ava at all but she always thought that didn’t matter because she had no intention of making their relationship more serious. She thought it was okay as long as she kept the two worlds separate. It wasn’t okay and she knew that now. It was like her eyes had been opened. It should matter because Tag had different plans for a future with her that was never going to be possible for so many reasons.
“What did you do to the truck?” He asked glancing through her front door then back at her.
“I hit the fountain I would think that is obvious.”
“Ava go somewhere like a good girl. Momma and I need to talk,” Tag told her daughter.
He was grating on her last nerve this morning telling her daughter what to do. Skylar was feeling like hell. Her stomach and her head both hurt. This was not the time to do this with Tag. Ordering Ava around was also not the best move on his part. “Ava, come here,” Luka called to her. “You and I will start breakfast.”
“I’m coming Daddy.”
Ava ran past her mother. Skylar watched them as Ava ran straight to Luka. He wrapped his arm around her slender shoulders and guided her into the kitchen. He glanced back at Skylar. “If you need me I’m right here,” he told her. Then he disappeared into the kitchen with their daughter.
