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‘Listen to me, Hal. Can’t you see that’s exactly why we need to do this together. She’ll have questions and lots of them. And it would be much better if we were both there to answer them. We’ve both been pretty damn childish about this for sixteen years. And, whether we intended it or not, Lizzie got stuck in the middle. Let’s put her feelings first for a change. You’re not the only one who’s lied to her. She asked me about what happened to us and I never told her the truth, either. Because I was too ashamed to admit that I’d run away. But I’m not running any more. We need to be straight with her, even if it’s going to be hard, so she doesn’t get stuck in the middle again.’
She blinked, her heart sinking to her toes, hating his passion and determination and the fact that he was making so much sense. His insistence on being a good father to their daughter wasn’t going to make him any less irresistible as a man.
A man who always had been, and always would be, far too dangerous to love.
‘Come on, Hal. You know it’s the right thing to do,’ he coaxed.
‘All right,’ she said, admitting defeat.
How could she argue with him, when it was the right thing to do for Lizzie? Just not the right thing for her.
‘You better get packing,’ he said. ‘You’ve got about ten times as much stuff as me.’ He ran his thumb across her bottom lip, the heat and affection in his gaze crucifying her. ‘I guess we’ll have to take a rain check on my bakery porn fantasies.’
Thank God for small mercies.
She left him, the trap clamping shut around her heart.
Chapter 20
‘Where’s Trey?’
Lizzie bit back the retort as Aldo’s anxious gaze darted over the crowd at the school gates, searching for his invisible au pair.
‘He’s busy,’ she replied. ‘We had fun yesterday, didn’t we?’
She’d taken him to the cinema to see the latest Marvel superhero movie after school—sitting through enough CGI pyrotechnics to make her head explode.
Maybe she wasn’t the Aldo Whisperer, but she was doing her best. Especially as she didn’t have a clue where Trey had been since yesterday morning.
He hadn’t come home last night and his phone had gone to voicemail all day today. She had a hideous feeling his mum had died. And while the thought of that was bad enough, worse was the worry, writhing in her stomach like a bucket of worms all day, about how he might have reacted. Had he gone on a bender? Was he wandering around West London in a daze of grief? It wasn’t like him not to call her back and let her know what was going on.
Plus, her mum had been suspicious when she’d Skyped yesterday evening, and Lizzie had nearly cracked and told her the truth.
She’d never had any problems lying to her mum in the past, about homework, school and Liam … But she was worried about Trey. Worried about what he might be going through. And she had this insane urge to ask her mum what she should do. Should she go round to Trey’s flat? Make sure he was all right? Would he want her to?
But she couldn’t ask her mum’s advice without breaking the promise she’d made to Trey.
‘What’s he busy doing?’ Aldo whined. ‘He promised to take me to Laser Quest today because it’s the last day of school. I want him here. Not you.’
The ingratitude of the comment stung. Lizzie’s temper spiked. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate already without getting the Gestapo treatment.
‘His mum probably just died. So why don’t you stop thinking about yourself for two seconds?’
‘His mum died?’ Aldo’s face collapsed, bringing Lizzie back to her senses, several seconds too late. ‘When? Why didn’t he tell me? Doesn’t Trey want to look after me any more?’ The whine in Aldo’s voice might have been aggravating, but for the edge of panic. Aldo had always been chronically insecure. She guessed it came from not having a dad, and having no mates at school thanks to his angry Arthur routine of the past few years. ‘Is he ever coming back?’
‘He is coming back. He wouldn’t just leave us,’ she said, to reassure herself as much as Aldo.
Trey’s mum was dying; of course he couldn’t think about them right now.
But she knew how much Aldo missed him. Because she missed him, too. That sure, solid presence that she’d come to depend on in the past week and a half.
What felt weird, though, was knowing she was the grown-up in this situation. Without her mum or Trey there to take the slack, Aldo was counting on her to say and do the right thing.
‘How do you know?’ Aldo said, still scared.
‘Because I know Trey. He’s not like that. He likes you.’ And I hope he likes me, too. ‘And he likes his job. He certainly wouldn’t leave without telling us.’
‘Where is he, then?’
