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A picture of her making her first leap floated across the wall, as effortless and perfect as always. Her dance teacher had made it into a poster and placed it at the entrance to the school, where it still remained. Photos of her in Paris, Italy, Ireland, even India—all the summer programs we traveled to as a family for her so she could learn new dance styles. A video clip of her right before her first recital, nervously looking up at me. With a hard kiss to my cheek, she’d fearlessly walked out onstage with her class, where she’d been flawless.
All eyes had been on her from the auditorium, while I’d stood in the shadows with Emmie, trying not to cry.
My vision blurred as I watched clips of her dancing with me in the kitchen on Saturday mornings. Pictures of her with her head on my shoulder as we cuddled on the couch in the family room for movie nights when she was a preteen. Her and her mother on either side of me the night of her prom and then her graduation from high school.
Everything played out while my lullaby for her echoed through the room.
As the final photo of us together faded—the last one taken before she began to hate me—a different kind of picture filled the wall. My heart lifted into my already tight throat, and I read the information on the ultrasound photo as a message slowly appeared across the wall in a cursive script.
Papa’s first grandbaby arriving in July!
A soft hand touched my arm, and I glanced down at Mia with tears still glittering in my eyes. “Surprise,” she whispered in an emotionally raspy voice.
“Mia?” I choked. “Are you really pregnant?”
With a trembling smile, she nodded. “Are you happy?”
I didn’t even hesitate, just wrapped my arms around her. When she hugged me back without a pause, more tears spilled from my eyes. “My baby girl is having a baby. I’m going to be a grandpa. Of course I’m happy.”
Pulling back slightly, she looked at the wall and the pictures that were playing all over again to her lullaby. As her green gaze drifted over them, I could feel her shoulders becoming less tense. She relaxed into me, almost as easily as she’d done in the last photo of us together.
Sighing, she swiped her fingers over her damp cheeks and looked up at me. In the glow of the light coming from the images still floating across the wall, a replay of small snippets from our life, our gazes locked. “I’m going to be honest with you, Daddy. Barrick set all this up. Please don’t be upset, but Momma already knows.”
I snorted. “Your mom probably knew before you did.”
Her soft laugh reached my ears, the sound one of the most beautiful I’d ever heard. “Yeah, she probably did. But the truth is, I didn’t want to tell you yet. Barrick thought it was better to let you know now before you found me with my head in the toilet and became upset that we hadn’t told you yet.”
Her confession stung, but it wasn’t anything I shouldn’t have expected. “I see.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head adamantly. “You don’t see. I came here not even really knowing what to expect. Barrick and Momma must have worked together, because some of those pictures and videos only she would have had access to. But as I watched them… As I watched you watch them, I began to see it all over again. The good days. How much I adore you. How big a part of my life you are. Even though I’ve tried to throw up walls and lock you out as much as I could, that was kind of impossible.”
“Mia, honey, I’m sorry about how overbearing I was while you were growing up. Nearly losing you, it fucked up something inside me. Your mom went to therapy to help her because she couldn’t sleep at times. Maybe I should have gone with her. It was unhealthy the way I worried about your safety.” It wasn’t easy admitting my faults, especially to the girl who had once considered me her hero, but I knew I had to say it for us both to heal. Even if only a little. “Going behind your back and arranging for Seller to put a secret security detail on you was wrong, and I regret it now. But at the time, I felt helpless. The idea of you being away from home, without protection, gave me nightmares. I spent a lot of sleepless nights imagining what might happen to you.”
“I think I’m starting to truly understand.” She touched a hand to her abdomen and rubbed in a loving circle. “A few days ago, Barrick told me to think about how much I love this baby, then multiply it by a million. He said then I would understand how much you love me. I kind of scoffed at the idea, because how can anyone come close to loving anything or anyone as much as I love this baby?”
“Mia—”
“But then I watched that presentation they put together, and I realized he was right. The way you look at me in those pictures and videos… I saw it, Daddy. I see it now. What you did, it still hurts a bit, but not nearly as badly as it did before I came in here a little while ago.” She hugged me again, standing on tiptoe to bury her face in my neck. “I love you, Daddy. So much. I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve put you through over the last few years. I’m sorry…I’m sorry I forgot how much you love me.”
A choked sob was torn from me, and I held on to my baby girl a little tighter. “I’m sorry too, sweetheart. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you go when…when you needed me to.”
“It’s okay. I understand now.” She gave me a smile while tears streamed down her beautiful face. She looked so much like Emmie that any time she cried, it broke my heart twice as much. “Besides, if you hadn’t hired Barrick, we might not have met. And then I wouldn’t be living my best life now.”
“That’s all I have ever wanted for you, Mia. To be happy, but safe.”
“Well, you definitely helped me accomplish that.” She laid her head on my shoulder, and we both looked at the projector playing on repeat yet again. “You found me a beast to protect me, and he’s made me happier than I ever thought was possible.”
Chapter 5
Barrick
Impatiently, I waited for my mom to finish getting ready. It wasn’t even a fancy dinner that we were having. Just the majority of Mia’s family and friends together with a few of my own, at some restaurant Emmie had rented out for the night. Mia had been specific about everyone being casually dressed because the wedding was formal. She didn’t like having to dress up more than once in a row.
If possible, she most likely would have chosen a wedding dress made of Lycra because that was what the majority of her clothes were made of. Anyone who knew her wouldn’t have blinked if she’d actually walked down the aisle dressed like the ballerina she was meant to be. But from the vague description she’d given me, the dress was more of a ball gown to hide the little bitty baby bump I loved to fall asleep rubbing every night.
My mother wasn’t one to show up to anything in less than designer dresses and dripping in diamonds. She always swore she wasn’t vain, but she had to show the world she was rich with how she dressed. The woman donated to plenty of charities, no one could have ever faulted her for that, but she was a snob. The kicker was, Mia and her family—especially her mom—were worth five times more than my mother would ever hope to claim to her name.
When I was growing up, she’d never seemed that way to me. At least, not while my father was still alive. And then he was gone, and Seller was there, spoiling her to the point that it changed her. Now she wouldn’t leave the house without one of her five-thousand-dollar handbags or her two-thousand-dollar heels. She hadn’t worn jeans or slacks in at least a decade. It was all exclusive dresses from Paris and Milan, handmade, just for her.
