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It was as natural as when she said it to me, but it stopped Chase dead and a pained smile lifted his perfect lips. “I love you, too, baby.” He was already walking past me on his way out the door, but I could see him swallow hard, and hear the emotion in his voice.
I love you, too, baby. Those words rocked me to the core. He’d said the same to me at least a thousand times. I never once doubted he meant every word.
CHASE
I hated hotel rooms.
Traveling around the world; I didn’t spend much time sitting inside four walls. There was always something interesting to do and see, but here in Atlanta, waiting to see if I could help save my child, I felt like I was in a steel cage. Anxiety was eating me alive and the helplessness of the situation drove me crazy.
It had taken additional money, but Teagan was able to hire an industrial cleaning company to come in and clean her house after hours. She went to line that up and I was going to get a few hours of sleep while Remi rested.
My wet hair was dripping down my back from the shower I’d just taken, and a towel was slung low over my hips. I hadn’t bothered drying off so rivulets of water rolled down the skin of my chest, arms and legs as well.
I should eat, but I didn’t want to. I felt sick; literally sick. My insides were hollow and I had this huge gaping hole where my heart was supposed to be. I felt empty, yet miserable as fuck. I didn’t know what the hell to do with myself. My emotions were all screwed up. I was mad, hurt, lost… lethargic as hell, and confused about what to do next, how to act, or what to say to Teagan. Worst of all, I felt helpless to do more to help Remi. I had no clue about what would happen tomorrow, let alone next week.
Betrayal, jealousy, and helplessness were the three most ruthless emotions. I was conflicted and honestly, thankful for the break. I needed to center myself and try to organize my thoughts so I could make decisions that had to be made. Obviously, I had to be here, but I was still reeling. My entire life had changed whether I wanted it to or not.
Remi was surreal and so precious, but facing the past, seeing Teagan with Jensen or coming to terms with the severity of my little girl’s illness wasn’t something I wanted to face.
Losing the fight with her wasn’t an option. Remi would beat this thing if it took every cent I had. She was the first priority, but the rest of it dug at me, too. It was as if I’d finally managed to breathe and now I was being pulled fifty feet under all over again.
Even though it was impossible to forget the pain, I’d somehow managed to move on and build a life. The last thing I wanted was to relive it. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d dreamed of seeing Teagan again, or the endless memories of her that would invade my mind when I was with Bronwyn or some other faceless woman. My hand went to my head and pulled on a shock of my wet hair. Water ran from it through my fingers and down my forearm, but I barely noticed.
“What a monster fuck,” I muttered to myself.
I flopped down on the bed and, a minute later reached for the remote that had been left on the bedside table by the housekeeping staff. Maybe the white noise of the news would blur my brain enough to let me sleep for a few hours. Jet lag was easier to shake when you traveled east to west, but this was not a normal circumstance. My mind wouldn’t shut off, and the more tired I got, the harder it was to fall asleep.
The air conditioner under the window of the hotel was blowing into the room and caused a shiver across my wet skin. I used my feet to roughly pushing the blankets and sheets down until I could shove them beneath and then tugged the covers halfway up my chest; willing myself to relax.
I’d often use one of Bronwyn’s training techniques when I was tensed. She taught me to start with my feet and flex every muscle moving up my body in succession and then to release them in the opposite direction. It did help, and my body felt like a wet noodle when I was done.
My phone was turned off at the hospital, and now was buzzing non-stop with messages from my coaches, who were frantic about my absence. I made one short call telling them not to worry, and I’d explain it when I saw them that weekend. After the tests tomorrow I’d need to catch a flight out for the game on Sunday, and then back again. What a relief that it was only an hour later in Brasilia than in Atlanta; at least there wouldn’t be any added exhaustion. I didn’t have my flight booked yet, and I didn’t even care that it would triple the price; I’d deal with it tomorrow.
I scrolled through my phone and there were several missed calls from Bronwyn and one text from Kat. I didn’t want to deal with either of them. Bronwyn would pelt me with questions that I didn’t have the answers for, and Kat; well, she was another story. Anger boiled deep inside my chest and threatened to overflow. So much for blood being thicker than water. Her misplaced solidarity with Teagan disgusted me.
I guess having a pussy trumps blood ties in her eyes.
My eyes narrowed due to the direction of my thoughts. Did my parents or Kevin know about Remi? Was the joke solely on me? The magnitude of the possibility floored me. Surely my mother and father wouldn’t stoop so low, and I couldn’t believe my brother would take Teagan’s side; he’d witnessed the depth of my destruction, first hand.
Somehow I’d managed to keep it together in front of Teagan and my little girl, but my emotions were simmering just beneath the surface and threatened to explode at any time. It was all I could do to keep them under control.
Poor, brave, little, perfect and sweet Remi. My heart leaped when I thought of her, and then sank at the weight of her battle. She was the innocent victim in all of this and she was the one suffering the most. I want to yell, scream and beat the shit out of something at the injustice of it all, but it wouldn’t change anything. The only thing I could do was get through these damn tests as quickly as possible, keep the past in the past, and take care of Remi going forward.
From the moment I set eyes on that beautiful, little face with replicas of my green eyes and expressions staring back at me, I was done. There was no denying she was mine, or our immediate father/daughter connection. In a split second, she became the center of my universe.
Teagan’s decision to tell Remi about me was unexpected, but it definitely made the meeting easier. I realized it would have been awful if Remi saw me as a complete stranger. It was an amazing relief, but I didn’t understand Teagan’s reasoning. Why would she keep my daughter from me, yet tell the little girl stories about me, that I was her father, and show her pictures of me? It made no sense. If she wanted me gone, then… why?
“Uhggggg!” I moaned into the room. There was nothing more frustrating than unanswered questions. If one more thing got piled on top of this shit storm, I’d lose it. I sucked in enough air to fill my lungs to the point of bursting and closed my eyes; trying to concentrate on the dull, droning voice of the local news anchor, and the rhythm of my own breathing to try to relax and, hopefully, sleep.
A knock on the door startled me awake just when I was starting to doze and I bolted upright. My first thought was that something happened to Remi. “Yeah!” I jumped off the bed and quickly noticed the towel had loosened and dropped to the floor. “Shit,” I muttered. “Just a minute!” I found a pair of clean black jeans in my duffle and shoved my feet in the legs, struggling to pull them up and zipped at the same time as I hurried to the door.
I quickly unlatched the lock and swung the heavy door open. The air in my lungs exited in a rush when I saw my older sister, Kat, standing in front of me. I glowered at her. “Look; it’s the traitor. What the hell are you doing here?”
I held the door open with my straight arm, and Kat, who was much shorter than I, ducked underneath and darted into the room. “Great to see you, too, little brother.”
“Fuck you. I don’t have a sister anymore. You have no right to be here. Get out.”
She waltzed into the room and planted herself on the small chaise in the corner of the room. It was the only furniture other than a desk and a bed in the economy room. “Don’t be dramatic. It doesn’t suit you.”
