Page 103 of Unbreakable Love

Tonight, I was going to tell her I loved her. Then after, I’d bring her back here, where she felt safest, and hopefully, she was on board with the rest of my plans.

We’d slept in, so it was after ten in the morning, and I was far behind on my plans for the day, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and get moving.

Not when I knew any moment, Penny was going to step out of her bathroom, wrapped in nothing but a towel and the length of her golden hair.

No way was I missing that opportunity before I kissed her goodbye and headed to my own home to get ready for work.

I was scrolling through my phone, checking my email and the schedule for the day, when Penny’s phone on her nightstand rang.

I flinched at the harsh tone and reached for it, assuming it’d be Maize and she needed her sister.

Maize decided not to come back here for Christmas, insisting she wanted the break to work extra shifts.

It’d be the first Christmas they weren’t together, and I knew there was no way Maize would have done that if she wasn’t sure Penny was well taken care of.

Still, Penny was sad about the news, so she’d want any chance to talk to her sister.

However, it wasn’t Maize’s name on the screen, but it was Maize’s voice I heard in my memory.

Mom calls. Not a lot. But she always asks for money and Penny gives it.

Anger spiked. It was Christmas. Or at least was almost Christmas considering Christmas Eve was tomorrow. And this woman had the nerve to call now?

I considered letting it go to voice mail and deleting both from Penny’s call log, but before I could, Penny stepped out of the bathroom.

“Is that my phone ringing?”

“Yeah.” I handed out her phone. “It’s your mom.”

“Oh!” She answered the call and grinned, and that pissed me off too.

Like she had some hope in her eyes. A young girl’s excitement at seeing her mom that from what I understood, the woman didn’t deserve.

“Mom? Hi! How are you? Merry Christmas!”

I couldn’t hear the woman on the other end, but in a blink, Penny’s excitement vanished, and sadness replaced her features.

“Oh. I mean, yeah. But…” There was more talking from the phone, more quickly snapped words based on the sounds I heard coming through it, and with every one of them, Penny’s expression worsened. Her chin quivered and her eyes closed. At one point, she flinched. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll do that. Okay. Is that all?”

Two seconds later, she was staring at her phone, saddened, but not entirely surprised.

It took everything in me not to grab her phone and smash it to pieces. To take away any opportunity to give that a chance to hurt Penny again.

I reached for her, wrapped my hands around her hips, and pulled her to me.

She blinked and shook her head like she was surprised I was there.

“You okay?”

“She didn’t even wish me a Merry Christmas or anything.”

“What happened?” I brushed my hand up and down her hip, trying to soothe her when everything inside of me was rippling with fury.

Her mom hurt her. Kept doing it. She didn’t care.

“No,” Penny said and scrambled into my lap. Her tears came hard and fast, so forcefully from her that her entire body shook with the waves of them. There was nothing I could do but hold her, which was exactly what I did. She’d fallen on me at an angle, so I grabbed her legs and draped them over her lap.

“She at least talks to me,” she admitted. “Asks me about my day or how I’m doing or whatever, but she didn’t even do that.” She hiccupped over her words. “Just the money. She needs money again.”

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