Page 90 of Single Mom's Christmas Wish

And that’s where I am compelled to draw a line with myself because Chelsea is right. My girl deserves better, and so does the little one currently growing in my womb. “You make a fair point,” I mumble. “I just need to come to terms with myself, I guess.”

“Screw the inheritance if you don’t want to give that another shot, fine. But don’t lose sight of everything else. Life, as you know it, doesn’t have to be over. You’re not a quitter, Dakota. You never were.” Chelsea gets up. I hear her phone buzzing again. “I am really sorry; I need to take this call.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll hang out here for a little while longer. Then I’ll wake Maisie up, and the three of us can go downstairs for breakfast.”

I give her one last smile before she walks away, then continue to stew in my own juices for a while. There have been times when my pride and strength kept me afloat. This, however, is not one of them. I have backed myself into a corner. I lost enough in my marriage to Keith, and the fact that I’m about to lose my grandmother’s house stems precisely from poor decisions made during that time.

But it’s too late for hindsight thinking.

It's done.

From here, I will need to find a way forward. I just need the courage to accept that I can’t do it alone. All I can hope for is that Reed, Archer, and Maddox will come through if I ask them.

35

Reed

My brothers and I are working a triple front.

Children should not be made to pay for their parents’ sins, yet that is precisely what happened to Callie and Dakota. As much as I want to rip Callie’s head off for everything that she’s done, I can’t really call her evil. Spoiled, sure. Egocentric, absolutely. But it all stems from Katherine Monroe and Callie’s mother, both so bitter and self-absorbed in their own pain that they forgot how to be an actual grandmother and mother to Callie.

“Tell me, Dolores, when did you enter the Monroe family’s employ?” I ask, making sure the recording app on my phone is turned on. I got her consent for it, though it took me a while to convince the woman to break her non-disclosure agreement with Katherine Monroe. It’s going to take me a lot of cash to make sure her ass is legally covered against Callie, too, if needed. “Callie was, what, a couple of years old?”

“Three, to be specific,” Dolores replies, adding more sugar to her coffee.

We’re seated by the window of a quaint diner just outside Chappaqua. I followed Callie back here and started digging around. It’s quickly becoming obvious that entire aspects of Michael Monroe’s history were deliberately omitted from the public eye.

Michael, Callie and Dakota’s father, didn’t just up and leave like the irresponsible prick that Katherine portrayed him to be. I believe Dolores can give me the missing pieces to the puzzle. I need them before I go after Callie.

“And what exactly did you find when you started working for them?” I ask.

“A complete mess is what I found,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Callie’s mother had trouble with liquor. She was a daytime drinker, while Mrs. Monroe was busy with her charities and competition roses. Callie was mostly on her own, wondering where her daddy went. I felt so sorry for the poor girl.”

“What happened, exactly? I understand you know the whole story.”

She gives me a hard look. “You’d better be serious about that lawyer.”

“I am,” I reply with a reassuring smile. “You know enough about me and my brothers, about our business and reputation. We follow through with our promises.”

“That is true, which is why I’m talking to you.”

“And I shall be forever grateful,” I say.

Dolores takes a deep breath. “Michael Monroe was a good man but a free-spirited kind of guy. He never really wanted to marry, certainly not Callie’s mother. He didn’t really want kids, either.He was a constant disappointment to Katherine because of that. The man wanted to work in education, he wanted to travel the world, he wanted to have an impact on public policy. He was the furthest thing from a Monroe that you would expect.”

“Is that why he left?”

Dolores nods her head. “Katherine kept sabotaging every project he got involved with. A community center was shut down because she didn’t want him working there. An orphanage was torn down because Katherine got foreign investors involved for the same reason. Innocent kids and people at risk suffered across the entire district because that old hag wanted her son to don a suit and escort her to charity galas. He could only take so much, and he’d finally had enough. At home, he had a wife who was drunk more often than not. They hired a nanny to be with Callie all the time.

“Michael wanted to take Callie and leave. He did try that once, but Katherine got the local police involved. It almost got him thrown in jail. She ruined any chance he had at social work in the state of New York. At every damn turn, Michael resisted his mother’s whims, and at every damn turn, she chipped away at him. Bit by bit.”

I try to imagine what it must’ve been like for him. I shudder to think what might’ve happened if our own mother had thrown wrenches at our wheels the way Katherine did with Michael.

“Soon enough, it became clear he was at his breaking point. Michael was depressed,” Dolores says. “I was working at his favorite diner, and he used to come in every morning for a cup of coffee. He was miserable. I could see the life and the joy draining out of him each day, a little at a time. Honestly, when I heard that he’d skipped town, I was happy for him. He deservedbetter.”

“It must’ve been a difficult decision,” I say. “Leaving his daughter behind like that.”

“Not a day went by that he didn’t regret it.”

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