Page 51 of Falling for the Single Daddy

So she was on drugs, then, and she expected me to believethat’swhy she was behaving that way. I’m expected to let her ignore any sense of personal responsibility. “Well, that’s good,” I murmur. “If you’re going to see Emery more regularly, it’d be better if you were sober.”

There’s a long pause. Sloane finally says, “Can you see how it would be difficult for me, Gray? When we were together, you were cold. I didn’t think you were capable of caring. And then this Callie comes along, and it’s like you’re a new man.”

“But you don’t want me, Sloane.”

She shakes her head slowly. “Well, maybe not.”

“So why does it matter?”

“It’s… offensive,” she murmurs. “It’s painful. It’srude.”

“Rude,” I repeat with a sneer.

“I wasn’t enough for you, but this woman is. This stranger. Somehow. She’s enough for you and my daughter.”

I stand up and lay my hands on the table. “Callie’s more than enough, I won’t lie. Callie means everything to me. I’m tired of running from what I felt the first moment I laid eyes on her. Callie’s the angel I’ve been waiting for my entire life without even realizing I was waiting. I’m sorry, Sloane, but I can’t lie about it. Not now it’s over.”

That makes no sense—thisiswhen I should be willing to lie about it. I should tell Sloane what she wants to hear. Maybe she’s being somewhat reasonable now, but that won’t last if she goes back to whatever addiction she’s been nurturing all this time, whatever drug brought out her natural sadism.

“You really care about her,” Sloane whispers, sounding bitter and awed at the same time. It’s as if she’s just realized that a dog is capable of speech. That’s how alien the idea is to her—that I’m capable of feeling.

I love her, I almost say, even if it should be impossible, even if it probably means I’m more than a little insane.

“Yes, I do,” I growl. “I know I’ve played this wrong. I should’ve kept you sweet and told you she doesn’t mean a thing to me. But the truth, Sloane? Callie means everything to me.”

Which makes letting her go all the more painful.

***

“I didn’t handle it very well,” I admit to Wes when I get home.

Emery is in the library, unusually quiet and withdrawn, staring down at her book.

“I probably antagonized her,” I murmur. “Dammit…”

“She seemed pissed on the phone,” Wes replies with a sigh. “But I tried to talk her down.”

I look at him in surprise. “You did?”

“I tried to make her see that you caring for Callie doesn’t mean she has no place in Emery’s life.”

“I thought you wanted me to end things with Callie.”

Wes runs his hand across his lean face. “Emery’s done a lot of talking today,” Wes mutters. “Some crying, too.” His voice falters. “It was heartbreaking, man.”

“What has she been saying?” I ask, curious.

We’re sitting on the library balcony, overlooking the backyard. Every so often, I turn, looking over my shoulder at my daughter. She’s staring down at her book as if her life—or maybe her sanity—depends on her remaining focused on it—as if she’s terrified of what will happen if she lets her attention slip if she starts thinking about Callie. It’s like she’s constantly fighting off tears.

“She’s never seen you as happy as you were with Callie. She didn’t even know her dad couldbethat happy. She also said that Callie was like a magic potion, that she changed you. She said she was thinking about years in the future—when she was, quote, ‘really, really old’—about how Callie would still be in her life.”

“That’s why we had to end things,” I mutter. “We can’t commit to something like that after only a couple weeks—not even.”

“You said that like a rehearsed line,” Wes mutters. “As if you don’t believe it but think it’s what you need to say.”

“You’re right on the money there,” I groan. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not true, does it?”

“Maybe not,” Wes says. “But the way Emery’s been talking today, hell, she’s got me thinking about doing a whole one-eighty on the issue.”

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