Page 34 of Skylar

She thumped his chest again as tears flowed down her face. “I hate you for what you did to me. What you did tous.”

Aiden wrapped his arms around her, trapping her hand between them. It was all he could think to do.

Lowering his head to rest his cheek on her hair, he said, “I’m so sorry, Sky. I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry for robbing you of the chance to be a mother to Shiloh.” His own voice cracked with emotion, and he swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Why couldn’t you have been the man your parents raised you to be?”

Her words were like a knife to his heart.

“I don’t know. I thought I needed to be different than that,” he said. “But I was wrong.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, then Skylar suddenly jerked free of his embrace, and she stepped back from him. Anger and hurt spilled off her in waves, but Aiden was helpless to do anything about it.

He knew he deserved every bit of her anger, but he wished that he could ease it for her.

She glared at him, then turned and marched away from him. He watched her go, wondering if there was anything at all he could do to help her. It was hard to see her so upset.

Aiden stood there for a moment, frozen by the guilt and grief he felt for his actions in the past. Over the years, he’d come to realize how wrong he’d been. But in that moment, he felt the depths of that wrongness more than ever before.

Skylar was right. He was the reason she hadn’t been able to keep her daughter and raise her in a family like Charli and Blake had. She probably could have kept the baby and raised her, but who he’d been then wouldn’t have been happy about being saddled with a child and tied to the woman he’d dumped. So it wouldn’t have been a happy or stable life for any of them.

With an aching heart, he went to where he’d parked earlier and climbed into the car. He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, trying to deal with the emotions Skylar’s words had brought to the surface.

The whiplash of the high of meeting Shiloh and the low of Skylar’s words left him floundering and helpless. He could do nothing to help Shiloh, and it felt like there was nothing he could do to help Skylar, either.

He had no idea what that exchange with Skylar meant for the future. It didn’t feel like it would mean anything good.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After an emotionally tumultuous hour’s drive back to Serenity, Skylar walked into the house. She heard the murmur of her parents’ voices in the kitchen, but she didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want to see anyone, so she went right up to her room without making any detours.

Her emotions were pressing so hard against her chest she felt like it was going to explode and every ugly feeling would spew out over everything. Once in her room, she locked the door, then went into the bathroom and locked that door too. She turned on the exhaust fan to try to block out the world.

Sinking down onto the floor, Skylar stared blankly at the floral shower curtain that her mom had chosen to match the sage green walls.

Surely, this was just a bad dream.

That’s what the thought of Aiden finding out about Shiloh—and Shiloh finding out she was her mother—had always felt like. A nightmare waiting to happen.

But now it was a reality, and all the emotions she’d tried to suppress for the past eight years had burst forth from the deep pit she’d buried them in.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that Aiden would be back in her life—and that she’d be the reason he was—or that he’d actuallywantto get to know his daughter. And yet… here they were.

Being with him, together with the daughter they’d given up, taking pictures together, watching him smile as he interacted with Shiloh had destroyed her.

If only he’d had the same desire to be a part of their child’s life eight years ago.

Her plan going into all of this had been to just tolerate Aiden. To never let him know exactly just how much he’d hurt her. But that had all gone out the window after spending time with him and Shiloh.

Skylar felt like her whole world had been ferociously shaken and then tipped upside down, and she had no idea how to set it right once again.

Shiloh seemed glad to know that she and Aiden were her parents, and she even wanted Skylar to live closer so she could see her more. It seemed her eight-year-old daughter/niece who was battling cancer was more emotionally stable than Skylar was.

Her phone rang, interrupting her spiraling thoughts.

Skylar let out a sigh before she leaned over so she could pull it from her pocket. Her mom’s name was on the screen, but Skylar wasn’t in any shape to talk to anyone right then.

She declined the call, then sent a text to her mom to let her know she’d talk to her later. Hopefully, her mom understood she just needed a little time to herself.

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