Page 41 of A Little Discovery

Either way, there is now a restraining order against her, the entire Carlisle family, and my parents. I’m fucking done with all of them. The only loose end I have to tie up is with the man in front of me. He hurt me today worse than any of those fuckers ever did.

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” I ask him, hoping he will just take me home. There’s no hiding from my disappointment when he heads inside the house and up the stairs. It only hits me when the door closes behind me that we couldn’t go home unless someone else drives us. His car is still at the police station…

I recognize the room we enter. It’s the same one he put me in when I passed out so long ago, but this time it is someone else’s room. It’s the same, but isn’t and pulls at my memories.

“This is Kyle’s room,” he says in response to my unasked question. “He won’t mind if we use it.”

His voice is flat and emotionless, much like my own heart right now. There is too much swirling around inside of me to let the feelings take control. It would be so easy to just fall into my Daddy’s arms and let him take care of me. But that would be a disservice to the both of us. He needs to know what he did wrong.

“Daddies make mistakes,” I whisper into the silence to bolster my nerve.

Spencer spins around to look at me in confusion. “What do you mean, Lucky?” he asks with slightest waver to his voice. If I went by his voice alone, I wouldn’t have the strength to say it. But there’s terror in his eyes.

“You hurt me, Spencer,” I tell him, plopping my bum… no my ass… onto the bed. I have to stay big for this conversation. “I called to you. I said I needed help.”

Wrapping my arms carefully around my middle, mindful of the bruised ribs, I manage to choke it out. “You didn’t listen. You ignored my call for help.”

I watch as my strong and brave Daddy collapses to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut. He hangs his head in silence, but I can see the tears falling onto his pants.

I don’t want him to cry!

Rushing to kneel in front of him, I grab his face and pull him up to look at me. I need my Daddy back.

“You hurt me,” I tell him again, but there’s more to it. I can feel the tears falling from my own eyes, now, but I have to get through this.

“You ignoring me hurt worse than anything physical Jasper has ever done to me. It hurt worse than all of the pain and suffering Sabrina or my mother or my family ever put me through. You. Shut. Me. Out. That is what hurt me, not this bruise on my face.”

He pulls me into his arms in a crushing hug. I didn’t have a chance to brace for it, so the yelp of pain I let out makes him drop me on my ass in a hurry.

“I probably should have kept the diaper on for some extra padding,” I mutter, rubbing at the offending muscles. Looking up at Spencer, I tell him, “I ended up with a couple bruised ribs from the tumble over the table and just bruising and swelling on the face. Gramps already got me checked out at the hospital.”

Gently, I climb back onto Spencer’s lap and snuggle him while he releases the rest of the tears inside of him. Holding him close, I tell him, “Even Daddies make mistakes, but it just means they are human. You are still the only Daddy I ever want to have.”

I stretch to peck him on the cheek before adding, “And make no mistake, you areMYDaddy. No one else’s. Not now, not ever.”

His watery chuckle is the best sound in the world to me right now. That means we are going to be okay.

EPILOGUE

SPENCER

“And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” the bailiff asks me. I answer in the affirmative and take my seat on the witness stand.

The day has finally come, just in time for Christmas. Today is the last day of the criminal trial against Sabrina Carlisle. Her father took a plea deal in exchange for no prison time. Since the only thing they had him on was embezzlement of about ten grand and small time fraud that was mostly cleared up by his former son-in-law, he was small fries. He agreed to turn on his daughter, who had treated the company like a piggy bank. She was on the hook for over thirty million dollars, most of which was money direct from Lucky.

Over the course of my investigation, I discovered that not only did she conspire with James Buchanan to set up Lucky to force a marriage, she also had hired a hit man to kill her new husband after the wedding. We all have Mr. Holloway to thank for his foresight on that one. What was really surprising was what came to light earlier in the week.

Lucky wasn’t the first guy she had pulled this scam with… He wasn’t even the first one we know that she approached.

The prosecution had called Eric to the stand yesterday. I thought it was going to be a character witness testimony, but I was devastated for my best friend after they were done.

“Mr Mendleton, how do you know the accused?” the district attorney asks like he is discussing the weather.

“I met the bitch in elementary school when I called her out for extorting the other students,” Eric says, looking extremely uncomfortable. “She ignored me until middle school when she started picking her dating prospects according to the number of zeros in their family bank accounts.”

“Objection!” Comes the shout from the defense team. “Witness is proselytizing!”

The judge looks down his nose at the defense and says, “Overruled. The witness is sharing his own experiences and not trying to convert anyone to his way of thinking; however, the court will remind the witness to mind his language choices in his future responses.”

---