Page 161 of Forever To Me

Stella tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “Mack. To remind her who her real mother is.”

My stomach turns cold. “Come again?”

She exhales, like she’s bored of this conversation. “She’s my daughter, Walker. Not Violet’s. Violet has no right to try to take over my family.”

I let out a sharp laugh. A humorless, deadly sound. “That’s what you’re gonna say?” I shake my head. “Yeah, you’re not talking to my kid to say that.”

Stella’s jaw tightens. “You can’t keep her from me. She’s my kid, too.”

I lean forward, planting both hands on the bar, my voice dropping. “Yeah, actually? I can. She’s not legally your kid.” She blinks, but I don’t stop.“You don’t have rights to her, remember? You signed them away and walked away from her.”

She flinches, just barely, but it’s there. Good. I hope the words sting. I hope they sink in deep and stay there.

She opens her mouth, probably to feed me some more bullshit, but I don’t let her. I step around the bar, closing the space between us, my voice turning cold.

“You left her alone in that hospital, Stella. Alone.”

Her brows furrow. “The nurses were with her.” She says it so matter-of-factly like it makes all the difference. Like that’s the same thing. Like it wasn’t abandonment.

My fists clench at my sides, my breath sharp. “That is my child,” I growl. “You don’t leave your child, Stella.”

She finally looks uneasy, like she’s realizing she stepped into something bigger than she was ready for. Like she finally understands that whatever power she used to have over me?

It’s gone.

And I’ll be damned if I let her get anywhere near Mack again.

I hear my daughter behind me and close my eyes for a moment. The moment Mack steps into the room, everything shifts. I know my kid. I know the way she moves, the way she reads a situation before stepping in. She’s been standing back there in the kitchen, watching, taking everything in like she always does. My kid misses nothing.

I was just hoping she wouldn't come out before I could get Stella out of here.

But now? Now, she’s ready.

Mack steps forward, her boots solid against the bar floor, arms crossed, chin lifted, looking so much like me it almost knocks the breath from my chest.

She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t hesitate. She just zeroes in on Stella like a goddamn sniper and fires off the first shot. “What do you have to say to me?”

Stella straightens, smoothing her hands down the front of her coat as she can somehow control this moment. Like she’s the one in charge here. She isn’t. She opens her mouth, her voice slipping into that honeyed, condescending tone I remember all too well.

“My beautiful daughter,” she starts, like she knows her. Like she has the right to talk to her like that. “I know this must be very confusing for you…”

Mack snorts. I swear to God, she snorts.

Then she holds up a hand and cuts her off. “Let me stop you right there.”

Stella blinks, clearlythrown.

Mack steps in closer, her voice calm, her posture strong. “You are a DNA donor. Nothing more.”

My chest tightens. She says it so clearly, so effortlessly. Like she’s had this speech ready for years.

Stella flinches, but Mack doesn’t give her a chance to recover.

She cocks her head, her eyes fierce, and she lays it all out. “That man right there?” She points at me without even looking at me. “That’s my dad.”

I stop breathing.

Mack keeps going, her voice steady. “In elementary school, he braided my hair every day before school. Drove me to soccer and all of my camps. He never missed anything. Bought me pads when I got my period and explained everything to me so I wouldn’t freak out. He held me when I had bad dreams.” She pauses. “And some of them? Some of them were even about you.”

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