Page 45 of At the Edge of Surrender

A war that was waged on the inside.

Then she set the full force of her attention on me, and she lifted her quivering chin in some kind of challenge.

“Kane Asher?”

It was both a statement and a question.

A plea and a judgment.

What the fuck was going on?

Antsy, I shifted on the plush, high-backed seat and roughed a hand through my hair.

For men like me, it wasn’t exactly safe when a stranger came sniffing around, digging into who you were.

Had never taken on a pseudonym. None of us had. Figured if we lived our lives to the closest semblance of normal, it would raise fewer questions.

But I could see the questions whooshing all over her face.

“Guilty.” I tried to frame it a tease, a haphazard shrug of my shoulder. While I sat there knowing I was being convicted.

Emery hesitated before she turned to dig into the little purse she’d had slung across her body. She pulled something out and held it in her hands.

A picture, I realized.

My heart suddenly took off at a sprint.

Sweat slicking my skin.

Not sure why, but somehow knowing with absolute certainty that whatever she was getting ready to show me was going to change everything.

For a moment, she held it hidden against her chest as she pinned those eyes on me.

Pain lancinated through her expression, a sorrow so distinct that I would have dropped to my knees if I hadn’t already been sitting.

I was slammed with it.

A rogue wave that dragged us both out to sea.

Grief.

Then she slowly set it in the middle of the table and slid it farther across to me, her words soggy and thick when she whispered, “Her name is Maci, and she’s your daughter.”

TEN

KANE

Didyou ever have something hit you so hard and from out of nowhere that you felt like you’d been blown to smithereens? A bomb dropped that annihilated everything? What you knew and what you believed and what you thought your future was going to look like?

I stared down at the photo she had set in front of me.

Dumbfounded.

Shocked.

Heart a fucking battering ram against my ribs.

Dizziness rushed me as dazed disbelief clashed with the recognition.

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