Page 45 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

Godwin’s expression didn’t shift, but I could see something flicker in his eyes.

“I’m worried about her,” I said. “Actually worried. And I know I don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt with you, but I swear I’m not asking to control anything. I’m not looking for leverage. I just want to know she’s okay.”

Godwin folded his hands and looked down for a second before responding. “She hasn’t told me anything lately. I don’t know where she went.”

I nodded, but didn’t move.

“She’s not in danger,” he added, a little too quickly. “She needed time. That’s all.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I asked, too sharp, then softened. “Sorry. I just…what does ‘time’ even mean when someone ghosts their whole life?”

He took a breath. “Look, I don’t know everything, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. But I can say this—when you came down on her in the office, when you accused her of things that weren’t happening, it shook her more than you probably realized.”

I let that sink in.

“You humiliated her,” he said, not cruel, just honest. “Not publicly, but still. That day…you were jealous. Possessive.And it made her question everything about the situation you two were in. She didn’t say it exactly, but she didn’t feel safe, emotionally.”

I nodded slowly. I’d known that. Even when I was storming out of her office, I knew.

“We crossed lines,” I admitted. “She and I. I never planned to. But I did. And I know I made it worse. But Godwin, if something happens to her, and I didn’t act because I was worried about protocol?—”

“She just needs space,” he repeated, firmer this time. “Whatever she’s dealing with, she’s not asking to be found right now.”

“I can’t take that as an answer anymore,” I said.

Godwin didn’t argue. He just looked tired. Maybe he understood. Maybe he didn’t.

I left his office without another word, grabbed my keys, and walked out into the late afternoon haze without checking my email or telling anyone where I was going. If Amelia wasn’t going to come to me, I would go to her. I refused to be one of those people who let life walk right past and didn’t say anything. It felt like something was wrong, that she might be in trouble, and what sort of man was I if I ignored that gnawing gut feeling?

The drive over to her apartment felt longer than I remembered. I knew the route by heart, but every red light stretched out like it was trying to test my nerves. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I wasn’t racing. I wasn’t weaving between cars. I just…needed to get there. I needed to see her place, to feel like I was doing something besides pacing around my own mind.

“You’re being dramatic,” I muttered under my breath, not even convinced. “She probably just turned off her phone. People do that.”

But Amelia didn’t. Not like this. She wasn’t the type to disappear without so much as a goodbye. Even when she was upset, she didn’t vanish. The resignation letter had been the only real sign she’d given me—and it had read more like a formality than a choice. Too clean. Too final. It hadn’t sounded like her at all.

I turned down her street and caught myself scanning the sidewalks as if she might suddenly appear, walking her trash to the curb or checking her mailbox like nothing had happened.

“She needed space,” I repeated Godwin’s words, but they sat wrong with me. Space didn’t look like this. It didn’t sound like Laurence asking for half a million dollars and hanging up the phone like the house was on fire. And if she really was fine, if she really just needed a break, why did I feel like someone had yanked a wire loose inside my chest?

I pulled into the lot and rolled slowly to a stop. Her parking spot was empty. Not surprising, but not helpful either. I got out and walked into the building and up to her door—knocked and waited. I knocked again—nothing.

So, I sat on the floor outside her apartment door, right on that little welcome mat with the faded floral border. The hallway smelled like someone down the hall had just reheated leftover pasta, and I could hear a TV echoing through thin walls. Every now and then, a door creaked open somewhere on the floor, or footsteps passed behind me with slow suspicion. I kept my head down and my hands laced loosely between my knees.

Let them stare. I wasn’t moving.

If Amelia was here, she wasn’t answering. If she wasn’t here, I’d see her when she came back. I didn’t have a good reason to sit here like this. I just couldn’t leave. It wasn’t about control. And it wasn’t pride. It was this gnawing sense that if I walked away now, I’d never see her again.

She had walked out of my life with no real explanation. Just that carefully worded resignation email that read like it had been copied from a template online. She never even acknowledged the messages I sent. She didn’t fight. She didn’t explain. She didn’t even give me the chance to apologize.

And here I was. Sitting outside her door like someone waiting for an answer that might never come. I should have kept my distance. We were supposed to be temporary, clean, unattached. But somewhere between the office and the nights in my house and the way she’d slowly taken up space in my life, I started letting her in. I let my guard down, and now I felt stupid for it.

No, not stupid.

Abandoned.

It felt too familiar—that silence, the disappearing act. That final door shutting that you don’t even realize is the last one. Like when Mom walked out of the house for the last time, and I never saw her again.

Amelia shut me out the same way my mother shut my father out. Quietly. Without discussion. Just gone. And maybe that’s the part that hit hardest. The idea that I didn’t matter enough to be told why.

A door opened down the hall, and an older woman with a laundry basket walked out. She stared openly, like she was memorizing my face in case she needed to describe me to a police sketch artist later.

I gave her a nod. She didn’t return it.

I turned my attention back to Amelia’s door, resting my arms on my knees, and let the hallway fall quiet again.

Maybe I was an idiot for caring this much.

Maybe I should just quit while I still had some dignity, go home, and admit I’d lost this one.

But I stayed. Because something inside me couldn’t leave.

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