Page 117 of Who's Your Daddy
“Thank you, Lola, you’re that for me, too.” I press my lips to the top of her head. “You make everything better.”
She blows out a breath, her expression going from soft to pensive. “Can I ask you something that you may not want to talk about?”
My gut twists, but I reply, “Anything.”
“Have you heard from Brandy?”
I blink as the words register. That isn’t at all what I expected her to bring up. “Murphy’s mother?”
She nods.
With a shake of my head, I lean to one side and slide my phone from my pocket. “I’ve called the number he used the night he tried to contact her a couple of times, but I haven’t gotten a response.” I open the text thread I started the first day ofschool. I send pictures and updates every couple of days, but she’s yet to reply. “I keep reaching out in the event she is receiving them. Or for when she’s back so she can look through.”
Lola takes the phone and scrolls, roving over line after line.
“I don’t know why she kept him from me or how the bloody hell she could leave him like that, but I’d give anything to have this kind of stuff from the years I missed.” I shrug and let out a sigh. “So I give her as much information as I can.”
Lola blinks and a single tear lands on the screen. Then another. When she looks up at me her green eyes are glassy, her lips wobbly. “Cal, that’s really sweet. And so much more than she deserves.”
“You’re probably right. But he deserves the best things life has to give. And if he wants a relationship with her, I’ll never stand in the way of that.”
That thought has been swirling in my head since the day I met Judge Espadrilles in her chamber while Brian tracked down his client last month. Neither parent put that kid’s best interest above their own, and I’ll be damned if I ever make that mistake.
With a sigh, I angle forward, forearms resting on my knees and fingers laced. “Living with my mum in London meant only spending a week with my father every Christmas and two weeks in the summer. For years, I was certain it was because my father didn’t want us. That he cared about the firm more than his sons. That he preferred the arrangement the way it was.”
Lola shakes her head. “I can’t tell you how many times he told me how badly he regrets not fighting harder to have you here.”
I nod, swallowing past the lump that’s formed in my throat. “Their divorce was brutal. My mother hated him because he cheated, and I can’t blame her one bit for that. My father wasn’t a good husband, there’s no denying that, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve the opportunity to be a good father.”
Lola rests her head on my shoulder. “Divorce is never easy. No one is always right.”
I smile down at my feet. “Except for you.”
Chuckling, she pushes off my shoulder. “Right. Of course.”
With a long breath out, I straighten again. “As soon as I could, I moved to America for University. Not because Idon’t love my mum, but because I finally realized that my father wanted to have a relationship with me. She’d been the one putting up roadblocks.
He screwed up plenty, sure, but for most of my childhood, she had us convinced that he cared little for us. She allowed us to believe that the issue was that he refused to move to the UK to be with us.”
I rub my hands down the fabric of my trousers. “In reality, she insisted on taking us to the UK after the divorce.” I eye Lola. “Sully and I were born here. Did you know that? When we left, our father truly thought that it would be best for us if we stayed with her. But he never stopped caring.”
Lola sets the phone down on the bed and squeezes my hand. “Of course he didn’t.”
Thumb gliding over her smooth skin, I focus on our joined hands. “He was right to set up the trust.”
She sucks in a shocked breath, stiffening beside me.
With a shrug, I peer over at her. “We were all fucking up our lives. Sully almost lost Sloane.”
“He still might,” she points out.
Gut clenching, I shake my head. “He’ll get it right this time. It may have taken the man too long to see it, but he knows what matters. He’ll figure out how to get through to Sloaney.”
Lola gives me a lopsided smile. “You have more faith in either of them than I do.”
I turn my body so I’m facing her full-on and tip her chin up. “I have faith in us too. In all of us. We’ll figure it out. And honestly? I’m glad we’re here in Jersey.”
She lets out a surprised scoff, but she’s smiling. “Seriously?”
