Page 73 of Second Chance Daddy
Dante’s not yelling. He’s not pacing or slamming fists or doing any of the things I learned to expect with anger when I had Gino around.
He’s dangerously calm.
I’ve never seen Dante like this. Even at his angriest, he’s always had fire. This... this is different. This is the kind of calm that cuts deeper than rage because he’s past anger. That the damage is already done, and now we’re standing in the wreckage.
And I hate that I’m the one who disappointed him. Hate that this version of Dante isn’t looking at me like I’m precious, like he could kiss the ground I walk on.
“You… you can’t know that for sure,” I stammer, reaching for the nearest escape route to redemption. “You… you don’t?—”
His stare pins me in place as I stand, storm-grey eyes so sharp I feel them flaying me alive. “I had the DNA test done.”
God, I’m such an idiot. I never thought he’d go this far. Never thought he’d test her without me knowing.
The air leaves my lungs.
No.
No, no, no?—
“Cass. Stop lying.”
“When did you run the test?” I ask softly.
“Does it matter?” He snaps. “The only thing that matters is that my daughter is three years old, and I’m just finding out she exists.”
“Aria is?—”
“Mine.” He cuts me off. “Say it, Cassie. I want to hear you say it.”
I look away because I can’t bear to face those eyes that see right through me. That have always seen through me.
“Look at me.” His command brooks no argument. I drag my gaze back to his and find nothing but cold fury waiting. “Tell me the truth. Just once.”
The pressure builds inside me. It’s been three goddamn years of raising our daughter alone, wondering if I made the right choice, if there was ever a right choice to be made.
The walls crumble. My chest caves. My last thread of composure snaps clean in half, and the words spill out like poison I’ve been choking on for all these fucking years.
“Yes.” I sit back down on the bed and bury my head in my hands. “She’s yours.”
He doesn’t speak. He just waits because he knows there’s more, and there is.
The words hang irreversibly between us. I can’t take them back now. The truth is out, and there’s no putting it back in its box.
“When I saw you three years ago, I thought I was starting over. Clean slate. New beginning.”
My fingers twist in the bedsheets, remembering. “That first week back at Cedar Falls, when we were together, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I wasn’t thinking at all. It was just one night. Gino had agreed to the divorce, and I thought… I thought I was finally free. It was the first decent thing he did in years.”
I swallow down the acid in my throat and keep going because there’s no way back now.
“I didn’t find out I was pregnant until weeks later. And you were gone. No note, no call, no nothing.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t explain.
“I was terrified because the first time I told Gino I wanted to leave, he put his hands around my throat and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. Because when I mentioned divorce, he said he’d rather see me dead than with someone else.”
Dante’s eyes darken, but he doesn’t interrupt. I meet his eyes, and for the first time in my life, I don’t see the dangerous man who walked back into my world like a wrecking ball.
I see the one I left behind.
