Page 77 of Second Chance Daddy
He’s worse, in a way. While Gino’s rage was predictable, Dante’s fury is an earthquake. The kind that reshapes landscapes without warning.
My legs practically vibrate with the need to bolt. Every instinct screams.Run. Pack a bag. Grab Aria. Burn the house down for good measure.
Aria chatters on now about some purple dragons she dreamt about, while I’m still thinking we should pack up and leave when I feel it.
That shift in the air that only happens when he enters a room. Like gravity suddenly remembers it exists.
Dante.
I freeze halfway to pouring juice. He appears in the doorway, broad shoulders filling it like some storm warning. His face… Blank. I hate blank.
I’d rather he yell. Rage. Smash the coffee table with those hands. But that eerie calm? The silence? Way, way worse.
“Dante!” Aria squeals, lighting up like a Christmas tree.
My breath catches, chest tightening as I watch him with her. Will he treat her differently now? Will he let his anger at me spill over to her?
“Hey, nugget.”
He doesn’t look at me. He looks at her. And God help me, my stupid heart trips over itself watching him watch her. The hard lines of his face soften. His eyes crinkle just slightly when Aria shoves half a toast in her mouth and grins up at him, crumbs everywhere.
He crosses the room and crouches beside her chair like it’s nothing. Like we’re not Cuba and America. “You brushing your teeth after that, little one?” His voice—Jesus, his voice—low, raspy, lethal, somehow gentle.
Aria nods, giggling. “Mommy says I get cavities if I don’t.”
He shoots me a look. It’s sharp. It’s unreadable. It cuts me open in eight different ways.
My throat’s dry as sandpaper. “She listens sometimes.”
I barely hear my own voice over the blood rushing in my ears.
Dante scoops Aria into his arms like she weighs nothing. She giggles, wrapping those tiny arms around his neck, so damntrusting. So unaware her whole world’s teetering on the edge of a cliff called Mommy’s Bad Decisions.
“Want breakfast?” I ask, trying so hard for normal that it physically hurts.
“Sure,” he says, not looking at me. “Coffee would be great.”
I pour him a mug and hand it over. Our fingers brush, and I feel it like an electric shock. He takes it without meeting my eyes.
The rest of breakfast unfolds in this strange parallel universe where we’re playing house, pretending things aren’t irrevocably shattered between us. Dante asks Aria about her dragons. She shows him how she can stack her toast into a “jelly sandwich tower.”
They laugh.
I stand there feeling like a ghost in my own life.
When Aria runs off to find her crayons, the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
“We need to talk,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
“Later.” Just one word, hard as stone. And then, he walks out.
I spend the morning in a fog, going through the motions, all while my mind races through worst-case scenarios.
Will he take her from me? Fight for custody? Make me pay for every day I kept her from him?
By noon, panic’s crawling under my skin like fire ants. I can’t stay here, waiting for the guillotine to drop. I need to go. I need space to figure out what the hell happens next.
After lunch, I clean up and then go to Aria’s room to put her down for her nap. Maybe when she’s asleep, I can start packing so she doesn’t ask too many questions. Doesn’t throw a tantrum and ask for attention. I know the kid’s gotten attached.
