Page 160 of Broken Daddy
A knock on the door interrupted him and he sighed as he glanced over.
“Or maybe not.” There was real regret in his face as he looked at her. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I promise, once this is all fixed up and all of this crap is over with that you can be Little for as long as you want. All right?”
She slid her thumb from her mouth with a nod. “It’s okay.”
Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against her forehead. Her heart skipped a beat. For a moment she’d thought that he might kiss her on the lips.
Silly girl.
He got off the bed and opened the door. Kent walked in with an attractive, younger guy who was dressed in a crisp white shirt and black pressed pants. His hair was perfectly combed and he was clean-shaven.
Who was he?
“Devi, this is Liam. I might have mentioned him before, I think,” Hayes said.
She would have replied . . . except she’d just spotted what Liam was holding in his hand.
Her backpack.
“What . . . what are you doing with my backpack?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
“The police finally released your home to us this morning,” Kent told her. “Liam and I went through it to salvage what we could of your stuff and to see if there was anything the police missed.”
“We found this.” Liam told her, holding up her worn backpack. “The stuff had been dumped out, but it seems that no one realized it has a secret pocket.”
She licked her lips. “In . . . in high school some of the boys were real dicks. They’d tip girls backpacks up. Rohan got that backpack for me so I could hide things in it. Not that I had a lot to hide . . . I’m rambling.”
She stared from one to the other and she just knew.
“You found my stationery.”
“Yeah, baby, we did. What were you thinking?” Hayes demanded.
“Hayes, easy,” Kent told him.
“No! I can’t be easy.”
Oh God.
He was really mad. Her breathing started coming in fast pants.
“She needs to know how serious this is!” Hayes added.
“You should speak in a quieter voice since you are scaring her,” Liam said matter-of-factly. “At least, she appears frightened. Her pupils are wide, her breathing is fast, and she has grown pale.”
“Fuck! Shit.” Hayes moved to her, gathering her up into his arms carefully. She pushed her face into him as she wrapped her legs around his waist and her good arm around his neck.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” she cried. “It’s just . . . he’s such an asshole. I knew he could have done better for Rohan, it was like he didn’t even care. And Rohan is all I have and I got so mad every time I visited him. Stein took all of our money. Rohan had to sell his car and his apartment and he gave that . . . that rat every cent and he didn’t even try!”
Hayes started rocking her, hushing her. But she couldn’t stop now. She was on a roll.
“I would visit Rohan on a Sunday and then I’d take a bus to a different area of the city and I’d just pour my feelings out to that bastard and send him the letter. I kept stamps and paper and envelopes in my backpack. I should have mixed up the stationery.”
“Yes, that would probably have been smarter if you’d wished to remain anonymous and get away with this,” Liam said in a monotone voice.
A sob broke from her lips.
“Shit, Liam,” Hayes said. “Do you have to be so blunt?”
