Page 94 of Worth the Risk

“Just leave, Kason,” Sierra says.

Kason sees me in his peripheral vision, and his gaze goes from Sierra to me and lands on Riley. After a beat, he moves past Sierra and stops in front of us, still staring at Riley.

“Who is she?” he asks.

Ever the social butterfly, Riley answers, “I’m Riley. Nice to meet you.” She holds out her hand to him.

He takes her little hand in his bigger one and says, “My name’s Kason. Nice to meet you too.”

He drops her hand, glances up at me, and furrows his eyebrows. “Is she yours?”

“Yes.”Has Leo not told him he has a child?

“Who’s Riley’s father?”

Crap.He doesn’t know, but he is figuring it out.

Riley answers his question. “My daddy’s name is Leo. He’s at work. Mommy says he will see me when he is done.”

My heart breaks.My sweet Riley.She doesn’t know he wants nothing to do with her.How will I ever be able to tell her the truth?

I peer back at Kason, and confusion fills his face.

He really had no idea.

Sierra must come to the same conclusion as me because she picks up Riley and says, “I’m going to get her settled in her room. It will give you guys time to talk.”

“Bye, Kason,” Riley says, waving at him over Sierra’s shoulder.

Kason waves back. “Goodnight, Riley.”

When they’re gone, I face Kason once again. He’s wearing a scowl on his face, and his hands are on his hips. He’s clearly mad. I’m not sure at who at first, but I realize quickly it’s me.

“How could you have kept this from Leo? He has a right to know his daughter. The breakup was bad, but did you really hate him so much that you would keep his daughter away from him?”

Oh, this poor delusional man. He thinks Leo doesn’t know. I’m about to burst his bubble of ignorance. “He knows, Kason. He wants nothing to do with her.”

He shakes his head. “He would never deny his child.”

“I have a million dollars in a trust fund for her that says differently. That’s how much he wanted her. He paid one million dollars for us to go away.”

“He wouldn’t,” he insists.

Walking over to my purse, I grab my phone and bring up my bank accounts on my internet banking app. There it sits, proof of the trust.

Handing my phone to Kason, he sees it for himself. “My family is not poor, but we don’t have this kind of money. You can see the date the trust was opened for her. Almost five years ago, when I was pregnant with her. He told me he wanted nothing to do with her but would support her financially. That’s how much she’s worth to him. That’s how much he wanted her in his life.”

He stares at the information on the phone, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It’s true, Kason. I was there for it all,” Sierra says from behind me.

And with that said, I head to the bedroom and get into bed with Riley, snuggling her to me.

“Sing my song, please, Mommy?” she asks, and I sing Johnny Cash’s cover of “You Are My Sunshine.”

ChapterThirty

Leo

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