Page 76 of Broken Daddy

“Honey. It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m sorry, I just had a really long day.”

“It hasn’t evenbeena whole day, Dad. And even when you’re home, you’re working.”

She trudges ahead of me into the shop. I stand on the sidewalk, her words sinking in.

She’s right.

Chris has been subtly pointing out the same thing to me for years. Trudy has tried to push me out of the office earlier, to make me take an extra day off work every week.That’s the perk of being the company owner,she’d insist.

But I’ve never taken her advice. I work just as hard now as I did when I was first starting Ironside.

* * *

We get homeand the kitchen smells like heaven.

Actually, it smells like homemade pasta sauce. Which is basically the same thing.

Eva drops her bag just inside the door and plods toward the stairs. “Hey, hon.” I catch her little hand, tipping her chin up to make her look at me. “I’m sorry. I promise I’m going to be better.”

She nods, but my heart sinks as I realize she doesn’t believe me.

“I love you,” I call as she’s halfway up.

“Loveyoutoo.” It’s a mumbled mess.

With a sigh, I turn toward the kitchen. Gen is watching me surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, a sad smile on her face.

“Rough day?”

“You can say that again.”

She pauses for a second, then opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine. Within seconds, she’s dug out a wine opener and popped the cork.

“Give it a minute to breathe.” She pushes a wine glass and the bottle toward me. “You look like you need it.”

“Thank you.”

Even that’s hard to say, hard to accept. Why is it so hard for me to let people in?

“So what happened?” Gen pulls down a glass of her own and comes around the island to sit next to me. She looks beautiful today, her face clean and fresh, hair pulled back. I wonder if the morning sickness has passed. She looks well-rested.

“The camp had to close early. I left work to pick her up, and I…I might’ve snapped at the camp director out of frustration.”

Gen nods understandingly. Realizing she isn’t going to scold me or judge me, the tension starts to ease out of my shoulders.

“I just have a lot going on right now.”

Her hand ghosts over her belly. “I’m sorry.”

Reaching out, I cover that hand with mine. “Don’t be—that’s not what I meant, Gen. I don’t want you to think…”

Don’t want her to think what?

That I don’t want her.

I want her more than anything.

Unable to keep the barriers in place any longer, my self-control slips. I close the space between us and brush my lips against hers.

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