Her mouth dropped open in stunned silence. “No, of course not. Didn’t you hear me? I’m back. I want to be a family again.”
He threw his hands up in frustration. “You’ve been gone for years, and you honestly thought you’d swoop in here, expecting me to be happy to see you? Do you even realize the damage you’ve caused to us all?”
She took a shaky breath, her gaze dropping to the floor. “Christian, I’m sorry. I was just so … unhappy. We were practically babies when Isla was born. I’d wanted to do so many things, and I didn’t want to regret not being able to experience them.”
“And there it is,” he muttered bitterly. “Everything has always revolved around you. Your problems. Your unhappiness. Even this house was about you. But what about the girls? What about me?”
“Christian—”
“I bent over backwards, trying to fix our relationship. Nothing was ever good enough for you.”
“But I’ve changed?—”
He stopped her by holding up a hand. “So have I. When you left, I had no choice but to move on with my life. And I’m not going back to that situation again. I’m done believing in your empty promises.” He spun around, gripping the oven handle to ground himself.
“Is this about your nanny?”
Slowly, he swiveled on his heel to face her again. “What’re you talking about?”
Dropping into one of the chairs at the table, Sabrina crossed her arms over her striped cropped sweater. “I saw Carrie this afternoon. She told me all about how you were getting friendly with a woman who’d been watching the kids.”
So the gossip mill had already begun to churn. Fantastic. He ground his teeth, his anger nearing its boiling point. Sabrina didn’t get to come here and cause chaos, upsetting all the progress he’d worked so hard to make.
“That’s none of your business.” He kept his voice an icy calm.
“If it involves our girls, it is my business.”
“Now you decide to be a parent?” he shot back, unable to stop himself.
His comment plunged them into a chilling impasse, broken only by the creak of the front door opening.
“Christian?” Hallie called from the entryway. “We’re back.”
Isla and Penelope burst through the house, talking over each other.
“Daddy, Daddy! I walked on the balance beam!” Isla called at the same time Penelope added, “I jump in the pit!”
They skittered to a stop as they appeared in the kitchen. Isla’s suspicion immediately replaced her excitement. “Who’s she?”
Sabrina turned wide eyes onto Christian. “They’re both so big,” she whispered, agony marring her voice. Taking a step toward the girls, a tearful smile appeared on her face. “Hi, girls. Mommy’s home. Come give me a hug.”
Isla backed up, bumping into Hallie, whose gaze darted from Sabrina to Christian. Her furrowed brows asked the question she didn’t need to speak out loud.
He bobbed his head once.
The worry plaguing Hallie’s lovely face pierced his heart, stabbing some of the air out of his anger. She squeezed the girls’ shoulders gently, crouching to their level. “Why don’t you go play in your rooms for a bit.”
Both girls darted wary glances toward Sabrina before scurrying off toward the stairs. Hallie’s gaze followed them before she swiveled back to the tense scene in the kitchen. She teetered in the entryway, obviously not sure whether to stay or go and looking to Christian for guidance.
There was nothing he wanted more than for her to stay. He needed her calming presence right now. But he refused to subject her to his ex’s vitriol. Turning to Sabrina, he said, “Will you excuse us?”
Without waiting for an answer, he crossed to Hallie, gesturing for her to follow him from the kitchen. They stopped near the front door. “You should probably go. I need to sort this out.”
She studied him, and he suspected the worry in her expression would haunt him for long after she was gone.
“Text me later?” she asked, her voice wobbly.
Nodding, he held her eyes for a long moment, trying to convey that Sabrina’s presence changed nothing between them. But with the way his head still spun at his ex’s unexpected appearance, the words he wanted to speak only tumbled incoherently in his head.
