She straightens, her attention on Jax. “You can take her through if you like. Have a little look around.”
He dips his head. “Thank you,” he says as he guides Juliet through to the living room, leaving me alone with Savannah.
I swallow as she focuses on me. “I wasn’t going to say anything because, frankly, I’m not sure you deserve it, but you look like shit and I’m hormonal so, I’m choosing to take pity on you. Daisy is in the kitchen.”
Everything sinks.
My ears ring and my heart pounds.
“What?” Fuck, I feel dizzy.
I’m not ready to see her.
“She comes here sometimes when it gets quiet up at the barn. I didn’t know she was coming.”
“Shit,” I whisper, running a hand through my hair.
Just then a familiar laugh drifts out of the open door of the living room. The sound reaches inside my chest and wraps around my lungs, squeezing them tight.
I lean back ever so slightly, catching a glimpse of her dark hair as she rounds the couch and kneels on the ground to join the girls on the floor. Reign immediately scoots closer to her, crawling into her lap as Daisy picks up a toy off the floor and hands it to Juliet with the warmest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.
My stomach clenches at the sight, a lump forming in my throat and making it hard to breathe.
“Can you tell Jax I will meet him outside?” I say to Savannah and the deep rumble of my voice must alert Daisy to my presence because her shoulders tense suddenly, her eyes flying up to mine.
All the oxygen in the room dissipates as her lips part on a silent gasp. The air crackles between us. My skin tingles with awareness. And my pulse pounds in my ears as I hold her stare.
She looks devastated.
Empty.
It looks like she hasn’t slept in days.
And it fucking guts me.
The invisible string between us attempts to pull me toward her, but I fight against it, keeping my feet planted firmly on the spot. It’s always been instinct to go to her. The connection between the two of us is deep-rooted. It always has been. And denying that like I am right now feels wrong.
But I’m too fragile right now.
The wound is too fresh.
So, I tear my eyes away from her broken ones andwalk out the door.
CHAPTER 39
DAISY
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush as the front door closes behind Killian, the sound resembling the final nail being secured in the coffin I’ve found myself in.
And here I thought him hating me when I returned out of the blue after skipping town on him years ago was the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Boy, was I wrong.
I thought I was imagining things when I heard his voice from the kitchen. I thought my mind was so fucked up that I had started hearing things that weren’t really there. It freaked me out so much that I flew into the living room to join Reign on the floor just so I wasn’t alone.
And then I heard it again.
When I found him standing in the doorway, his eyes already locked on me, hope had bloomed in my chest for the briefest of seconds before his blatant indifference became obvious.
