“I’m not,” I say honestly. “I probably would have married that girl. And I’d probably still be friends with that asshole. Had I not caught them, she would have passed the baby off as mine, and I probably would have married her and been stuck with her for life.”
I squeeze my eyes shut again. Just thinking about Tara makes my blood pressure rise. I despise the woman for everything she was and everything I imagine she still is.
“I played one season in Vegas. Long time ago. And I saw her and her daughter one night. The little girl couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. And they were in abar.” Frustration and pity—for the girl, not Tara—swirl in my gut. “I should have done something. I could see her daughter didn’t want to be there. Her expression was so sad. She looked so lonely. She was parked at a table, playing with this doll with pink hair. I can still picture it.”
Savannah tenses in my arms.
Shit. We haven’t talked much about her childhood, but from the bits and pieces I’ve discovered, it probably wasn’t a whole lot different. Her mom probably wasn’t much better than Tara.
“Anyway.” I sigh. “Instead of stepping in, I walked away. Left her there in the bar while her mom flirted with a man nearby, ignoring her completely. I went straight to another bar and got drunk. Called Daniel that night and said some awful shit to him. I’m lucky he still talks to me after that.”
I blow out a breath and stroke her hair, comforting myself.
She’s gone still.Fuck.
I cup her cheek and force her to look at me. I was an asshole back then. What I did wasn’t right. But I’m not that person anymore, and I fucking hope she can see that.
“It’s better for the girl that I wasn’t her father. I was a disaster. Took me a long time to get my shit together. But I’m okay now—finally—because I have you.”
FORTY
SAVANNAH
Where is that goddamn box?
Heart thumping against my sternum, I stumble through the guest bedroom where we stuffed the belongings I didn’t need immediately. It’s got to be in here somewhere.
My skin itches and my stomach rolls. I don’t need to see the damn doll to know it has pink hair, but I can’t fight the urge to dig it out, praying I’m wrong. I’m grasping at straws here because the stories are too coincidental. Or maybe they’re not. Maybe Camden’s almost child is a female roughly my age, who grew up in Las Vegas, was raised by selfish parents, and isn’t actually me. It’s possible. My story isn’t unique.
I vividly remember the nights in the bars. When my mom would hand me a toy and tell me to be quiet. The nights where she’d tell me to sit in a booth while she went outside with yet another strange man.
A time or two, she even left without me. I would find my way home, terrified and in the dark, because I was more scared of being takenfromher than I should have been.
She’d stumble through the door, surprised to find me home.Looking back now, it almost seemed like she was waiting for someone to take me away. Maybe she would have been relieved. Then she wouldn’t have had to be responsible for me. She tried to pawn me off on my father countless times, but he was just as uninterested.
I squeeze my eyes shut. No, I will not cry over them. They don’t deserve it. But Camden.Fuck.If I’m really his ex’s daughter…
I swallow down the rest of the sentence. No. It can’t fucking be true. I can’t lose him. I won’t let her take anything else from me.
Even as I make that vow, I can’t help but remind myself that life has never been that kind to me. I’ve always lost the things that matter to me most. I don’t ever get to keep them. But over the last month or so, I let my guard down. I got cocky and deluded myself into believing I was free of her. But I’ll never be.
As if the universe is taunting me, my phone rings and her name appears on the screen.
Heart in my throat, I answer. “Hi, Mom.”
“You know better than to call me that.Mommakes me sound old. I’m too young to have a twenty-seven-year-old child.”
“And yet you do.” I slump onto the guest bed, willing the dread building in my chest to subside. This has to be a coincidence. It’s my brain playing tricks on me. Telling me I don’t deserve good things. But I do.
I grab a pillow and squeeze it to my chest. The scent alone brings tears to my eyes. It smells like Camden. It’s nothispillow, but in general, the house smells like home, which is what he smells like.
God, I’m emotional.
“You know what I mean,” she says, ignoring my sarcasm.
“Fine, Tara,” I say with a sigh. “How was your Christmas?”
“Oh,” she says, her tone suddenly bright. “It was good. I spent it with the pilot I’ve been seeing for a bit. He was supposed to be home with his family, but he got stuck here because of weather. It worked out nicely for us.”
