I can’t do this. She deserves better than what I can give her.
You might hate me for this, but I know you’ll take care of her.
Her name is Hazel.
- I.C.
My stomach hollowed out. “No cops.”
“Alright. Do you need anything, sir?” His voice was careful. Professional.
Yeah. Answers. A drink. A different fucking reality.
I clenched my jaw. “No.”
Jace nodded, hesitating just long enough to make me wonder if he was going to say something else, but then he grabbed my suitcase, and carried it inside. He left the door open.
I stood frozen on the step, fingers curling tighter around the note. I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. Not yet.
The baby… Hazel… shifted under the blanket, making a small, restless noise.
My stomach twisted.
She was mine.
I’d only slept with Isolde Callaghan once. One night at the end of last season. One fucking mistake, and now I was a father?
The thought alone sent my pulse hammering. I didn’t move for a solid ten seconds. I just stood there, staring at her, willing my brain to make sense of this. I was a driver, a racer, a reckless idiot who barely kept his own life in check. How the fuck was I meant to be a father?
I needed to get inside before some wanker photographer tried his luck. One blurry photo of me standing on my doorstep with a baby, and the internet would set itself on fire.
I forced myself to breathe and my fingers to loosen around the crumpled note before I tore straight through it. I stuffed it into my pocket and picked up the car seat.
It was heavier than I expected and awkward in my grip.
The second I moved, she stirred, her face scrunching up. A sharp, hiccupping breath. The warning signs of an impending disaster.
I froze.
But she didn’t cry.
I sighed and carried her inside, nudging the door shut behind me with my foot. The house was dark, still, and too quiet after the ruckus of airports and cameras and the ever-present hum of a racing season in full swing. I set the car seat down carefully on the coffee table, next to my untouched, overpriced sofa.
And then I just… stared.
She was so small. Tiny fists curled near her face, her features scrunched in restless sleep. Dark wisps of hair peeked from under the blanket. She barely looked real.
The note burned in my pocket.
What was I supposed to do now?
A pulse of nausea curled in my gut. My fingers twitched at my sides, itching for something, anything, to ground me. A drink. A distraction. A time machine.
If I’d just made a different choice that night after Qatar, found another woman…
A sharp wail shattered the silence.
My whole body locked up.
