“So before we made love?”
“I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to accuse my aunt in case I was wrong.”
He gave a single nod of the chin. “You know how many people have used me for my fame, and yet you suspected your aunt was doing the same and you didn’t say a word. What happened to being a team? Here you accuse me of making decisions that affect us both and you didn’t even bother to let me in on something that affects me? My career and my family?”
“I had to be sure.”
“Well, I’m glad you got your answer. Too bad it was after I gave you all my trust. You’d think I’d learn that lesson.”
Poppy walked over and this time he didn’t move. She took his hands. “You can trust me.” She could tell he’d already made up his mind and was going to leave her. “Please don’t ruin what we have over a misunderstanding.”
Because that was what had happened to her too many times before. She couldn’t stomach it if he walked away now.
“You said you’d fight for us,” she whispered. “Fight.”
“How can I be sure thatusis even real? This whole thing was a setup. Your aunt got her show. You got your million viewers. And I got played.”
“I was played, too,” she pled.
“But you knew and didn’t say a word. That’s almost as bad as lying. That doesn’t sound like anusto me.” He unstrapped his mic pack and tossed it on the patio table. “I need some space to think.”
“You can’t leave.” Because history had taught her that if he left before they worked this out, he’d never come back. “If you leave you know that we can’t go back to what we had. Life doesn’t work that way.”
Her words gave him pause and a bead of hope flickered in her chest. Maybe she’d gotten through to him. Maybe he would realize that she hadn’t meant to lie to him.
“I’ll always have the fear of being lied to, and too many people have lied to me and used me. I just didn’t think it would ever be you.”
“That isn’t me. I made a mistake. I am so sorry.”
“Me, too, Angel. Me, too.”
With that he turned to go, and she felt her heart fall apart piece by aching piece. He was walking away over a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that she knew they could work out—if only he chose to fight. But he didn’t fight; he walked toward the patio door.
“You can’t leave,” Jack hollered.
“Sue me,” Decker said over his shoulder. Then he was gone and Poppy was all alone.
Poppy was numb.Her heart was so broken she could only feel painful shards of loss piercing her chest every time she breathed.
Her aunt had set her up, her dad had mysteriously reappeared after twenty years, and the man she loved with all her heart had walked away.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the shadow standing beside her.
“Doing what I should have done twenty years ago. Being here for my daughter,” said Steve.
She refused to meet his gaze. Not when her eyes would show nothing but devastation. “Someone else’s daughter, remember?”
“I deserved that.”
“Seriously, why did you follow me? If it’s to absolve you, then fine, you’re absolved.”
“I came here because it looks like you could use a shoulder to beat up. And I figured I’d be the perfect person to take whatever you needed to release.”
He wasn’t wrong. Poppy wanted to punch a wall and crumple to the ground all at the same time. Even worse, she wanted to sink into her dad’s arms and pretend that he’d always been there. Buy into that fairy tale that had died so long ago, where the second he’d left the house that morning he’d come back for her, expressing that he loved her no matter if she was his daughter or not.
“May I sit?”
Poppy scooted over. “It’s not like my day could get any worse.”
