“Don’t apologise to me for this, Hayes. I’m sorry for you.”
He shakes his head, keeping it against my shoulder. And I follow suit, the both of us curled up in each other.
“How did it happen?”
“I don’t know. And then after, it wasn’t about what happened, it was about what I had to do.”
“I get that.” I take a big slow breath and try to not let my scent spike. “Where’s her mother?”
He shakes his head again. “Gone.”
“Gone as in?” I push gently.
“Gone as in gone.”
“How do you know you have a child then?”
“Photos. Alimony.”
“You’re allowed to see the baby?”
“Three times a year. Supervised. At a lawyer’s office,” he closes his eyes and blows out a sad exhale, “I’m so sorry, Raney. You and I were meant to do that together, not some other woman.”
I pull his face up, and this time he brings his eyes up too. I rub my thumbs over his eyebrows, wanting the stress lines to disappear, and he leans into the touch.
“You know, we’ve got lots to talk about, Hayes. You being a dad is a big one of those things, but we weren’t together then, so I don’t want you to feel bad about that.”
He disagrees without saying a word.
“I’m not discounting how you feel about it, but I’m telling you, don’t get caught up trying to figure out how I feel about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You,” I wait for those soulful eyes of his to settle on my face, “always feel deep. Sometimes it’s not your personal grief you feel, but the pain you think you’ve caused. You’re a beautiful, honest person, inside and out. I suspect there is more to this story, and I’m not surprised you’ve put the reason why things happened behind you and focused on the important part of what did happen.”
It’s important that he gets this. Because he is such an in-depth person, this would have destroyed him, but there is no way that Hayes would hurt another person. I don’t trust a thing associated with the Anders family. They are the shadiest fuckers around.
“I’m so proud that you and Talon are together, providing for your child.”
He bites his lip as another tear rolls down his face. “I don’t see her nearly enough, Raney, but I love her with every part of me. But some days, knowing how she came about and what I sacrificed, makes the love fade. And that fills me with more guilt than what I did. I wouldn’t wish her away, but some days I don’t know if I’d be living this life I am if I had a time machine and could go back and change what happened.”
“You’re not a bad person, Hayes,” I reiterate again, softer.
“Yet I walked away from you when you needed me most and then hurt an innocent woman. In my books that makes me a very, very bad person.”
“I’d say a bad person would not be living with a drop of your emotions. Something bad happened and you are making amends every moment you spend with your daughter.”
“God, you sound like Tal,” he says quietly. His voice thick with emotion.
“Why don’t you have custody?”
“I can’t risk Reid or Sharlene finding out.”
“What?”
“Yeah, which is why as much as I don’t want anything to do with them, Raney, I won’t do anything to upset them either. I’m not signing the forms.”
Our conversation is as intimate as our cuddle, and despite his emotions rising and dropping with each secret he shares, his scent stays the same. Which is another sign of how compatible we are.
