I flinched when I heard the door behind me open. Fuck, whyhadn’t I just endured soaked clothes and waited for the cab by the road?
“Here,” I heard Magnus say as he settled on the step next to me and I automatically moved over to put some space between us.
I forced myself to look at him and saw that he was holding a cup of coffee out to me and he had another one in his other hand. But it was what was tucked under his armpit that had my attention. I took the coffee and watched as he silently put the unopened umbrella between us. The silent message that he was going to let me leave without a fight should have been a relief.
It wasn’t.
It hurt like a motherfucker.
I took a sip of the coffee and felt a lump of emotion get stuck in my throat. He’d prepared it exactly the way I liked. When had he even noticed how I took my coffee?
“My grandfather was the one who taught me what it meant to be a man,” Magnus said quietly. “He was a tough son of a bitch, but I respected the hell out of him and I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. All his rules and lessons really just came down to one thing, though. ‘The strongest man is the one who’s still standing when everyone else around him has fallen.’”
Magnus was quiet for a moment before he said, “You’re the only one who’s ever seen that I can’t always live up to that expectation, Dante. You’ve seen me at my worst. The cemetery, court…that shit with Colton. I lashed out at you yesterday because if there’s anyone in this world I wouldn’t have wanted to see that part of me, it’s you.”
I held my breath at that and struggled to keep my gaze fixed on my coffee. God, I needed him to stop talking.
“And not because we’ve had our fair share of problems,” he murmured. “I just…I wanted you to see that I was more than that. That I could be someone you could…”
His words hung between us for the longest time before he whispered, “Someone you could lean on when you were tired of standing on your own.”
Was he fucking serious? Did he really think I saw him as weak? Or unworthy in any sense of the word?
“I never meant to hurt you and I’m so damn sorry I did,” he said so quietly, I barely heard him. And then his hand came out to cup the side of my head and he pulled me closer to him and skimmed his lips over my temple in the briefest of kisses. “Take care of yourself, Dante.” And with that, he got up and went back into the house, leaving me in a cloud of stunned silence. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there for. I just kept glancing at the umbrella at my side and wondering why the hell I couldn’t pick it up.
And then I didn’t have to wonder because the sound of an engine caught my attention.
My cab had finally arrived.
Chapter 14
Magnus
My jaw hurtlike hell where Dante had punched me the day before, but it had nothing on the ache in my heart. This morning was the first time I’d woken up and my first thought hadn’t been that I was never going to see my daughter again. No, my first thought had been,please don’t let him be gone. I’d sort of gotten my wish in that Dante had been sitting on the porch steps. But my relief hadn’t lasted long because I’d seen his packed bag sitting next to him and his tapping leg had been a clear sign of his agitation. My first instinct had been to go out there and ask him not to leave, but I’d managed to come to my senses. He was leaving because he’d done his job and had no other reason to stay.
It wasn’t the first time I hadn’t been enough for someone to consider sticking around. But this time around it hurt a hell of a lot more.
My mother had been the first to walk away and while I couldn’t fault her for leaving an abusive relationship, I’d never been able to make sense of why she’d left me. I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her, because I’d never heard from her again, even after my father had died. Mel had been the next one who’d found me lacking, though I couldn’t exactly blame her for not having wanted to bewith me since the feeling had been mutual. My issue had been with how she’d escaped the doomed marriage…by sleeping around and then blaming me for not paying enough attention to her. But the crux of it all had been when she’d left our daughter too. She hadn’t even asked for joint custody when we’d divorced. It was a secret I’d kept well-hidden from Jenna until the day she’d discovered the divorce papers for herself and found the document where her mother had signed away her parental rights.
Jenna had blamed me at first, certain that I’d forced Mel to sign that paper. But the truth had come out when Jenna had packed up her stuff at the tender age of twelve and gotten a ride to her mother’s apartment in the city. Mel had been less than thrilled to see our daughter on her doorstep and when Jenna had told her she’d stand up in court and tell anyone and everyone that she wanted to live with her mother instead of me, Mel had been horrified and hadn’t held her punches when she’d told our child to go home where she belonged. I hadn’t gotten the complete story from Jenna when she’d called me in tears to come and get her from a park near Mel’s apartment, but I’d gotten the gist of it. I’d promised her that she and I would always be a family, but it hadn’t been enough. Maybe if Mel hadn’t ever been in her life, Jenna wouldn’t have missed something she’d never had. But Mel’s indifference had left the same mark on Jenna that my mother’s defection had left on me. And nothing I’d said or done had been able to change that. Within a couple of months, Jenna had started acting out in school and her grades had started to slip. By her thirteenth birthday, she’d been well on her way to becoming a full-blown addict.
And I hadn’t been able to stop any of it.
I forced the bad memories aside and focused on rinsing out my coffee cup. My plan for the day was simple and singular - do whatever it took to keep from thinking about Dante.
I still had quite a bit of packing to do of my personal possessions that I was taking with me. I also needed to make arrangements to have Ace transported to the stable outside of Seattle I’d found. Trent’s trial would likely be ending later today or tomorrow and I was planning on attending the reading of the verdict. Theprosecutor had left a message saying it would be helpful if I came for his closing argument, too. Unlike me, he was confident that my professional reputation had withstood the hit my personal one had taken. And he was going to remind the jury of that during his closing.
“Why?”
The sound of Dante’s voice startled me and I swung around to see him standing near the entrance to the kitchen, his clothes soaking wet and his hair hanging in a wet mess on his face.
“Why did you say all that out there?” he asked, his voice uneven as he motioned over his shoulder to the open front door.
He looked so broken, that I couldn’t even enjoy the flare of hope that sparked to life inside of me that he was still here.
Before I could even answer, he used his hands to push his sopping hair back off his face. “What do you want from me, Magnus?” he whispered in an agonized voice.
I didn’t dare move because I feared he’d run.
