“I’m taking her.”
His father stayed silent for a long time.
“Do whatever you want,” he finally said, voice cold as ice.“But you’ll handle this on your own. I won’t help you with anything. Not money, not connections. And if you manage to pull this off—then you can forget the way back to this house and forget you’re my son.”
“I don’t need your help.”
He walked out without looking back.
The next day, he found a good attorney and started gathering the paperwork.
And he spent a long time analyzing the situation, trying to figure out who the girl was—the one who’d gotten pregnant from him and left a baby to end up in state custody? Why had she told him about the childnow?
Eventually, he came to one troubling conclusion…
He hired a private investigator. Something didn’t add up. Rumor had it thatNina had given birth prematurely and the baby hadn’t survived. But that“premature birth” landed onOctober third of the same year Catherine Turner was born.
Everything suddenly clicked into place, and he couldn’t even blame her. She’d married that idiot already pregnant with his child. What had happened between them back then? Occasionally the question surfaced, but he knew digging into the past—or blaming her for leaving his daughter like a stray kitten—wouldn’t do any good. She had her life, he had his. A life that had changed beyond recognition.
He remembered bringing Lynn home for the first time. She hadn’t understood what was happening—she’d been too little. And he’d been terrified he wouldn’t manage.
He wasn’t ready for any of it. Had no idea what to do with a child, how to raise her, how to be a father at all.
But it turned out easier than he’d expected. He just lived for her.Lynn became the purpose of his life.
For the first few years, he slept beside her crib, jolting awake at every tiny sound she made. He was terrified that if he blinked, something might happen to her.
His father, as promised, stopped supporting him financially. Jasper spent all his savings on the PI’s services and greasing the right palms to speed up the adoption. He had to rent a small apartment and work constantly. His mother sent him money behind his father’s back every now and then—enough for a babysitter and toys and little thingsLynn needed.
Lynn grew, and something grew in him along with her. He’d never been a gentle person, never felt true attachment. But she didn’t need softness. She’d just take his hand and look at him as if he were the center of her world.
And he tried to be that.
He didn’t find a woman. Didn’t even try to build anything real with anyone. After what he’d done to Nina, sex wasn’t something he wanted anymore.
He hated himself.
He was disgusted by himself.
At first, he’d tried blaming it all on booze, on anger, on the fact that Nina had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—but that was a pathetic excuse.
He was just like his father.
A terrible truth he’d tried to ignore, but it ate him alive.
He avoided women. Had no flings, no relationships. Lynn didn’t need revolving-door guests in their home, and frankly, neither did he.
He devoted his life to raising his daughter, finishing school, working. Later he got involved in charity. He thought that if he did enough good, it would wash away his sins. That if he saved enough people, it would outweigh the night he’d destroyed someone else’s life.
Nina’s face slowly dissolved in his memory. Even if he’d wanted to recall it, he couldn’t. Twenty-two years had passed, and he’d seen her only once in a photo—aside from that night when everything around him blurred and his memory had been wiped clean.
And now she was here again.
Back in his life.
He didn’t even know who the woman was who’d saved his daughter until he asked his people to find out. And now he didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.
He wasn’t afraid for himself—he was afraid forLynn. Everything he’d built, everything he’d given her, could collapse in a single moment.
