Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
And hopefully it would mean the end of the threat.
At the sound of tinkling piano keys, I tucked the phone out of sight in case Kelly saw it and wondered about it. My chest felt like a sack of concrete laid on it and I pushed it out, trying to ease the weight, to no avail.
London was in Glasgow and we hadn’t said goodbye.
Hurt and resentment mingled with my guilt.
I shouldn’t have done what I did, and I regretted not fully thinking it out before I opened my big mouth … but what London … comparing me to … it was fucking wrong and shitty.
Worse still, it had me questioning our entire relationship. I’d put Kelly through one marriage of constant disagreements and tension. I would not put her through another. I wouldn’t put myself through it. The idea of being compared to that bastard Nick Huston anytime I made a mistake chilled me to the bone.
The French doors opened behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to find my daughter there. Kelly gave me a small smile as she padded across the deck in thick socks pulled over the bottom of her joggers. She sat down beside me, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her cardigan around her knees. The cardigan was one of London’s. An oversized blue thing she wore around the house a lot. I was forever finding it draped over furniture in different rooms. That tight feeling compressed on my chest at the sight of Kelly in the borrowed clothing.
We sat in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts as we stared out at the water.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
“Fine, m’eudail.”
“Hmm … you know I know you and London are really together now, right?”
“Because of the date? We’re just taking that slow.”
“Eh, the heavy snogging I saw in the kitchen last week didn’t look very slow.”
Embarrassed, guilty, I squeezed my eyes closed. “Kels, I’m sorry—”
“I don’t mind. I mean, I don’t want to see it, but if you’re worried about telling me, you don’t need to be worried. I like London.” She patted the arm of the cardigan as if it represented my wife.
What I’d always feared in this arrangement with London was Kelly getting attached only for London and me to fall apart. “Well, we’re not certain of anything. We’re just seeing how it goes. That’s why we didn’t want to tell you.”
Kelly seemed confused, her gaze searching. “But you love her, Dad. I can tell.”
Fuck, that shredded me. I jerked my head forward because my eyes burned with emotion. “I have more than me to think of.”
“If you mean me, then I don’t think you can really choose not to love someone just because you’re worried what I think.”
My daughter’s wise words hurt me more. “M’eudail,” I whispered.
“I’m always going to be a wee bit afraid, you know.” Kelly nudged me. “Will London hurt us like Jill hurt us? I can’t help those thoughts. But I’ll get over them, Dad.”
“You don’t need to get over anything. You’ve had enough getting over things for the sake of other people to last you a lifetime.”
“I’ll get over them, Dad,” Kelly repeated, her expression fierce. “Because you are always trying to make everyone happy before you think of yourself. And London makes you happier than I’ve ever seen you.”
Until this morning.
“You make her happy too, Dad.”
Until this morning.
Since I couldn’t admit the truth, I smiled at my daughter, wrapping my arm around her shoulders to draw her against me. The cardigan smelled of my wife’s perfume. That ache in my chest flared again. Ignoring it, I pressed a kiss to the top of Kelly’s head and whispered, “Do you know how much I love you, m’eudail?”
“I do.” She cuddled deeper into my side. “I love you too.” Then she glanced up at me, eyes searching mine again. “You should tell London you love her.”
If she felt me stiffen at the suggestion, she didn’t mention it.
Instead, she leaned her head against my shoulder and watched the night beyond our home. “London deserves to be told she’s loved. The people who were supposed to love her didn’t do it right. She deserves to be loved by someone like you, Dad.”
Emotion choked me, my nose and eyes stinging at my daughter’s timely and poignant reminder.
As hurt as I was by London comparing me to Nick, I needed to put myself in her shoes. What happened to her was not a normal breaking down of a relationship. That man had twisted her into emotional and mental knots. He’d terrorized her. Alienated her from her friends. Controlled her.
And I was wrong telling Tierney what London had shared in confidence.
The issue wasn’t if I could forgive her for saying what she said.
The issue was if London could see past her own fears enough to realize that what I had done hadn’t come from a need to control her.