“I don’t want to ask anything.” She gives me a resigned smile. “There’s nothing I need to know. You seem to be happy. That’s good. I’m glad. Really.”
Her words fall around my feet like shards of a mirror that once reflected back the shame of my feelings for her.
“Willow, I never stopped caring for you. I never stopped...” Loving you.
My heart breaks again as I let my voice trail off, but her eyes narrow. I step out from behind my desk, making my way toward her, dizzy with her scent. It’s pulling at my heart and driving the beast inside of me nearly out of his mind.
“I know. It’s okay. Mom can be...Mom.” She shrugs.
The day I left it was her mother who spoke for her. Letting me know in no uncertain terms our business deal was over—and that included any contact with Willow.
At the time I was so lost in my own self-hatred I thought it was what was best for Willow. That I should just disappear and leave her to find a life without me. My shame as the growing longing for my own stepdaughter consumed me told me I was doing what was best for her. And in my life, that has been the only thing that ever made sense to me. What I clung onto.
To do what is and was and always will be best for her.
I reach to unburden her from the handbag, noting the way she brings her shoulder to her ears as my fingertips brush her arm.
“Do you remember when I gave you the first Jane Eyre book?”
The blush that races up her chest and settles onto her cheeks answers my question. It was her favorite book and each year after that first time I gifted her a first edition of the novel, I searched for other rare and beautiful copies of the book. In the years that followed, her collection grew to include over ten copies of the classic story.
“Of course. My thirteenth birthday. You said every princess deserves her happy ending.”
“And I meant it.” I set the bag down on the soft cream velvet tufted chair that sits in front of my desk.
My other hand dares to settle once again just above the swell of her ass, urging her forward to where the fireplace is crackling and the warmth radiates. To my honor, she steps with me and her fresh scent reminds me of cherry blossoms and ginger. Complex and soft, but still exotic and pure.
I lean forward, intending my words to seep directly into her ear, hoping that they will somehow wind their way to her heart. “That was the first time I called you my princess.”
After a long moment, she turns her head to whisper into my chest. “And that was the first time I called you Daddy.”
Hearing that last word nearly drops me to my knees. I take a step away, afraid of the things I want from her right now. When she continues, I’m holding my breath, trying to take yet another step away.
“And do you remember the last time you called me princess?” The edge leaves her voice and in its place is the little girl. Again, I nearly trip as it hooks me, and every part of my being knows its purpose.
It’s her.
It has been for too long and I will never let her go again.
Never.
C H A P T E R F I V E
PIKE
I settle my eyes on the softest flesh my fingers have ever touched. Her cheeks are flushed still as we stand together, feeling the warmth of the fire and the crackling tension rising between us.
Her eyes flicker. Their hazel strands, laced with the reflection of the flames, have me on the edge of reason.
We’ve talked over every safe and mundane subject possible, avoiding the elephant in the room. The gravity between us is growing in intensity with every passing second. I know she’s working at Tuck & Burton. That she’s staying in her mother’s penthouse again, back on Central Park South where we all lived together.
I imagine her in her room. Tucked into the same bed I kissed her goodnight in, more times than I can count, and yet I remember each one as though it happened right now, in this instant.
I’m not a depraved monster, believe me. When she was young, my calling to her was that of a predator protecting its own. But as she blossomed into a woman, even as those protective instincts remained, they were topped with a longing I’d never felt before. A yearning for something that lay long dormant in me. She awakened my beast and nothing will ever slake his lust but her flesh.
His ownership of what he knows belongs to him and him alone.
My eyes have not left her face in a long while, and finally in the silence, Willow relents and meets them. We exchange no words, yet we say more than we have in all the years since we met.