Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

Oh dear god.

“Ronnie!” I am completely uninterested in the looks that people are shooting me as I scream her name at the top of my lungs even while I race along the back of the section so that I can look down each aisle that runs perpendicular to this wall. “Veronica!”

Nothing. And I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to leave this part of the store, but I need a manager. I need help, and I’m just about to scream that someone needs to help me when a short woman with a friendly face taps my elbow and says, “Is that your little girl?”

I peer down to find Ronnie under a free-standing display of brussels sprouts and cauliflower.

“Oh my god,” I say, my body going limp with relief. “Ronnie. Ronnie, come here, baby.”

She scrambles out, then shows me the tiny red bouncy ball that she’d spied under the display.

“Can I keep it?” she asks, but I don’t answer. I’m too busy clutching her to my chest as I try to get my breath back and calm the beating of my heart.

I turn around to search for the woman who had found her for me, because who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been there today. But the woman is nowhere in sight.

And with Ronnie held tight in my arms, I abandon our cart and rush toward the door.

I can’t think about food or dinner or ice cream or meat loaf.

All I can think is that I screwed up.

All I can do is race toward home.

“Calm down,” Jackson says as I pace the bedroom trying to hold back yet another flood of tears. “Baby, calm down. It’s okay. She’s safe. You didn’t lose her. You didn’t hurt her.”

Ronnie is down for a nap, and I don’t even think she’s upset at all. She cried in the car, but I’m pretty sure that was because I was fighting back tears, my body tense as I kept two hands on the steering wheel.

“I did lose her,” I snap. “Just because she was only a few feet away doesn’t mean I didn’t. It just means I got lucky. What if I’d raced to get the manager before that woman found her? She might have crawled out from under the display and wandered out of the store. The produce section is right by the automated doors and the parking lot is right there and have you seen how fast cars go through there even though they’re not supposed to?”

I’m breathless, my words—my fears—tumbling out on top of each other. And I know that he’s right. She is okay. And I am not the first person to take their eyes off a child in a grocery story. But that isn’t the point. That’s just a catalyst, and it’s sparked all of my fears and doubts into one big explosion.

I know what I have to do—and I hate it. Because it will be the hardest thing ever. But I have to. For Jackson. For Ronnie. And even for me.

Jackson halts me on my next pass across the room, then pulls me into his arms. “Sweetheart, you were scared. I get that. But you need to step back. Take a deep breath.”

I rip myself out of his arms. “Scared? I wasn’t scared, Jackson. I was fucking terrified. Just like I was last night. She had a nightmare, and—”

“I know,” he says gently. “Stella told me. But, Sylvia, you’re doing fine. The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re doing badly.”

I recognize my words to him from our fight at the airport. “You want to throw my words back at me? Fine. I told you then that I loved you. That I’d give you whatever you need. And I mean it, Jackson. But what you need is a relationship with your daughter. A strong one. A solid one. And I’m going to get in the way of that. I never thought—when I came after you, I mean. I didn’t—”

“You’re scared,” he says again. “But, sweetheart, that’s okay. Do you think you become a parent and all your fears go away?”

“I don’t know. That’s the point.” I drop down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I can’t be a test case for that little girl’s life. I mean, Christ, Jackson, I’m a mess. I don’t even know how to soothe my own nightmares, much less Ronnie’s.”

“Yes, you do. With all this, your father. My arrest. Everything that came before. You haven’t had one in a long time.” He grips my shoulders tight. “You’re stronger, and you know it.”

“I am, yes. But not with this.”

“Then let me help you.”

But I just shake my head. “Don’t you get it? That’s the point. If I’m going to be your wife, then I should be a help, not an albatross.”

“Syl—” I hear the fear in his voice, and I know that he sees where this is going just as clearly as I do.