He tried hard not to care. Tried not to imagine a lonely and compliant Hannah missing out on life’s experiences because of her mother’s neurosis.
“Uh, anyway, despite spending her entire life trying to minimize all risk and avoid disaster or loss, her youngest daughter not only got pregnant out of wedlock, but she died young of a disease completely out of my mother’s control. Afterward, she turned all her focus to Kayla, and when she found out that Mary Anne listed you on the birth certificate and granted you full custody in her will, she broke.”
Much as he tried to harden his heart, the damn thing had softened in the short time he’d had Kayla. His bicep twitched as he imagined gathering Hannah up in his arms and promising everything would be okay.
A beautiful fantasy, but not a wise one. He still didn’t understand why she’d been lying since she arrived. Why not tell him who she was? “That sounds extremely shitty, but, Hannah, what does that have to do with the lies? I’m not going to bar them from her life. I wouldn’t have kicked you out. Any of you. I’m not a monster. If you’d wanted to see her, spend time with her, you only had to ask.”
An agonized sob left her lips as her legs flopped to the bed. She dropped her head to her hands and wept.
JP clenched his jaw. This woman and her lies, her tricks, and games—shit, he’d been about to have sex with her—she was not the victim here.
She lifted her head, staring him straight in the face with ravaged eyes. Her bleak expression had his blood running cold. “They wanted me to come here to find dirt on you and your family so they could petition for custody. They planned to say that Mary Anne wasn’t in her right mind at the end and that you aren’t fit to be her father. They have an attorney ready to file a petition for custody as soon as they have solid evidence against you.”
Ice filled his veins.
He couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. “Excuse me?” he asked in a lethal tone as he rose to his feet then backed away from the bed. “You’re here to try to take my daughter?”
The one good thing to come out of this conversation was the complete realization of how much he loved Kayla. The thought of someone taking her was as painful as a knife to the gut.
“You’re here to take my daughter.” The words ripped a deep hole in him as he realized Kayla wasn’t the only one he’d become attached to. Hannah had slipped past his decades-old defenses and wormed her way inside, only to set off a bomb in his chest. It hurt his heart and his head to know he’d been played by a convincing vixen with malicious intent.
“No!” she cried, shooting to her knees. “I told them no. I refused. I saw your family on social media, JP, and I thought they were wonderful. Now I know firsthand just how wonderful you all are. I told my parents I wouldn’t do it.” She shook her head and held out her arms as though pleading with him to understand.
Too bad.
“They begged so hard. My family is a disaster right now. My mom is broken, and I don’t know how to fix her. She refuses to get help. And my dad is just lost. He blindly follows her lead no matter how toxic.” She grabbed his hand with both of hers. “I told them I would come here to check on Kayla and hopefully ease their minds that she’s in a loving home, but I wouldn’t try to take her from you. I wouldn’t. You have to believe me.”
He blocked out the desperation in her voice and jerked out of her hold. “Why? Why the hell would I believe you? All you’ve done since you’ve been here is lie. All your sister did was lie. I don’t have to believe a goddammed word that comes out of your deceitful mouth.”
“JP,” she said, reaching for him again.
He lifted his hands out of her reach as he backed away. The sounds of Kayla crying came over the baby monitor and made him jump. Shit, had his yelling awakened her?
Another thing to hate Hannah for.
“You need to get the hell out of my house and the hell out of our lives.”
“No,” she cried, large tears cascading down her cheeks. “You can’t mean that.”
“Go back home and tell your parents you failed. Kayla and I never want to see your face again.”
With that, he left her there crying on his bed to jog up to his daughter’s room.
How many ways could one man be taken for a fool?
Tricked into getting a woman pregnant. Check.
Shocked to within an inch of his life to find out he had a seven-month-old daughter. Check.