“Why’d you turn it off?” Lotus asks.
I glance down at her with a frown.
“Babe, she’s—”
“A bitch,” Lotus says sharply, staring at the screen in the dim light provided by the city lights beyond the car. “But she can’t hurt us.”
She tosses the phone onto the seat beside me and holds my face between her hands. “We know the truth.” Her eyes pierce mine. “You know I would never cheat on you with Chase or anyone.”
“Of course,” I answer immediately. “I trust you completely.”
“And we know that I’m not almost your daughter’s age.” She teases me, chuckling. “Though there’s eleven years between Simone and me, too. Should I call you Daddy?”
“You’re laughing?” I ask incredulously.
“What do you want me to do? Cry? Pout? Throw a tantrum? There will be people who watch that, feel sorry for her, believe her lies. We can’t control it. All we can do is live our lives, and refuse to let it come between us.”
I dip my head to kiss her, caressing her jaw with my thumb.
“Thank you for being so cool about this circus act.” I heave a frustrated sigh. “I’m not. I hate having my privacy invaded and having lies told about us, about you. Doesn’t she even think about how hard it will be on Simone? Dragging us back into the tabloids like this?”
The thought of my daughter being set back after the small steps forward she’s taken infuriates me. Despite her progress, I know she’s still emotionally fragile, and so many transitions, so much pressure and attention? It’s bound to wear on her.
“Fuck!” I expel the word harshly and slam my hand on the console between us. “If this hurts Simone . . . God, why can’t Bridget just . . .”
“It’ll be okay. Whatever comes, we’ll deal with it.”
“This is the last thing I want to be thinking about when I only have a day with you before I have to fly back.”
“Then don’t think about it.” Lotus leans in to kiss me, slipping her hand between my legs to squeeze my dick.
“Damn, babe,” I rasp into the kiss.
“I had to distract you somehow.” She laughs against my lips.
“Distraction or not, you woke the sleeping beast. Now you have to handle it when we get upstairs.”
I ask the driver to drop us off in the private car garage in case there are any more reporters lurking. I tip him, grab our bags, and half-limp as fast as I can with this hard-on to the elevator. As soon as the doors close, Lotus strains up on her toes to kiss my jaw and suck my earlobe. I kiss her so deeply we’re both out of breath by the time the doors open for my floor.
We drop the bags and Lotus wraps her arms around my neck, and her legs around my waist. I walk back to the bedroom, my hands full of her ass. She scatters kisses over my face.
When we reach my bedroom the light is already on. Weird, since I haven’t been here in weeks. I’m mesmerized by the passion, the love in Lotus’s eyes as she slides her legs down to the floor. She turns toward the bed.
“Oh, my God!” she gasps.
I look past her, and my heart stops then sprints in my chest. Simone is on my bed, asleep. She looks so peaceful that at first it doesn’t compute. The open, empty bottle by her hand. My daughter’s preternatural stillness.
“Moni?” I rush over to the bed and shake her. “Simone, baby, wake up.”
She doesn’t stir. She’s so cold. Fear squeezes my heart until I’m sure it’s hemorrhaging.
“I’ll call 911,” Lotus says behind me, horrified panic in her voice.
I don’t feel panic, though I know this is serious, but an eerie calm descends as I answer the operator’s questions. Yes, she’s breathing. She’s taken a bottle of her mother’s pills, but I don’t know how many. The EMS team arrives quickly, loads Simone onto the stretcher, and rolls her out of the apartment building. In the ambulance, she stops breathing, and they intubate. Watching them force a tube down my daughter’s throat, my icy wall cracks, and terror, panic, anger—they all rush in on a tidal wave. Bright lights and the screaming siren, muted
before by my shock, flood my senses.
God, my baby girl. Simone.