No longer what she needed.
I realized, then, why she was keeping her secret. Why she wasn’t telling me about our daughter. I settled back down into my seat and drew in a deep breath, trying to settle my cock while she trembled out in the cold. I clenched my hands onto the steering wheel of my truck, feeling the animal she brought out in me quiet down as a sigh ripped from between my lips.
Slowly, she got back up into the truck and I decided to simply tell her.
“I know about our daughter, Rose.”
I looked over at her and her eyes widened. I watched her pale skin, that was once flushed with the pleasure I could bring her, grow paler than the snow falling outside. I felt a twinge of regret, exposing myself to her like this, but I had to press on.
My daughter was at stake.
“When I moved to the area a few months ago, I hired a private detective just to check up on you. To make sure you were all right after our encounter all those years ago. That’s how I know about our daughter.”
Her jaw unhinged in shock, her chest panting as my words rendered her speechless.
“You… live here?” she asked.
“I do a lot of skiing here. It only made sense to have some sort of home here I could come to, instead of paying for those luxury spa resorts.”
I wasn’t ready to tell her yet about the fact that I’d moved here to be close to her and that I was running from my past with the mob. I wasn’t ready to tell her about my nephew.
I wasn’t ready to tell her any of that, just like she wasn’t ready to tell me anything about her, either.
“I know she’s my daughter,” I said.
I waited to see if she would contradict me and, when she didn’t, I breathed a sigh of relief. I turned my gaze back out through the window as the snow continued to pour harder and harder onto my truck. I knew if I didn’t let her go soon, we’d both be trapped here at least overnight.
And while the idea of being trapped with her throbbed my cock to life again, I knew it would only frighten her more.
My perfect little songbird, scared to sing her song for me.
“She is,” she said. “But I didn’t contact you because of the note you left me. It was a very telling warning. That, coupled with the rumors of your background and your connections to organized crime, I thought it better to simply leave you be.”
I kept my gaze hard out the window as I relaxed back into the seat of my truck.
“I understand. But I do wish I would’ve had that time with her. Would it be possible for me to see her?”
“I… honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m a bit nervous about that. I don’t know what your intentions are, or where you are in your life, or what types of trouble you might bring into ours.”
I nodded slowly, her words piercing me like one of the knives I had hanging on the walls of that room I’d led her into that night.
That night that changed everything for me. For us. For my future.
“You know, you didn’t exactly reach out to me either. I haven’t heard from you all this time and, now, you just show up out of nowhere and want to see your daughter? What changed?”
I’d almost forgotten how intelligent she was. How she could put pieces together, even if she didn’t understand she was piecing.
“I won’t rest, knowing my blood is out there, and I have no ties to it. Family is the most important thing to me, more than anything else on this planet. And I look forward to proving that to you.”
I turned my gaze toward her and I could see the doubts running through her mind. Her hands were squeezed in between her thighs, her body desperately trying to keep a grip on her nerves. But there was a strength about her, even as she trembled in my presence. There was a fire behind her eyes that wasn’t present the first time I’d ever gazed into them. She had a strong moral streak, I could tell, and I knew she would eventually relent.
I knew she wouldn’t keep me from my daughter for long.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you see her, but only because it’s the right thing to do. Because she’s your daughter. Not because of… whatever just happened back there.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and relief coursed through my system. We could talk about what happened in the diner at a later time. For now, I was simply reveling in a truth I didn’t realize I needed so desperately.
My beautiful Rose would let me see my daughter and my heart thundered with joy while the snow slowly let up its furious downpour.