“Where the hell is there any room to compromise with you in Brazil?” Forget your heart and start thinking logically. I’d already lost her—if I’d ever even had her—but I wasn’t about to lose my little girl. “Okay, so what are we going to do about our daughter?”
“What do you mean?” She flinched.
“I mean that I can’t stop you from getting on that plane tomorrow. Even my lawyers aren’t good enough to make that happen.” I laughed at the irony of being one of the richest guys in the NFL with a problem that money couldn’t solve. “But I’m not letting you raise her alone. I don’t care if it takes me years and millions in lawyer fees. She’s mine, too. I’m not a luxury you can leave behind—I’m her father.” Even if you don’t want my love anymore.
Liberty’s eyes narrowed. “At least she’ll get to spend some of her time out of this paparazzi-filled fishbowl you call a life. Lawyers? Damn, Nixon. I guess it’s good that we don’t have to be together to raise a kid together.”
“That’s what you wanted in the first place, remember?” I pushed off the dresser and headed for the door, pausing at the frame to look back at her, trying to memorize every detail of her beautiful face. “When you were growing up, did you ever ask your mom about your dad?”
“Of course,” she spat, wrapping her arms around her middle like I was the one who was ripping us apart. “You know he walked out when she was pregnant.”
“That was his loss. You are an incredible woman, Liberty Jones, and neither you nor your mother deserved that, and his actions proved he sure as hell didn’t deserve to get to raise you.”
She swallowed and swiped away another tear, but they started falling faster.
Fuck my life, I loved her. Even standing there, telling me she was going to take my kid and run—I loved her. What the hell was wrong with me? “I’m not asking you to choose between Brazil and me. We both know you already have. But not every man in your life is expendable, Liberty. Remember that when our daughter asks you about me.”
She sucked in an audible breath.
“This is getting us nowhere. I’m going for a drive to clear my head.” Maybe the solution would present itself if I just stopped thinking about it so hard.
I climbed into my car and drove it way too fast for entirely too long and pulled back into my driveway over three hours later. I didn’t have an answer yet, and I wasn’t sure there was one, but at least I’d driven off my anger. Her shiny, new, highly safety-rated car sat parked in its spot, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
We still had time.
I called her name as I walked in, but she didn’t answer, and in that second, I knew. Her books weren’t scattered on the dining room table. Her backpack was gone, and so was every piece of clothing she’d brought with her. She’d left the luxuries—the cocktail dresses and high heels—behind. Her passport was no longer in the fire safe. Her toiletries were cleared out of the bathroom.
Even seeing all of it, I held on to a sliver of hope until I made my way into the nursery.
She’d taken the tiny Raptors jersey.
She was gone.
18
Liberty
I sank onto the colorful rug on the floor, sighing as I leaned against the low-sitting table with my laptop perched atop it.
“Are you crazy?” my mom chided from behind me, and I jolted at her outburst.
“Gah, Mom! Wear a bell. I thought you were at the market getting produce.” I shook my head, opening my laptop, that same heavy weight settling on my chest as it had every time I’d opened my computer the past month.
My heart twisted every time his words echoed through my memory—Lila wasn’t this cruel. Lawyers. Danger.
I’d never put our daughter in danger, and I sure as hell never meant to hurt him.
One month.
One month since I’d left for the Breaking Boundaries internship.
One month since Nixon and I had a fallout we didn’t know how to come back from.
One month of Skype calls that reopened the wound every time I saw his face.
“You’re six months pregnant, Liberty,” she said, carrying a bag of groceries into our tiny kitchen. “You really think you need to sit on the floor? What if you can’t get back up?” she teased, and I laughed softly but it did nothing to chase away that hole in my chest.
“This is where my laptop is,” I said. “And the exact location the internet has the strongest signal.”
“Oh, honey,” she said as she put away the few items she’d bought at today’s market. It had been a long day—long month—truly, of research and offering mental health treatments to the small village here. I’d had several individuals seek personal meetings. My absolute dream…but something was missing. “How long are you going to do this to yourself?”