anything from you but a check.” She braced her hands on the table. “That should make you happy. Then you don’t have to do anything but put your name on the dotted line or have your shark lawyer do it for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe you were too blazed out of your mind when Crys told you to remember. But she told you the night she OD’d and she even called your case manager when Amanda Jane was born.”
Her words affected him like a physical blow. “Gina, the day I got served with this suit was the first time I’d heard anything about a child.”
The fire in her eyes simmered to an ember and she studied him hard.
“There’s a part of me that wants to believe you.” She looked away. “Part of me that actually does believe you.” Her voice dropped an octave; it was almost a whisper.
He felt like the world’s biggest asshole. For all her fire, she was still sweet little Gina. And he’d come in here looking for a fight. A place to put all of his pain, his doubt, and a focus for his anger. Anywhere besides himself.
“There’s a part of me that wants to believe you, too.” He inhaled deeply before making his confession. “And there’s this other part of me that thinks you’re like everyone else who wants to take everything I’ve done away from me.”
Because he didn’t deserve it. He was poor white trash from the wrong side of the tracks and no amount of imported cologne could wipe off the stench, or erase the scars on his arms. He didn’t want to believe that, and for a long time, he’d convinced himself that he didn’t. Then he found out he was a father. He found out Gina didn’t want him. Crystal hadn’t wanted him. The people he’d thought were safe weren’t.
He shouldn’t have confessed that to her, shouldn’t have given her anything she could use against him.
Gina sank down in the chair next to him, her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want anything that’s yours. Just what’s hers. If you look at the numbers, I’m not asking for anything extravagant.”
That was a glimpse of the person he’d still hoped she was. In truth, she really hadn’t asked for that much. She was most likely entitled to ten times that given his income. But he’d wondered if it was just because she didn’t know how much to ask for. Except with Amanda Jane’s little face looking over at him, he found that thought to be foreign and cruel. If she really was his daughter, she was entitled to his support.
“No, you’re not.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Reed, I’m doing the best I can.”
He wondered what her best was and sure as hell hoped it was better than what they had growing up. Reed was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know. “You’re not still living in Whispering Woods, are you?” He mentioned the trailer park community where they’d grown up.
“No. I’ve got a little house out in the country. Highway 5. You remember the one with the hills that we used to take really fast?”
“Hanging out someone’s sunroof? You remember that time you swallowed a moth?”
She turned to look at him. “I thought I was going to die. It was the nastiest thing.”
“It’s not like you could taste it.”
“No, but I had nightmares about what it was doing in there.”
He laughed. This...this was what he’d wanted from her—hoped for. Why couldn’t he have just spoken to her like this from the beginning? If he was really a better man than he’d once been, he wouldn’t need to be so defensive.
Wouldn’t need to try to put her down or show her how easily he could defeat her.
Again, he couldn’t help but think that he was an asshole. But just like he didn’t have to be an addict, he didn’t have to be this person, either. He could own his actions and he could choose them.
“I’m sorry, Gina.”
It took a long time for her to look up at him and meet his gaze. For a moment, he wasn’t sure she would. When she did, he saw something there he couldn’t name. All he knew was that it cut him.
“For what?” She cocked her head to the side.
“For being an asshole.”
Gina shook her head. “I knew this wouldn’t be easy.” She laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “When I knew you’d been served, I kind of wanted to throw up. I knew you’d be angry with me. I just... Crys said she told you and you didn’t want anything to do with us. I never thought she’d lie about that. If I thought for one second that you didn’t know about Amanda Jane, I might have gone about it differently.”
“You still can.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be a part-time father. I want you to consider what the judge offered.” At the sudden look of fear on her face, he held up his hands as if to ward it off. “Not like that. If we’re in the same household, I can see her whenever I want and so can you.”
She looked as though he’d just punched her. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“Hear me out.”
“It would put us at your mercy, right under your thumb.” She shook her head. “You just told me that I didn’t know you and you’re right. I haven’t seen you in seven years.”
“Which is exactly why you should marry me. Don’t you think it would be traumatic for her to suddenly be left with a stranger?”
The fear on her face was back and so was the guilty chill slithering down his spine.
“I can’t talk about this with you.”
He exhaled, sensing that the earlier door to their childhood memories had been slammed in his face.
She stood. “I have to get back to work.”
“Gina?”
She turned back to face him. “What?”
He found everything he thought he wanted to say died on the tip of his tongue and it was nothing but charcoal and memory.
“Me, too, Reed.” She answered the unspoken questions, regrets and hopes with all of her own. All the things he couldn’t seem to tell her, it was as if she knew them all and had them herself.
Perhaps he’d been wrong. Maybe Gina did know him, after all. She seemed to sense everything he wanted to say but couldn’t.
He wondered why it was so easy to say all the wrong things, but the right ones were practically impossible.
As he watched her walk away, he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking, asking her to marry him. That was pure insanity.
He wasn’t ready to be a father. He could barely manage himself. What was he thinking?
Just
