But this was his daughter we were talking about. I couldn’t gloss over the details. “The drummer filling in for Zee was there. He was heading to play football with Lyrik and the rest of the guys. He was crossing the street behind her. He got her out of the way before she was hit.”
Silent animosity echoed from the other end of the line.
Distrust.
Ancient hurt that was never going to heal.
“Who the fuck do you have hanging around my daughter, Mia?”
It was just so typical.
His jealousy.
His accusations.
Except he’d forgotten he didn’t have a say over me anymore.
My own anger tremored through my muscles. “Tell me you’re joking right now. This man saved your daughter’s life, and you’re questioning why he was there?”
He chuckled a demeaning sound. “Told you I didn’t want you going to Savannah, Mia. I told you I wanted you to stay here. Where I can take care of you. Protect you.”
“It was an accident, Nix.”
“Bullshit.”
The word reverberated through the air.
I think we both knew it was exactly that.
Bullshit.
My life was unraveling. My children unsafe.
He exhaled heavily, his tone softening. “Damn it, Mia. What the hell do you expect me to do? I’m stuck here in L.A. while you’re all the way across the country.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just wanted to let you know what happened.”
Silence pulsed through the line.
Weighted.
Drenched in apprehension.
“You should be here. All of you. It isn’t safe. I need to be able to watch over you.”
I released a helpless sigh. “Honestly, Nix, I’m not sure that I’m safe anywhere. I think it’s best we stay here.”
“God damn it, Mia.” The gritted words were barely a whisper.
“We’re fine.”
It was all hapless defense.
Issued without truth.
Because I wasn’t so sure that we were or that we were ever going to be.
“Going to make sure you are. I promise you. Have shit I have to take care of here, and then I’m coming to get you and my kids, Mia.”
Before I could refuse, the line went dead.
I dropped my head into my hands, trying to keep it together.
The last thing I could handle right then was Nix trying to get in the middle of my life. Take the reins the way he always did. Cause more trouble than he ever solved.
My spine stiffened when I felt the presence fall over me from behind.
Blinding and dark.
Perfect and disastrous.
Warily, I peeked at him from over my shoulder, my body slowly swiveling around. Reeled in by the tether that stretched tight between us.
“Who was that?” Leif’s entire demeanor was rigid. Opposing. His attention dropped to the phone I clutched in my hand.
I lifted my chin, refusing to skirt the truth. “The kids’ father.”
His nod was quick. Sharp as a blade. “Guessing you were filling him in on yesterday.”
My lips pursed. “Yes.”
“And?” Caution laced his tone, while that energy threatened to snap.
“He wants us to go back to Los Angeles to be close to him.”
His jaw ticked, and I could hear his teeth grinding from across the space. “And?”
Agony crept in through the seams I was barely holding together.
“And what do you want me to say, Leif? That I want to stay? That I want to stay here where you are? Would you accept it or would you run?”
It was a dare.
A challenge.
A plea.
He inched closer.
Tension writhed in the dense humidity.
The man sucking me into his orbit.
“You think I’m a flight risk?”
I turned my focus to the gate, figuring it would be a whole lot easier than gazing on his striking face. “You were going to leave, Leif. You’re the one who warned me nothing good could come of this. That you were going to ruin me.” The words dropped to nothing. “And you . . . you were apologizing the whole time last night.”
Rejection bottled in my throat, and that vacant space that he’d carved out in the middle of me howled to be filled.
“You think I didn’t hear that, Leif? Feel it? I think it’s been clear from the get go that you’re going to break my heart.”
His hand found my chin, tilting it back toward him. Those brown-sugared eyes flashed.
Grief.
Greed.
Fear.
“Wasn’t apologizing to you, Mia.”
Confusion knitted my brow, and the only thing it took was the stake of agony that burned up his expression to start a brawl in the middle of my chest.
I searched him, my tongue sweeping across my trembling bottom lip. “Then who were you apologizing to?”
God, did I even dare ask the question?
Sheer anguish dented every line on his gorgeous face, this man hemorrhaging from someplace I couldn’t see, but it was anger that purged from his tongue. “It doesn’t matter.”
Disbelief left me on a haggard, brutalized laugh, and my hands moved to my chest like it might keep my heart from spilling out. “It doesn’t matter? How can you even begin to say that, Leif? You push me away and then you refuse to let me go. I think I deserve to know why, don’t you?”
“Mia . . . I . . . I can’t.”
“Leif . . . just . . . talk to me. Please. You can trust me. You’ve been holding me up. Let me hold you up, too.”
“Mia.”
It was refusal.
An appeal.
As if again he didn’t know if he should hold me close or push me away.
“Leif, I’m standing right here, begging you to believe in me.”
His head shook, and he took a step back.
A barrier built.
Disappointment hit me. Full force. My smile was forged, as fake as my surrender. “Okay. Fine. I get it.”
Before I let myself get beat up anymore, I found the strength to turn and walk away.
If he wanted me, he was going to have to prove it.
I was halfway back to the door when he called my name.
A moan of affliction.
I stilled, unsure, but I turned when he muttered, “You want my honest?”
“I do.”
It was an oath.
A promise that I would hold whatever he offered.
He was in front of me in a second, a thunderbolt of grief, his hands squeezing my face in desperation when he released the confession, “I was apologizing to my wife, Mia. My dead wife. That’s who I was apologizing to.”
The words were jagged.
Sharp edges and crushed vestiges.
Nothing left to be repaired.
My eyes rounded with his revelation, mind rushing to process through his anguish.
Through what he had lost.
He started to step away. As if he couldn’t stand in the declaration.
I let my phone slip free so I could grab him by the wrists. Slayed by the realization of where his desperation had come from last night. The ghosts that I had felt wailing in his spirit.
“God . . . Leif. I’m . . . I’m so sorry. So sorry.” I blinked a million times, as if it might erase some of his pain. Like it could soothe mine as I struggled to fumble through the idea that she had been there with us.