“All right?” I ask.
She squints her eyes against the sun. “Maybe I should sit with Baby Bear so she’s not scared.”
“She’s fine,” I say, waving to the bear. “She’s not scared, sweetheart. And I won’t let go of you, so you don’t need to be either, okay? I promise.”
She looks over the sparkling water. “Okay,” she finally says, and she sucks in a breath at the next steps which brings the water up to her stomach.
I take both her hands and face her as I walk backwards down the last two steps. She stays where she is as I dunk my head under. The water feels great on this hot, sticky day. I shake out my hair and splash her, making her giggle.
“Come on, you just hold on to me,” I tell her. I take her in a hug and carry her into the pool.
She wraps her arms around my neck seeming amazed as I bob us around, staying in the area where I can stand, not yet going into the deep end. Whenever I test if she’s ready for me to loosen my hold on her, she only tightens hers and glances at her bear.
“Have you ever played starfish, Angelique?”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“It’s when you lay on your back in the water and pretend you’re a starfish. It’s easy. Want me to show you?”
She nods.
“Okay. I’m going to put you down on the edge of the pool, okay? You don’t come in without me, understand?”
She nods as I set her down, her tiny feet in the water. I stay within arm’s reach and float on my back, extending my arms and legs to make a star shape.
“See, like this?”
She watches me and I make sure to keep one hand on her as I float.
“Do you see that?” I ask, pointing up at a cloud. “I think it looks like an ice cream cone. Do you think so too?”
She turns her face to it, and I watch her squint, wondering if she’s even been in a pool before. Wondering how any five-year-old is more afraid of the water than she is excited to get in it. I blame Jericho St. James for her fear.
“I see it!” she exclaims. “And look at that one. It looks like Baby Bear!”
“Oh my goodness, it really does! Want to play starfish and find shapes in the clouds?”
She looks me over and nods.
I straighten, collect her in my arms again and pull her into the water.
“Belle?”
I smile down at her. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“I’m a little scared.”
I hug her. “I’ll be right here. I won’t let you go for a second. I promise, okay? You’re safe with me. Do you feel safe with me?”
She nods.
“Okay then, here we go. You’re just going to lie down, okay? Just lie down and my hand will be like a pillow for your head. All you have to do is breathe like normal. If you fill up your belly with air, you’ll float just like I did, okay?”
“You won’t let me go?”
“Nope.”
It takes a moment and I feel the tension in her body, but then I see her decide to do it. Feel her relax just enough to lay back. A few minutes later as she lies with arms and legs extended, I see her smile. I draw my hand out from under her head and intertwine our fingers as I join her and we float, two starfish in the water.
“That one’s a unicorn,” she says, and I glance over at her with a smile. I wonder about her life, about her mom, about the darkness I glimpse in eyes too young to know anything but light.
“Definitely,” I say and am about to point out a hippopotamus when a dark shadow falls over us.
I gasp, straightening, my feet not touching down because we’ve floated into the deep end. As soon as I go under, Angelique panics and flails her arms to get hold of me. I catch her before her head even goes under, but a huge splash sends us bobbing. A moment later, two powerful arms wrap around us and we’re dragged to the shallow end where Angelique is snatched away from me.
We’re both sputtering water and coughing. I wipe my eyes with wet hands before opening them to find Jericho St. James in the water still fully dressed in his suit holding his daughter tight to his chest, glaring daggers at me.
13
Jericho
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Isabelle startles, stopping short when she comes out of her bathroom clutching a towel with one hand.
I showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt after making sure Angelique was all right. I’ve been pacing in here ever since. I take Isabelle in, looking her over as she tightens her hold on that towel, long wet hair sticking to her shoulders and arms. I see the effort it takes her not to go scurrying back into the bathroom to escape my wrath.
Seeing them out there when I came home, seeing Angelique lying in the pool like that, fuck, my heart almost gave out.
“She can’t swim,” I tell Isabelle. “She’s five years old!”
“We were just having fun. I was there. I didn’t let her out of my sight. I didn’t let go of her once!”
I stalk right up to her, catching up with her in what seems to be our natural stance: her back pressed against a wall, me towering over her. It conjures an image similar to some of the pictures in Angelique’s fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast. I realize how unflattering it is to me, but I don’t care.
I squeeze my hands then flex them and finally shove them into my pockets to keep from wrapping them around her neck. I’m so angry. So fucking angry I don’t know what I’ll do otherwise.
“Who gave you permission to go outside? I told you—”
“What, is that a commandment too? Should we add it to your list after thou shalt not swear?”
My hands turn into fists in my pockets and a growl comes from inside my chest.
She hears it and shuts her mouth, leaning a little farther from me although there’s nowhere to go.
I count to ten. “Who gave you permission to take my daughter into the pool?”
“No one,” she says. “I just… Your mother asked me to look after her,” she starts, voice growing more anxious as she continues. “It was so hot, and she’s not allowed in the woods even with your thousand guards and impenetrable wall!” This part sounds like some sort of accusation. “And I get that if she’s alone, but she wouldn’t even go with me because you won’t let her!”
“She’s scared of the water.”
“Because she doesn’t know how to swim. I don’t know many five-year-old’s who do but I know even less who are more afraid than excited to jump into a swimming pool! You’ve got her scared of her own shadow—”
My right hand closes around her throat. It’s not even conscious. “And you know this after spending a few hours with her. She’s my daughter. Mine!”
She’s gone too far. She knows it. “We were just floating. Playing a game,” she says, both hands around my forearm, her towel dropping to the floor.
I look down at her, naked, vulnerable. At my mercy. I loosen my grip on her neck.
“She was safe the whole time. She was having fun.” The whites of her eyes are pink, the skin around them wet. When I let go of her neck, she realizes she lost her towel and covers herself with her arms. “Until you decided to jump in fully clothed and send us under with that tsunami! Why would you do that?”