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The sound of footsteps made me turn. Rhett stood in the doorway. “Everything okay? Thought I’d better come check on you, since?—”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not a baby! I don’t need you checking on me all the damn time!” Oh fuck, that was awful and now I was embarrassed. I turned away, slipping my phone back into my pocket and folding my arms. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s fine. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just…nothing. Don’t worry about it. It’s just dumb shit I should have got over a long time ago.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he said softly. “Do you need a hug?”
“Maybe a little one, yeah.” He turned me gently to face him and wrapped his arms around me, tucking my head under his chin and ruffling my hair gently.Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.I squeezed my eyes shut, barely holding back the tears. “Just a bit tighter.”
Rhett’s arms squeezed me so tight I could barely breathe. Enough so that I didn’t shatter into a million pieces. His heart beating under my cheek was soothing, so I started counting it out, regulating my breathing until I could pull in air more naturally. Finally, I felt like I could stay upright without his arms around me, so I pulled back.
CHAPTER 36
Rhett
Isensed the moment some of the tension left Scarlett and when she pulled away from me, it was with a small smile on her face. I had to fight the urge to pull her back in, to hold her close again. To do whatever it took to take that sadness out of her eyes.
I wasn’t sure what had gotten her so upset. Honestly, it could be any number of things. She had so much going on that it constantly surprised me that she wasn’t a blubbering mess, curled up in the fetal position.
“I guess we should head back out there.”
“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to. Or don’t feel up to it. We can just say you’re feeling unwell and need to go. If this is all too much…”
“No, it’s not. I just got a text from my mom. Veronica, I mean. Fuck, it’s all so confusing. But anyway, she’s just being her typical self and that’s why I should be used to it. But whatever.”
A smarter person than me would know how to deal with this, would know what to say. But yeah, I was monumentally stupidwhen it came to all this emotional stuff, so I just stood there, mute.
Scarlett’s gaze slid away from mine, like she was self-conscious. Fuck, I wish I had the words for this. I wished for that even more, in the next few moments, as her gaze landed on the mantelpiece and she stiffened.
Her eyes scanned along it, taking in the framed family photos arranged there. I followed her gaze. Among the smiling baby pictures of Grace, Lily, Mia, and Oliver - each lovingly dated with their birth dates - there was one more frame. One that I guess Scarlett hadn’t expected to see there.
Tentatively, she reached out and picked it up, cradling it in her trembling hands. The photo was of a newborn baby wrapped in a soft pink blanket, her tiny face scrunched up and eyes firmly shut against the bright lights. And etched into the simple silver frame were the words “Our Baby” and a date of birth.
“This is your birth date?”
She nodded wordlessly.
“Wow,” I murmured, reaching out to gently trace the engraved letters with my fingertip. “That’s...wow.” I let a few more moments pass, and then because I was me, I said, “You were a very ugly baby.”
I fucking adored the snort she let out. “You’re a raging asshole. Absolutely beyond redemption.”
“I know it.”
Her gaze dropped back to the frame in her hands as her smile faded. “I just... I can’t believe they kept this. All these years, they really never forgot about me.”
“Of course they didn’t. You’re their daughter, Scarlett. Their family. And now you’ve found your way home.”
“Look at you, waxing lyrical.”
“Yeah, who’d have thought?” I guess I did have the right words sometimes.
Scarlett replaced the frame on the mantel, running her fingertip over the image one more time. “It hurt her so much. Giving me up.”
“Yeah.”
“She left home at eighteen. Apparently, she’d begged and pleaded with them not to make her go through with the adoption, that she could make it work. That Ethan would help her. But they wouldn’t listen. After it was over and she was back home in Tennessee, she just couldn’t look at them the same way. She hasn’t spoken to them since she ran away at eighteen. She doesn’t even know where they are, or if they’re even still alive.”