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Only, it turned out Joey was obsessed with her new baby sister. She’d declared many times how happy she was to have more girls in the house.

Our house that had once been oddly empty felt ready to burst now, and it was as close to perfect as it could be.

“Daddy!” Joey shouted as she opened the fridge to help me cook. “Why do you havemushrooms?” she asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Oh, that must be an accident!” I gasped, refusing to admit I had purchased them for my own dinner. If I admitted to her that I was planning to cook with mushrooms, she would have scampered out of the kitchen so damn fast, and I wouldn’t have seen her for the rest of the night.

I could survive without them.

More than anything, I wanted my little girl next to me as she stood on her step stool, spending some quality time with her as we made dinner for her and Zoey’s mother.

Chapter 52

Beth

It was a calm and easy morning. Jensen was back at work, and Cullen was overseeing things at the restaurant while Joey was at school.

Gideon needed to go to the office, but he refused to leave me at home with Zoey on my own. Even though I was perfectly capable of handling a few hours, it comforted me to know he was near.

After a lot of debate, we had come to the compromise that he would work in his home office while Zoey and I relaxed in the living room, wrapped up in a pile of blankets and watching trashy TV with a snack plate.

Actually, my amazing, intellectual mate had been adamant that documentaries were the best thing for my daughter’s squishy little brain, but I wanted some cheap drama. Surely the baby wasn’t old enough to really hear and understand what I was watching?

Maybe a nature documentary or two wouldn’t hurt.

We were twenty minutes into a show about the rainforest, and I was about thirty seconds away from falling asleep, when a knock on the door jolted me to reality. Blinking, I checked onZoey, who was fast asleep in her bassinet. I knew that Gideon had a work call, and it was likely just a delivery driver with even more baby items, so, getting up and stretching, I padded toward the door.

Unfortunately for me, instead of a delivery driver with presents, my fathers stood on my doorstep.

Thankfully, there were no brothers this time, and the pair of them looked more sedate than usual, but I wasn’t happy to see them in the slightest.

“What do you want?” I snarled, standing in the doorway and refusing to let them come in. “I see you opted to forgo the police escort this time.”

“Beth…” Richard frowned. “This is so unlike you.”

“We want you to come home,” Frank, said, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“I know the way we went about it last time was a bit extreme, but we were just worried…Did you have the baby?” he asked, furrowing his brow as he took in my drastically decreased bump.

I couldn’t help the loud snort that escaped my chest. “I did. You have a granddaughter. Congratulations. Now get the hell away from my house.”

“Can’t we see her?” my pa asked.

Shaking my head, I planted myself firmly in the doorway so they couldn’t get past. “You are not allowed near my daughter.”

Both their faces fell. What did they expect—that they would try to forcefully remove me from my pack by bringing the police to my door, and I would just let them in for a snuggle session with my baby?

“This is insane, Beth. What would your mother say? You ruined Hayden’s relationship with that call. Tearing down your family isn’t like you.”

Those words stung, deep and painful. Normally, my reaction would be sadness, tears, but instead, what rose in me was pure, unbridled rage.

“You want to know the truth, Dads?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “The truth is, Ihatedcoming home. Hated it with a vengeance. Do you know why? Since the moment Mom died, I became the catchall for everything in our house—the cleaning, the cooking, the emotional labor. I was a fuckingchildwho lost my mother, and you turned me into the surrogate mother of our household. Even now, my brothers are grown-ass adults, yet when I come home, I have to cook for them and do their laundry?”

Both my fathers appeared startled at my outburst.

“Beth, you can’t mean that. I thought you liked helping…”