Page 79 of Beauty and the Daddy

I check the living room, the library, even the pool house. Nothing.

The panic is now all I see and feel.

Where the hell is she?

I've turned the entire estate upside down. My security team is checking the cameras.

The anxiety claws into me, an unwelcome little fucker. With Belle missing, I'm terrified. What if Declan was right? What if, someday, she gets what she wants and leaves. Where does that leave Sofia? Me?

I storm back into the house, ready to tear the place apart again, when I hear it—the faint sound of a television coming from Sofia's room.

I climb the stairs with my heart in my throat, and freeze in the doorway.

And there they are; my whole world in one frame.

Sofia sprawled like a starfish, dark hair wild against white pillows, one small arm thrown protectively across Belle's waist. Belle curled toward her, hand resting on her stomach, face peaceful in sleep.

The TV throws pale blue across both of them.

The room is littered with evidence of a party: crayons, stuffed animals, a bowl full of snacks.

My chest tightens, then loosens, like a fist unclenching. The panic drains incrementally, leaving me a little shaky and annoyed at being human.

I stand in the doorway and let myself want: A quieter life, fewer cameras, a version of me that knows how to hold a woman without looking over her shoulder for ghosts, and a life where I step into this room without feeling like I'm going to wake up and it'll all be gone.

My eyes stick on the scene and refuse to move. Declan's words spin in my head, and I push them away before they can land.

I don't know. Maybe I'm an idiot or a coward. Maybe I'm protecting her by not naming it suspicion. Maybe I'm protecting myself.

Sofia snuffles and rolls, and Belle's hand adjusts without waking, the kind of protective move you don't teach. You either have it or you don't.

She has it.

A memory sneaks in—early morning, a woman laughing in the kitchen, baby Sofia kicking in a high chair, me thinking life is ugly and then wrong and then ugly again, and maybe I can leave it all behind and find us all a slice of heaven to live in.

I remember the way things ended.

The boom I still hear sometimes when I close my eyes.

Loss is like muscle memory in this house.

I swallow around it. I step closer. The cartoon cracks a joke; the laugh track claps for itself. I want to turn the TV off and freeze them in this exact light where the world is simple. I don't move.

"Life could've been different," I hear myself say—too quiet to be for anyone but me.

Maybe. Or maybe I'd have found a new way to ruin it.

Belle shifts, and I freeze like a thief, but she only burrows. I kneel without thinking. My fingers hover over her hair but don't touch.

Sofia's face is open, peaceful in sleep. I look at her, and something inside me gives up pretending.

"Sofia and I can't handle any more loss," I whisper. Saying it out loud doesn't make it less true. It just makes it real enough to hurt.

I exhale. Long. Quiet. Ready to stand up and go back out.

Then Belle's lashes flutter.

She just blinks, registers me, registers Sofia heavy on her arm, registers the quiet in my face.