Page 159 of Daddies' Holiday Toy

I can feel the difference in the way they look at me, but I can also tell I’m holding myself higher, keeping my chin tilted up, even when the whispers become almost deafening.

Jack notices, like he always does, and murmurs as he slides a rapidly emptying tray back into the display case, “You’re doing good, sweetheart. Just keep breathing.”

Reece ends up handling half the counter work, turning his usual charm into something that’s downright impossible not to fall into.

It works.

For a while.

Until the door swings open again and the air changes.

I’m faced with the last person I ever wanted to see on such a special day: my mother.

Even though I’ve been bracing for this moment, every ignored text echoes now like a ticking clock in the back of my head, the sight of her still hits like a punch to the ribs.

She looks…unmoored.

Her coat’s buttoned wrong, crooked like she fumbled it on in a hurry.

Her hair is pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, wisps falling out around her face as if she didn’t bother to look in the mirror at all before rushing over here.

Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, but it’s the glassiness in her eyes that freezes me in place.

She stands just inside the doorway, not moving further in.

Watching me.

It’s not the hard, cutting glare I expected, it’s softer. Sadder.

Her hands are twisting together in front of her, the way they used to when she was nervous before a big meeting or waiting on bad news.

She looks like she’s not even sure if she has the right to be here.

Or maybe she’s trying to figure out how to start the conversation she clearly came here for.

Somehow, that uncertainty scares me more than if she’d just started yelling.

“Maggie,” Liam says from somewhere to my left, his voice cautious.

Her gaze flicks to him, just for a second, before snapping back to me. “Holly…”

I force a breath into my lungs. “Mom.”

She steps forward, slow, like every inch between us is something she has to force herself to cross. “I…heard about your grand re-opening. I wanted to come see it for myself. And…support you in whatever way I can.”

“I—” The word barely leaves my mouth before she barrels over it.

“I’m…I’m so…” Her voice trembles, and for a moment I think it’s because she’s angry, but then her eyes grow glassier and I realize it’s because she’s on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry about everything. I never wanted things to devolve like this between us. I love you. So, so much. You’re my baby. And I’m—I regret making you feel like I was disappointed in you. I was just scared for you.”

My eyes cloud with tears. “Mom…”

“I know your father’s done some really bad things in the past,” she cuts in, her voice breaking on the words. “I got caught up in his charms just like I did when we were kids. I never meant to hurt you by not telling you. I—I was ashamed, and that should’ve told me how wrong it was to try and work things out with him again.”

Before I know it, I’m moving around the counter and closing the distance between us.

She gasps softly when I wrap my arms around her, a small, helpless noise leaving her right as she grabs onto me and holds me tight.

I’m not sure how long we stay like that, but when we finally pull back, tears are streaming down both of our faces.