Page 40 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

My own driveway felt like a foreign place. The dark garage loomed before me, its windows staring back like a pair of soulless eyes taunting me. I was barely able to bring myself to look at it directly.

I hadn’t been inside since the day Orla sent me away. Merde, I was trying so goddamn hard to respect her wishes. To give her the space she asked for.

She’d made it clear, no visits, no pressure, no me.

She needed time. She needed space.

But I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t know how to stand by and do nothing when everything about it felt so fucking wrong.

She was in there, within reach, and I didn’t have a clue how she was.

I didn’t know if she was starving herself, or crying herself to sleep every night, or worse, just lying there in the dark, completely numb and disappearing into herself.

Every inch of my being wanted to go inside, to see her again.

To break the fucking door down just to make sure she was still alive.

But I didn’t.

I told myself I was doing the right thing. I was letting her heal, giving her the space she desperately pleaded for.

It turned out it wasn’t just my daughter that I’d do anything for, even if it meant going against every instinct in my body.

But at night, when I lay awake in the stillness of the deafeningly silent house, my chest tight and my heart breaking apart at the very seams, I wondered if giving her what she wanted was really the right thing, not just for her but for us.

I know she gave me the time to heal when I asked for it, the very thing she begged for in return, but the difference was I didn’t send her away. I kept her by my side while I dealt with my bullshit.

Then again, I isolated and shut everyone out of my life for several years before Orla came along and uprooted my whole world.

Dr. Moorehead informed me that everyone heals from trauma in different ways, and that sometimes isolation is an important step on the path of self-acceptance to needing help.

He wasn’t a fan of my idea of ignoring that and kindly reminded me that I needed to respect Orla’s wishes for a little bit longer if I had any hope of getting her back.

It had been three days. Three fucking torturous days since I last laid eyes on her, since I last touched her, since she placed that kiss on the side of my lips that tasted too much like a goodbye for my liking.

I replayed that moment over and over until I drove myself to falling into my old habits of self-crippling-doubt.

What if she never came back from this?

What if she resents me for not doing more?

What if she wants a fresh start away from me and Penelope?

Orla consumed every waking thought. I was a man possessed, unable to stop myself from thinking about her and the accident.

How I couldn’t save her. How she’d thrown her arm across my daughter’s tiny chest without hesitation.

The very same arm that was now the reason she couldn’t do the thing she loved, the thing that wasn’t part of her soul anymore. If only I’d been there.

If only I hadn’t gone to therapy that day.

If only I’d been the one to go to the store and buy the paintbrushes.

It was a constant internal battle not to let myself dwell too long on those thoughts.

Especially when Penelope needed me. Maura, unsurprisingly, was continuously letting her down.

It was bad enough that Maura didn’t want to physically see Penelope, but she was now starting to ignore her daughter’s phone calls.

Watching the glimmer die in Penelope’s eyes every time the call went to voicemail was a hot poker straight through my ribcage.

Penelope deserved better than a mother who treated her as an afterthought.

Between that and Orla’s absence, it was obvious the toll it was taking on Penelope. She was quieter, and I was convinced she could see straight through every single one of the lies I made up about why Orla wasn’t coming out of the garage.

Fuck , I didn’t want to lie to her. I detested lying to my child.

But what was I supposed to say when the woman who’d made her laugh, who braided her hair, who fingerpainted with her until they were both covered head-to-toe in paint, who loved her as if she were her own, was within reach yet so far away?

I started moving around the house like a ghost, keeping busy by any means and distracting myself with housework and rearranging the bedrooms. I even surprised my Grand-mère with a couple unsolicited phone calls that ended with sworn promises that I’d fly back to Monaco more.

Whatever it took to keep my mind off Orla.

But it wasn’t enough.

I missed her so fucking much, it actually hurt to breath without her.

Every room in this house felt somehow emptier. The kitchen, where she hummed to herself while cooking and cursed at the oven, the back garden, where she nestled herself in the sunshine and lost hours to herself painting, and the makeshift art studio she and Penelope created.

The bedroom — our bedroom, without her, felt like a tomb.

I needed to be closer to her. To feel like I was still tethered to her in some way.

That’s why I moved into the spare room with the window that faced the garage. It felt like the only thing I could control. The only way I could be near her, without actually being near her.

Every night without her, I’d lie on the mattress staring out the window, waiting for the smallest sign of life from that garage. I’d watch for any shadows to shift, hoping for a flicker of light, a hint of movement.

Waiting for something.

Anything.

But every damn day there was always nothing.

I kept trying to hold onto the hope she’d finally come out. That she’d walk through the door and straight back to me and Penelope.

Truthfully, I hated myself for moving into the spare room. It felt utterly and hopelessly desperate. But it was the only thing I could do that made it feel like I wasn’t completely at risk of losing her.

The worst part? It didn’t even help. Every time I looked through the window, I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe she was letting herself pull further away from me.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out the window, I heard the soft creak of the hallway floorboards behind me. I didn’t move at first, half thinking it was just my exhausted mind imagining things but then came the small shuffle of little feet.

“Daddy?”

I turned. “ Mon petit soleil, what are you doing awake at this hour?”

She hugged her floppy-eared rabbit teddy, Jasper, tightly to her chest. “I can’t sleep.”

I crossed the room and crouched in front of her. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“My tummy feels funny.”

Placing my hand on her forehead, I checked her temperature. “Are you feeling sick?”

“I don’t feel sick,” she said. “It’s just…”

I waited for her to finish, yet the words never came. “What’s wrong, Penelope? You know you can tell me anything.”

“I miss Orla.”

I swallowed hard, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know you do, mon petit soleil . I miss her too.”

She looked past me, toward the window. “Is she still in there?”

“I think so.”

I hope so.

“Is she mad at me?”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and fuck something that was somehow still intact splintered in my chest.

“No,” I said quickly, despite the tightness coiling around my throat. “No, mon petit soleil . She’s not mad at you at all. Orla just… She got really hurt, do you remember?”

“Didn’t the doctors make her better like they fixed me?”

“They tried their best, but there are some things that doctors can’t fix. And sometimes when people are hurting like that, they need to be alone for a little while. But not because of anything you did.”

“But I said I preferred the pancakes from the shops over hers. What if that made her sad?”

I let out a strangled breath that was almost a laugh. “Orla knows you didn’t mean that in a bad way. Plus, I think she also agrees with you.”

Penelope looked up at me from beneath her lashes. “Can I sleep in here with you? I don’t want to miss it when she comes out. That way, we can give her a big hug when she comes home.”

I lifted her into my arms, Jasper too, and carried her over to the bed. “Of course you can stay here with me.”

She curled into my side as I pulled the blanket over us, her small hand slipping into mine under the covers.

I dared one last look out the window.

The garage was still dark.

Still quiet.

Still so fucking far yet so painfully close.

“She’s going to come back, right?” Pe n elope whispered into my chest. “This is her home. She can’t leave her home.”

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and inhaled her strawberry shampoo. “I hope so. I really, really hope so.”