Page 42 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

“Pink or red ribbon?”

After watching twenty-two and a half videos online, I was pretty confident I was going to master braiding Penelope’s hair for the first time.

After all, how hard could it be?

Twist a piece of hair one way while twisting another piece the other. Simple.

“Red for Christmas.” She grinned, nestling herself between my legs. “Can you twist it into the hair like Orla does?”

The very mention of her name was a blunt dagger under my ribs.

The void her absence left in the house was slowly suffocating me. It was now seven whole days without her. Seven agonizing days without the floral scent of her perfume, her laughter echoing through the rooms, her body pressed against mine at night, the warmth of her lips melting on mine.

Each second felt like a piece of me was eroding.

Gathering strands of my daughter’s hair, the ribbon balanced between my teeth, I attempted to soothe the gnawing ache by focusing on braiding.

“Will Santa know not to bring my presents to New York anymore?”

Twisting a piece of hair around the ribbon, I reined in my curse as the hair slipped from my grip.

“Because what if the letter we wrote him yesterday doesn’t arrive at the North Pole on time? Then all my presents will be in the wrong house.”

“Don’t fret, mon petit soleil, it’ll get there,” I said between the piece of ribbon in my teeth. “Santa has his elves working overtime during the lead-up to Christmas. Your letter will be there already.”

It was easy not to be surprised by Maura’s sudden change of plans for the holidays, two fucking days before Christmas. Her tantrums, her selfishness —s he was like a child who didn’t get her way, and as usual, she didn’t realize the only person she was hurting was Penelope.

The hardest part of Maura’s selfishness was that I had to be the one to break the news to Penelope.

The look in her eyes, that seed of sadness taking root, merde, I wanted to tear the world apart to make her happy again. But all I could do was give her the best damn Christmas I could muster, even if it didn’t feel like it was enough.

“Phew, I was worried that he wouldn’t get my secret note I attached to the letter.”

My fingers stilled. “What secret note?”

“It’s a letter just for him and no one else.”

My fingers somehow managed to get stuck in the ribbon as I slowly resumed braiding. “And what does your secret letter say? You didn’t try and ask him for a real-life unicorn again, did you? Because we’ve been over this.”

“No unicorns, promise,” she giggled. “But I can’t tell you what it says, silly. Otherwise, it won’t be a secret anymore.”

“I see.”

“What about you? Did you send Santa your own list on time?”

“Adults don’t really write letters to Santa.”

Why didn’t her braid look like any of the ones from the videos? The videos made it look so easy. Groaning, I unraveled her hair and started again.

One way or another, this was going to work, even if it took me all day.

It had to work.

I refused for it to be another thing in my life that was outside my control.

“Does that mean you don’t get any presents at Christmas?”

“Not from Santa,” I explained. “But that’s okay, because seeing you happy and watching you open up all your presents tomorrow morning is the best gift I could ever ask for.”

Penelope leaned back, her tiny body fitting perfectly against mine. The top of her head rested beneath my chin. I inhaled the scent of her strawberry shampoo, mixed with the faint aroma of acrylic paint on her hands.

It was the smell of home and heartbreak.

“I know you don’t get gifts from Santa, but if you could have one present from him, what would it be?”

The answer was so heartbreakingly simple.

Orla.

She said she only needed a couple days, and I respected that, despite wanting to break down the garage door with my bare fists and haul her straight back into the house, where she rightfully belonged.

With the extensive and expensive help of Dr. Moorehead, I was forced to realize that Orla was going through a sudden trauma, and her fight-or-flight response had been activated.

It was totally natural, and although it was killing me not being able to physically help her, I needed to understand that she needed her own time to process.

And as much as it killed me, I loved her enough to give her the space and time she wanted. After all, she’d done it for me.

But with every tick of the clock, every minute that slipped away, it felt like an eternity was passing without her.

Having her home, back with me and Penelope — if I could ask for just one thing in the whole world, it would be that.

I’d pray to any god, any force out there, to have her here. Fuck, I wished the big guy in the red suit existed because he was starting to feel like my only chance of her coming back to me.

Penelope broke my spiral as her face tilted up to me. The small cuts on her nose and cheeks were already starting to heal, but my stomach churned every time I caught sight of the yellowing bruise beneath her right eye. It was a constant reminder of how close I was to losing her.

“Is it a secret like my note?” she asked from beneath thick lashes.

“Something like that.”

“We could share secrets?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me what you wrote on that note to Santa.”

“Only if you go first.”

“Deal.” I cleared my throat. “The one thing I’d ask for is for him to bring Orla home to us.”

The weight of those words hung in the air.

She fell quiet for a second, her lips rubbing together, before she wrapped her arms tightly around my bicep. My heart ruptured in my chest as she said, “It’s okay, Daddy. I asked him for the same thing.”

When the doorbell rang on Christmas morning, my heart tried to leap from my chest into my throat. However, I was forced to swallow the sour taste of disappointment that the five-foot-nothing blonde wasn’t amongst the bodies standing at my front door.

Instead, I stared straight into the faces of Elliott and Noah.

“What are you doing here?” I blocked their entrance, contemplating closing the door and returning to Penelope, who was only halfway through opening her presents.

It had been an almost perfect morning so far.

Watching her open each present, her taking the time to show me each gift and explain what it was, my heart was fit to burst.

That was until now.

“ Grand-mère may have mentioned you were spending Christmas alone with Penny,” Elliott said. “Seeing as I had the day off, I thought you might need a hand cooking Christmas dinner.” He motioned to the box in his hands. “Stole supplies from the hospital canteen during my last night shift.”

I cocked a brow. “You want us to eat hospital food on Christmas?”

Elliott gave me a flat look. “Look, I don’t really have a life outside those white walls.

I was supposed to be working today, but I got my shift covered so I could be here with you.

Not to mention it’s rude to show up empty-handed.

” He pointed a glare at Noah. “Plus, don’t knock the tater tots until you try them. ”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Helly broke up with me, again .”

“What happened this time?” Elliott dared to ask.

“I think she just didn’t want to buy me a Christmas present. I slept in my car for the last two nights and I’m still wearing the clothes from three days ago, so you’ll excuse me if I didn’t have time to stop and buy a bottle of wine.”

“So what?” I shot back. “You thought you’d just crash my Christmas day with my daughter?”

“This is the one day Monarch closes,” Noah’s voice wavered. “I didn’t really know where else to go.”

I might have been frustrated, but I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the man. Even if he had been dumped, today wasn’t the day I wanted to play the grumpy father figure — the Ice Man who didn’t want anyone around.

Not when I knew Penelope would love having them here with us on Christmas day.

Perhaps their presence would help fill the void of those who weren’t here.

After all, they do say the more the merrier, right?

But I still wasn’t ready to let go of the frustration that Orla wasn’t there, that she hadn’t come back — yet.

Dr. Dickhead would have been proud of me when I stepped to the side and let them in. “Come in. But I’m warning you, if these tater tots taste remotely like hospital food, I’ll make you eat the whole batch by yourself.”

Elliott chuckled. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The three of us worked together to cook up what I was generously calling a ‘Christmas dinner.’ I mean, I ordered all the elements — turkey, ham, stuffing, the whole deal. But it didn’t matter, because it turned out we were all equally clueless as each other in the kitchen.

I knew the basics, but cooking a turkey was anything but basic.

Not that it mattered much, because for the first time in a long time, I laughed and had actual fun with Elliott.

I mean I was full-on belly laughing as we attempted to figure out the oven and its ridiculous amount of buttons.

I was thankful for it, giving me the much needed distraction from the one painfully missing thing from it being the perfect day.

We were bumbling our way through the meal like a trio of grinning fools, and damn, it felt good.

After a couple hours, Penelope was off hosting one of her infamous tea parties with Elliott. The sound of her giggles drifted in and out of the kitchen, lighting up the whole house.

“Have you spoken to Orla yet?” Noah asked casually, looking up from where he was trying to piece together the turkey.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, trying not to choke on the question. “No,” I muttered, twisting the cap off and gulping down a mouthful of water, hoping the cold liquid would push down the rising lump in my throat. “She wanted space, and I’m doing my best to respect that.”

And fuck, I hated being respectful.

I would never have given a damn about being respectful before. The old me would have dragged her back kicking and screaming, because it was what I wanted. But it turned out, falling in love had a hell of a way of changing a person.

“Her friend Callie used to keep me updated,” I continued. “But even she’s gone radio silent the last couple days. Won’t return any of my messages and is ignoring all my phone calls. I think she might have blocked my number.”

And it was driving me to the edge of insanity. Non, fuck that I was well over the edge at this point and free-falling deeper into madness.

Noah shrugged, his back turned as he fiddled with the oven’s many buttons. “She’s been coming to her physio appointments.”

The words hit me harder than a bare-knuckled punch to the jaw. I froze, staring at the back of his head. “You’ve seen her?”

Noah didn’t even flinch. He just kept fiddling with a button like he hadn’t just dropped a nuclear bomb on me. “Yup. She’s been showing up, trying to see how we can work through the damage. Two sessions so far, actually.”

My breath caught in my chest as the warm kitchen swam around me, the walls shifting inward and closing in around me.

She was moving on, fighting for herself, pushing forward.

Without me.

Elliott reappeared. My mind was still trying to compute Noah’s words that I didn’t register my brother wearing a purple tutu, a pair of child sized fairy wings, and a shitload of glitter in his dark messed hair and staining his glasses.

I raked my hand across my face. “How’s she…Did she look… I mean, is she okay?”

“She’s doing good. It’ll be slow progress, but I reckon I can get the mobility back in her hand to almost eighty-five percent normality.

” Noah offered a small smile. “She even asked me to show her exercises to become ambidextrous, so that she can learn to paint with both hands. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be tough, but I think she has it in her to do it. ”

Pride swelled within my chest at the image of Orla getting the help she needed, especially after her friend’s last update about missing another appointment.

She was finally on track.

She was going to be okay.

And yet, she still hadn’t come back.

It was a bittersweet moment.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I wondered if that was just some stupid myth. Maybe for her, the space was making her realize how much she didn’t need me in her life.

The sting of rejection pierced through my sternum.

“Just give her a little more time,” Elliott said, his shoulder brushing against mine. “She’ll come back, you’ll see.”

Everyone always leaves.

Everyone always finds a reason to go.

Shaking away my old habits of crippling self-doubt, just as Dr. Moorehead had taught me, I exhaled slowly while counting the tips of my fingers on my hands.

“I should never have let her push me away in the first place. I should never have agreed to letting her stay in that garage, I should have made her stay here with me.”

Elliott gave me a pointed look. “The old you, the one who is a far cry from the man standing in front of me, would’ve been selfish and forced your way into staying at her side because it was what you wanted.

You would have let your own selfishness take priority, and that wouldn’t have done either of you any favors.

She would’ve resented you. You did the right thing by respecting her wishes, Frederic. ”

“And look where it’s gotten me,” I snapped. “I can’t fucking sleep. I can’t eat or breathe without pain.”

Noah chimed in. “Sounds like falling in love, alright.”

I scoffed. “It’s exactly why I swore I’d never do it again. Love only ever brings pain and misery. It’s no better than a fucking disease.”

Elliott’s expression softened. “For years, I watched you become more robotic, more cold, more distant. You shut everyone out, including your own family, and look, I get it. It’s how you handled all that pain from losing our maman.

You’re the oldest, you had to carry that burden of grief heavier than the rest of us.

But then came Penelope, and she made you somewhat human again.

And Orla? Fuck me, Orla was the last piece of that puzzle.

She pulled you out of the ice, Frederic. She brought you fully back to life.”

His words hit harder than I expected...

“She loves you, Frederic, it’s obvious that she just got scared.” Elliott rested his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Give her a few more days, she’ll be back, I know it.”

“And if she still doesn’t come back?”

Elliott’s eyes narrowed beneath his glitter-flecked glasses. “Then you stop being so goddamn respectful, and you do whatever it takes to bring her home.”