Page 43 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

Christmas was supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year.

But truthfully, I hated Christmas. I hated the way the world wrapped itself in cheer, cinnamon, tinsel, and love. It was a day for sharing and miracles, being wrapped in loving warmth, not guilt and grief, and nerve damage.

Gee whizz, I’ve become the actual Grinch.

I hadn’t cried today — yet. But I could feel the little wet traitors waiting on standby, especially after watching Love Actually for the fourth time on loop, because apparently, I was all for self-torment these days.

Truthfully, the real reason the tears primed themselves, ready to do what they did best, was because I missed Frederic and Penelope.

By the stars, I missed them so fucking much.

Frederic, with his quiet steadiness, his crooked smile, and the way he smelled like mint and home .

And Pen with her fairy tea parties, and her fierce little heart that she opened up to me from day one.

The way she’d sit cross-legged between my legs while she studied my paintings and tried her best to copy like I was some kind of magic-maker instead of the fraud I felt like now.

I convinced myself I needed space to heal.

I told myself that I would only come back when I was no longer a mess, no longer battling with the constant threat of fear trying to drown me.

I told myself I’d come back after a couple more physiotherapy appointments.

I told myself I’d come back when I was whole, when I was worth loving again.

Not like this.

Not broken.

Not a fractured version of myself.

But the cold, echoing silence wasn’t healing me like I thought it would. It was swallowing me whole, sucking me in deeper and threatening to never let me go.

I pulled on the nearest clothes I could find.

Paint smudged leggings, a sweater that still smelled faintly like Frederic’s aftershave, and a pair of mismatched shoes.

Not sure how I managed to have one Doc Marten and one trainer, but I didn’t care.

I just needed to get out of the loneliness of the garage, to breathe for a second.

Maybe there was a fast-food place open somewhere I could soothe myself with dripping grease and cheese.

I yanked the door open and froze.

There, sitting just outside the door on the welcome mat, was a small box wrapped in shiny paper with little cartoon unicorns wearing Santa hats. A tag was taped to the top, my eyes instantly landing on the crooked yet heartbreakingly familiar handwriting: To Orla, from Me and Daddy.

My knees gave way before I even touched the parcel. I sank down onto the cold concrete with a thud, blinking through the newest set of tears coming thick and fast.

With shaking hands, I peeled the wrapping paper away. Inside was a tiny snow globe, one of those old-fashioned kinds that I used to adore playing with when I was a young girl, with a tiny cottage surrounded by birch trees and glittering falling snow.

The real sucker punch was nestled beside the snow globe. Opening the piece of paper with trembling fingers, I discovered a finger-painted drawing of the three of us.

She’d come here.

Penelope hadn’t forgotten me. She hadn’t stopped loving me. Not even like this.

I ran my fingers over Penelope’s crooked writing scrawled underneath the painting: My family.

My family. That’s who I ran from.

Sweet hell, what had I done?

I pressed the painting to my chest right where my heart was breaking apart all over again.

For the first time in weeks, I let myself believe it might be okay to stop hiding and to stop isolating myself, just like my old teenage self.

Inhaling deeply, I didn’t think twice as I ran to the main house.

I had no idea what I was going to find when I got there.

I had no idea how Frederic would look at me or how Penelope would react, but one thing was crystal clear: I couldn’t keep pretending I was stronger and able to heal without them.

My finger hovered over the doorbell as I closed my eyes for a moment.

Frederic had once said I was the light guiding him out of the darkness, and maybe that was true. But being without him the last eight days, made me see that I shone the brightest with him by my side.

I wasn’t fixed. I wasn’t healed. I didn’t have all the answers. But I refused to breathe life into the fear that I had allowed to control me for days as I plucked up enough courage to press the doorbell.

No more running.

No more hiding.

Frederic loved me, every part of me. He’d shown that over our seven months together, and I had stupidly let fear take control and blind me to that.

Something I knew I’d never forgive myself for.

Penelope’s excited voice broke through my thoughts, her giggles of excitement and squeals of joy sounding through the front door and warming me in an instant.

Gee whizz, I missed that sound.

After several nerve-wracking seconds, which felt like long, drawn-out hours, the door finally opened.

Every part of me stilled as the oh-so-familiar scent of mint and his aftershave greeted me, beckoning me to run straight into his strong arms and bury my face into his chest.

My knees threatened to buckle again. The dark emptiness that threatened to consume me whole slowly withdrew its painful hold on me as I dared to meet his gaze.

Frederic remained motionless, his eyes unblinking and his hands clenching into tight, white-knuckled fists at his side.

It’s now or never.

He looked wrung out. A shadow of the man I knew. The weariness and exhaustion in his dimming baby-blues made my chest ache. But it was the way he stared at me, like he didn’t believe I was really standing here, that ripped through my entire being.

“Orla,” he said so quietly that I almost missed it. “You’re home.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. For the first time in years, I couldn’t think of the right thing, hell, anything to say.

Sweet lord, speak woman!

Thankfully, Penelope’s arms wrapping themselves around my waist acted like the anchor I so desperately needed.

“I knew you’d come back!” Penelope’s grip tightened around me like I might disappear if she dared let go for even a second. “And just in time for Christmas dinner! Uncle Elliott and Noah said it’s going to be the best Christmas dinner ever.”

“Merry Christmas, Pen.” My lips wobbled into a smile. “I’ve missed you so much.”

She nuzzled her head against my hip. “I missed you, too. It’s not the same when you aren’t here with us.”

Leaving Frederic was painful enough, but the fact that I left Penelope too? Fuck, I’d been a fool. A stupid fool. I didn’t deserve either of them in my life for the pain I knew I caused them.

My eyes remained fixed on Frederic, who stood frozen like a human statue, staring at me as if I were an illusion.

One blink and I’d vanish before his very eyes.

“You okay?” he asked tightly.

I didn’t answer straight away, because in all honesty, I was the furthest thing from okay. My hand was still damaged, my mind still a pile of horseshit, but seeing him, being this close to him, the claws of fear finally loosened their week-long grip from around my throat.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Frederic.”

“Sorry?” He stepped forward before he stopped himself getting too close. His lips turned downward as a deep line knitted between his brows. “Why are you sorry, ma chérie ?”

“Because I left. I thought I needed time. I thought I needed to figure this all out by myself, but really… I was just scared,” I said quietly.

“Scared of becoming a burden. Scared of having a life without direction. Scared that I’d feel like myself again.

Scared that I would no longer be enough for you. ”

Pain etched deeply across his face. “Not enough for me?”

My teeth chewed the corner of my bottom lip until copper coated my taste buds.

“Orla, you are everything to me.” He ran his hand through his hair as he exhaled heavily. “I wish I had done more to make you see you didn’t have to do this alone. I wish I’d made you see that you are anything but a burden to me.”

“I was afraid that this version of me now, this hot fucking mess that I am, won’t be enough for you,” I admitted coarsely. “I still don’t know if I’ll ever get back what I lost, I don’t know if I will ever be the girl you fell for, but I want to try.”

“Penelope, can you give me and Orla a couple minutes alone?”

“Okay.” Penelope relented, her grip tightening on me for just a second longer before she let go. “Oh, did you get my present?”

“I did.” I smiled. “I love it so much, Pen, as well as your beautiful painting.”

“Daddy picked the snow-globe.”

I swallowed, blinking hard against the pressure building behind my eyes. “They were the most perfect Christmas presents I could ever ask for.”

Penelope hobbled back to the kitchen with a grin, but just before she disappeared from sight, she turned back and said, “Santa definitely got my note, Daddy. He brought her back to us just like we wished.”

I meant what I said, I didn’t deserve an ounce of the love Penelope had for me, but I would spend the rest of my life showing her exactly what she meant to me.

Not allowing silence to take a place between us, Frederic said, “I’m glad you came back.”

“You are?”

“Honestly, if you hadn’t shown up by dinner time, I was going to break down that garage door and drag you back here anyway.”

A weak excuse of a chuckle bubbled through the lump wedged firmly in my throat.

“Do you really think you’re not enough for me?” Frederic asked thickly. “Is that what you really think, Orla?”

My chin trembled as I opened my mouth before closing it again.

Yes.

I was nothing more than broken goods without a purpose in her life.

Frederic had already gone through so much already, sacrificed so much to get Penelope right where she belonged, my inner demons of self-doubt told me he didn’t need my shit messing up his life after he’d fought to get it perfect.

He stepped closer, his hand reaching and cupping my face so gently like I might shatter under his touch. His thumb brushed over my cheek, wiping the new traitorous tears away—how did I still have any freaking tears left?

I knew I had a long road ahead of me, something my physiotherapist, Noah, was quick to point out.

And it wasn’t just my hand he was talking about.

Depression, anxiety, apparently they came hand-in-hand— excuse the shitty pun— with traumatic injuries like mine.

Turns out Noah wasn’t wrong. Because I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, without feeling the weight of all my fears crashing into me.

The fear that I’d become a shadow of who I used to be.

The fear of never being able to be the woman Frederic fell in love with, the version of me I was before the accident.

“Orla, listen to me.” He leant down, his forehead finding mine.

“You are everything to me. And nothing, not your hand, not your fears, not any of this will ever change that. You’re more than enough.

You and Penelope are everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I had convinced myself I didn’t deserve for a long time. ”

I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the words and the warmth of his breath wash over me.

For the first time in weeks, I allowed myself to believe I was enough.

“Seven months ago, you came into my life, and you changed me,” he said. “You’ve changed everything. Not just me, but Penelope too. You brought love, you brought joy, you brought life into our world. You were the glue that held us together when we… Non, when I was so close to falling apart.”

Leaning into his touch, my hands, both bad and good, rested on his chest.

“And you,” he continued, “you saw me. The me I tried to hide behind ironclad walls. The armor I thought I needed to wear every day. Over the last seven months, you found the lock around my heart and picked your way straight into it. Merde , Orla, you’ve changed me for the better, and I will always love you for that. ”

Apparently, I was nothing more than a blubbering crybaby these days as another sob ripped through me. “I really am sorry.”

“Orla, stop. You don’t owe me an apology. For the last seven months you didn’t give up on me, you stuck by my side and gave me more chances that I deserved even when I was nothing but a royal batard to you.”

“You were a bit of a bastard,” I said lightly. “But you were worth every chance I took on you.”

“Exactly why it is me who doesn’t deserve you, but there isn’t a chance in hell I am ever letting you go,” he said. “No matter what happens, no matter how ugly things get, I am always going to be right by your side.”

“Promise?”

He held up his little finger. “Pinky promise.”

My finger latched tightly around his. “I love you, Frederic.” Pushing up onto my tiptoes, I pressed my lips firmly to his.

His hands came to my back, pulling me closer and holding me to him as if he never wanted to let go—by the stars, I hoped he never let go.

All the fears, all the doubts, all the pain I had been carrying ebbed away into the distance as Frederic’s tongue dipped into my mouth and stole the very air from my lungs.

Because this right here was all that mattered.

And when a pair of little arms appeared and wrapped themselves around our waists, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

I was home.