Page 32 of The Loves We Lost

I eye him carefully. “I don’t know. Have you?”

It feels like a full minute passes before he answers. “No. I haven’t been to prison.”

“Arrested?”

“I’m pleading the fifth on that one.” He smirks like it happens to everyone.

“Fuck you,” I say. “I shouldn’t have come. I’ve managed well enough by myself all this time. If you could let me know what state my car is in or point me in the direction of a hotel, I’d be grateful. I’m getting my daughter.”

As I head for the door, his hand snaps out and grabs my wrist firmly. “You aren’t going anywhere. Not until we’ve sorted this whole fucking mess out. You’ve kept Avery from me for years. I want to get to know her.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because she’s my fucking daughter who doesn’t deserve to be kept from her father.”

“You never wanted kids. Even when I saw you last weekend, you said that you’d never fucked anotherbitchwithout a condom because you had no desire to be a father.”

“I wanted kids, Vi.” Miles’s voice echoes around his room and hits me as surely as if he’d slapped me.

“But . . .”

He stands and tosses the chair back under the desk before standing in front of me. “I wanted them with you. I wanted everything with you. And when you pulled the rug from beneath us, you took all those dreams with you. Of us getting married, of us having kids.” He places his hand on my stomach, and it’s so overwhelming, I feel dizzy. “Don’t blame me for any of this, Vi. You did this. We’re here because of your decisions. And I’m going to get to know my daughter.”

With that, he leaves the room, and I slump down on the bed to catch my breath.

He’s right.

But he’s not.

He wouldn’t compromise for me. For us. He was an outlaw first. That hasn’t changed.

And I don’t know if I can.

I shake as adrenaline floods through me. Quickly, I send a message to Anthony to let him know we’re safe. The door opens and I look up, hoping it’s him, but it isn’t. It’s the woman I met earlier.

Catalina.

She hands me a cup of steaming hot chocolate topped with cream. “Rough night?” she asks.

The simplicity of her question makes me laugh to prevent tears. “Yeah. It’s not quite gone as I expected.” I glance at our things on the floor. “Our bags might be the only thing that survive tonight in one piece.”

“Avery is Bates’s daughter, yes?”

I nod. “It’s hard to pretend she isn’t when she looks so much like him.”

“And he didn’t know?”

I shake my head and then sip the chocolate. It’s hot and sweet and probably just what my shaken system needs.

“Ouch. Come join us in the kitchen. Niro is baking with Avery.”

She stands and I follow. When I enter the kitchen, Avery has a towel stuffed down the front of her T-shirt as a makeshift apron and her hands in a mixing bowl.

“What happened to your face?” Avery asks Niro as I enter.

“Avery,” I reprimand. “We don’t ask personal questions like that.”

Niro shrugs, the long scar that runs down his face sits in relief. “It’s cool. There was once a really good man. A man who really wanted to look after me like a father. And one day I had a decision to make. Would I do the right thing and look after him when things got dangerous? Or would I run and hide like a coward? And do you know I did?” Niro asks. He turns to face me. “I stayed and fought alongside the man who looked after me.”