Page 47 of Vegas Daddies (Forbidden Fantasies #17)

CADE

I t had been days since any of us—Gavin, Luca, and me—had heard a peep from Allie, and I was about ready to crawl out of my skin. So ready, in fact, that I was calling a meeting with my friends.

I opened our group text, making sure to pick the one we had to ourselves and not the one where we’d been text-flirting with Allie for weeks before this radio silence descended.

She didn’t need to know about our plans.

Part of me worried she was avoiding us on purpose, even if the simpler explanation would be that her life was busy.

But if that was the case, Gavin, Luca, and I needed to figure out what we’d done wrong.

That way, we could strategize on how to get her back.

Cade: We need to talk about Allie.

Gavin: Normally I’d say you’re being dramatic…but yeah, I’m a little freaked by the silence. Hope she’s ok.

Luca gave a thumbs-up reaction to my message in lieu of responding.

He had been weird and quiet since the annulment meeting too, and though we were still living in the same house—having trouble letting go—he seemed to be going out of his way to avoid running into me.

Even eye contact was sparse, and the energy in the beach house was completely off.

I’d been trying to work on my art and make plans on the business side of things, but it was hard to focus with all of these weird emotional distractions.

Before I noticed how he was avoiding me in particular, I figured it was just because he didn’t want us witnessing his complicated feelings about no longer being married to the girl we’d all stumbled into love with.

That was what it was, I knew. Maybe my friends wouldn’t be able to admit it, but I knew how I felt, and I knew that loving Allie meant not giving up without a fight.

I didn’t even know what we possibly could have done to make her want to run away from us.

She said the night of our meeting with Daphne that we’d done a good job with her at the zoo, right?

Surely I hadn’t made that up. A sick, heavy dread in the pit of my stomach told me there was something else, something bigger and more world-shaking than any small slight we may have committed by accident.

There were a million worst-case scenarios vying for attention in my head, and at least half of them had something to do with Daphne and the still unknown variable of which of us shared half of her DNA.

Gavin had meetings for most of the morning, which gave me plenty of time to work on the small, detailed piece I’d started carving on our infamous zoo day before our agreed-upon meeting on the beach house balcony midafternoon.

That night, the night I’d met the little girl who made up almost all of Allie Tate’s heart, while I struggled to fall asleep in the bed that wasn’t mine, an idea had formed.

The kind of artistic inspiration I couldn’t ignore.

When I finally realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that Allie didn’t feel well and was in her own bed alone, without me, I ended up starting the small carving that night.

I hunched over a piece of wood that was originally meant to become a spoon rest in the near dark, working by the light of the small lamp on the very desk where I’d first lost my battle against the urge to touch Allie. It felt fitting.

The little wooden giraffes—two adult giraffes cradling a baby between them, their long necks entwined—were close to done now.

I still wanted to polish it up, bring out the gorgeous colors in the wood grain, and there were some small details I needed to hone before I gave it to Daphne like I planned.

But fuck, if Allie was running from us again, I might not ever get the chance to do it. I wanted to see the smile on that little girl’s face when she got the gift. At least, I hoped Daphne would smile. She looked just like a mini-Allie when she did, and it made my heart swell.

Impatience started to creep up when Gavin got delayed by another fucking meeting. By the time he finally got back to the house, I had a new idea. When the guys met me on the balcony, it was early evening, and I didn’t waste any more time bullshitting about our feelings.

“We need to go check on her,” I practically barked at my friends.

It fixed two problems: the mysterious silence, and the need to see her, to check on her after she’d been sick.

There was a fair bit of hand-wringing and attempts at logic-ing me out of it, and Luca was still being cagey as hell, but the guys eventually agreed with me, and I felt a little relieved just by getting in the car and heading toward Allie’s apartment.

Love really was some kind of madness. This felt deeper, more certain than my past connection with Jordyn. But that was all the more reason to go out on a limb. To try harder to keep our girl happy and in our lives.

I knocked a little harder than I meant to on Allie’s door, following it up with a gentler tap in hopes of softening the effect.

Luca was looking at me with some strange intensity, and while I had the urge to tell him to spit it out, Allie was my first priority at the moment.

When she opened the door and looked at us, eyes wide, something loosened in my chest.

“Hey,” I breathed.

“Hey, guys,” she said back, looking at each of us in turn. I scanned her face, seeing the dark circles under her eyes clearly, though I may have just been looking for signs that she wasn’t well. She paused, then asked, “I…what are you doing here?”

“Checking in,” Gavin said beside me, using his talent for sounding casual to lessen the tension the tiniest fraction.

“We haven’t heard from you in a while,” I explained. “And…I don’t know. I just had a feeling something’s up. Can we talk?”

“All of us,” Luca added quietly. Something passed between the two of them, in the hard look Luca gave her, so uncharacteristic of his usual vibe—both in general and toward Allie.

Allie’s expression was more tired than I’d ever seen her. She bit her lip, then gave a strained nod. “Give me a minute,” she said before ducking back into her apartment, leaving the three of us standing in the hallway.

She wasn’t gone long, but it felt like forever.

We stood there in the hallway, quiet as statues.

Gavin leaned against the wall, arms crossed, brows furrowed like he was calculating the worst-case scenario.

Luca hovered nearby, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his light hoodie, radiating tension.

I couldn’t even bring myself to pace, couldn’t get my body to do anything but wait.

Then the door opened with a soft creak, and Allie stepped back out, closing the door behind her.

She wasn’t inviting us in. Just her, in the hallway with us, holding something small in her hands.

My eyes went to it instantly. A little velvet box.

That box. The one I’d bought for Jordyn, then given to Allie in a high-stakes blur in Vegas five years ago.

I felt it in my chest first, a punch of memory and regret that stole the breath from my lungs.

She held it out to me. “Cade.”

I took it slowly, like it might shatter. When I opened it, the ring blinked up at me like it knew everything I didn’t. She hadn’t even touched it since Vegas, apparently, because it looked pristine.

I swallowed hard. “You didn’t have to give this back. You can keep it.”

Allie’s voice was soft, but firm. “What? No. It isn’t mine.”

“It could be,” I said, and she basically ignored the dumb, romantic suggestion.

“You wanted to use the money for your shop, and…I want you to have that. Take it, please.”

I stared at her, stunned into silence. My fingers closed around the box, but I didn’t pocket it. I couldn’t move past the look in her eyes—like she was already mourning something.

“You’ve been acting weird,” I said finally. “Since you guys got the annulment. We haven’t heard from you.”

“I know.”

“Then why?” I asked, a little desperation slipping into my tone.

She hesitated. I saw her glance toward Luca, and something passed between them that I couldn’t quite catch. A flash of understanding. A shared weight.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t just hers to carry.

Allie looked back at me. Her eyes were shining, but dry. That made it worse, somehow.

“I got the results,” she said. “From the paternity test.”

My heart didn’t start pounding—it stopped. Completely. My body locked up. The air between us thickened.

I braced for anything. Everything.

Her gaze locked with mine. “It’s you, Cade. You’re Daphne’s father.”

Time bent.

Her words fell like bricks into the silence, and all I could do was stare at her. Like if I didn’t blink, maybe the moment wouldn’t be real yet.

But it was real. It landed. It cracked something open inside me that I hadn’t even realized was sealed shut.

I was a father.

My brain scrambled for something—anything—to say, to do, but all I could feel was the crushing weight of four lost years. Four birthdays. First steps. First words. All those seconds of that sweet little girl’s life that I never got to witness, gone like smoke.

She was mine. And I’d missed it.

A part of me was drowning in awe, in the staggering realization that Daphne was mine—that my daughter had my blood in her, that I’d made something that perfect with someone I loved.

Sure, Allie and I hadn’t shared anything that deep on the night Daphne was conceived, but now…

there was no other word for what I felt for her.

For both of them. It was staggering and immense and freeing.

It burned.

“You knew before now,” I guessed, my voice coming out hollow. Not angry yet—just broken.

Allie nodded slowly, guilt spreading across her face. “Not…not always. But…before the zoo, yeah. I knew then.”

“Before our date?” I asked, though I felt like I already knew the answer.

“Yes,” she admitted, barely a whisper.

I took a step back. The ring box, still in my hand, felt suddenly ridiculous. A relic of some other life where we could play at romance without the heaviness of consequences. Now, all I could see was what had been taken from me.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said, and I could hear the heat rising behind my words. “Allie, you knew, and you didn’t say anything for…fuck, there were so many opportunities.”

“I didn’t know how you’d react,” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t know how any of you would react, and…it was scary.”

“You didn’t trust us to take it well,” I guessed. Inside, a sad mantra: You should’ve trusted us. You should trust me.

She opened her mouth, maybe to defend herself, maybe to apologize again—but I wasn’t ready to hear it. My heart was rattling in my chest like it might tear itself out.

I couldn’t stop imagining Daphne’s face—the curve of her cheek that looked like Allie’s, the eyes that had a glint I hadn’t placed until now. Mine. Jesus Christ. Mine .

How many times had she cried in the middle of the night and I wasn’t there to hold her? How many times had Allie looked at her and seen pieces of me, only to keep that to herself?

And Luca …

Something clicked. The quiet way he’d distanced himself from me.

The look on his face now, and before now, when he seemed almost guilty.

He hadn’t needed the test. Maybe he saw it in Daphne before any of us did.

Or maybe something had come out that day they got their marriage annulled.

It would be just like my friend to get so wrapped up in my drama, the biggest news of my life, that he couldn’t face me.

That realization hit like another gut punch. He’d been carrying that weight alone. Maybe trying to protect me. Maybe just not knowing what to say. I couldn’t even be mad at him. Not really. Not when this entire thing felt like standing in the middle of a life I didn’t know I was already part of.

Gavin was silent. Still. His face didn’t give anything away, but I knew him well enough to read between the lines. He looked…disappointed. Like he was retreating into himself. Maybe he’d let himself hope it was him. Maybe he’d just assumed we’d all go into this together, no surprises.

Allie wiped her cheek, her fingers shaking slightly. “I’m tired,” she whispered. “I want to go back inside. Be with my daughter.”

My daughter.

I should have gone with her. Should have asked to hold Daphne, to make up for even one second of what I’d lost. Should have said something kind, something to let Allie know I could forgive her eventually, that this didn’t have to mean she’d ruined us.

But instead, I said the worst thing I could’ve said.

“I think maybe it’s better if we give you space,” I said. My own voice startled me—cool, measured, like I wasn’t falling apart from the inside out. “Some time to let you figure out if you even trust us.” If you love us. “If you want us in your life.”

Her whole body stiffened.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t plead. She just looked at me with something raw in her eyes, then gave a small, jerky nod.

Then she turned, walked back inside, and closed the door softly behind her.

Not a slam. No drama. She was just gone.

The hallway felt like it had been scrubbed of air. I stared at the door, willing it to open again. Willing her to come back out. She didn’t.

Luca stood quietly, watching the floor. Gavin still hadn’t moved.

And I just stood there, hand clenched around a ring that meant nothing and everything all at once, with the crushing weight of a truth I hadn’t asked for.

Daphne was mine.

And now, she and her incredible mother were further away than ever.