Page 115 of Embrace

My stomach drops. This isn’t how it is supposed to go. This is all wrong.

“Of course not. I wanted us to have another chance.”

“Yeah?” His voice rises. “You want to sit there and tell me about your shiny new life while I rot in here because of you and your mother? You think I’m going to forget that because you want a father-daughter tea party?”

“That’s not why I’m here.” My hands curl into fists on my lap. “I thought maybe we could start fresh.”

“Fresh?” he sneers. “You want everything without giving up anything. Your testimony was wrong. Unfair. You were a kid—youdidn’t know what my marriage with your mother was like. You only know what she told you.”

“I saw you—”

“You didn’t see anything. You just listened to her.”

I shake my head. “I wasn’t that young. And you know it. Please don’t do this,” I beg. “I’ve been trying to reach you for so long. I finally have and I want to know how you are.”

“I’m in prison.” His voice hardens. “That’s how I am.”

“For something you did,” I snap. “But despite all of that, I still don’t hate you.”

He leans back, eyes narrowing to slits. “That’s too bad, because I do.”

A hand reaches in, prying my heart from between my ribs, and discards it onto the dirty linoleum.

I can’t breathe.

Thirty-nine

Kian

I’m standing outsidethe penitentiary, pacing and making myself sick over the fact that my girl is in there, all alone, trying to get her father to hear her out. I don’t hate many people, but I hate him.

Scarlett’s too good for him. Nothing he can say could make whatever she’s been through go away, but if she thinks this is how she’ll get whatever closure she’s looking for, then I’m all for it. Sometimes it takes a lot more than empty words to break past guilt, and I know that more than anyone.

“You can’t stand here.” A security guard approaches me, his gaze scrutinizing my tattoos.

I’m wearing a long-sleeve shirt, but the ink on my hands and my neck is hard to miss. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m pacing and not standing.”

He raises a brow.Not the right thing to say, Kian.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go wait in my car.” I raise my hands in surrender, but I know I can’t leave. I want to be the first one Scarlett sees when she’s out of there.

I pivot back to the security guard. “Do you have a daughter?” I ask him.

He’s thoroughly unimpressed that he’s still dealing with my presence. “Yeah,” he responds gruffly.

I stand straighter. “Okay, now just give me one second to explain why I need to stand here.”

He gestures for me to continue, already bored.

“Just imagine your daughter spends months trying to find you, and then, when she finally does, you refuse to see her.”

He stares impassively. It’s not the reaction I was hoping for, but I swear his eyes softened the tiniest bit. I can work with this.

“It breaks her heart, but shestillreaches out. Again and again. Then one miraculous day you agree and now she’s super excited to talk to you. She goes to meet you, all alone, with no idea how you’re going to greet her after all these years. So excuse me if I want to be out here for your daughter when she comes out of there.”

“Mydaughter?”

“Hypothetical.”