Page 4 of Power Play

two

. . .

Riley

Vanessa is beautiful, but the thing I like most about her is her take-charge attitude. Within ten minutes, we have an action plan and find a lab that will do a same-day paternity test.

I’m positive Alberto Gonzales is the father. I may not have been at the bar that night, but Carter swore up and down it was him. She had no reason to lie—not about that, at least.

Emmy hasn’t left my arms this entire time, content to hang out with me rather than explore her new home. What am I going to do when I can’t see her every day? When I don’t get her chubby baby snuggles each morning. My throat spasms, so tight I can barely breathe. I don’t want to cry. I refuse to cry in front of this man who gets to keep the last remaining member of my family.

But I’m not above crying where he can’t see me. “May I use your bathroom?”

Alberto nods. “Down the hall, to the left.”

He doesn’t make any move to take his child from me, though, staring blankly instead.

Vanessa stands, reaching for Emmy. “Let me hold her for you.”

Somehow, passing over the baby to another woman is ten times easier than the thought of giving her to him.

I rush to the bathroom, practically slamming the door behind me, then sink onto the closed toilet seat and cover my face with my hands. I don’t want to do this, but I know all the reasons I have to.

A sob bubbles up in my throat, and I move to cover my mouth before it escapes. Tears streak down my cheeks, faster than I can wipe them away with the sodden tissue he gave me. Scrambling for a strip of toilet paper, I wipe my eyes again and again, but there’s nothing I can do to stop the flow.

I miss my sister. I need my sister. But she’s gone. And she’s the one who got us into this mess.

From the very start, I told her she needed to be honest with him. Alberto had the right to know he had a child, and she deserved to know her father. But I know how scared Carter was of losing the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally.

Except me. She was my best friend, my other half, ever since we met while living with a terrible foster family when I was twelve and she was fourteen. I wasn’t enough for her, though.

She stayed with the Burkes for seven weeks; I was there for four and a half months. We stayed in touch, and when I went to high school, we reconnected. From that point on, we were inseparable. We looked out for each other.

Fuck, I miss her so much. She was there one moment, and then she was gone. I’m glad Emmy wasn’t in the car with her; I don’t know what I’d do if I lost them both.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I try to pull myself together. I can do this. I can do hard things. Or so I thought. The waterworks start all over again, and I can’t muffle my choking sob.

A soft knock raps on the bathroom door. “Riley?”

It’s him.

“Are you okay?” His voice is quiet, concerned.

“I’m fine.”

Through the heavy wood separating us, I hear him exhale a long, drawn-out sigh. “Okay.”

His passivity makes my blood boil. He’s not behaving the way I expected him to. Every day for the last week, I scripted and replayed this entire conversation in my head, and none of it is going according to plan. He’s supposed to fight back. Argue. Do anything besides accept this.

I fling open the bathroom door, not making any attempt to hide my tear-stained face.

“What do you want?”

His eyes widen as he takes me in, his posture defeated. “I wanted to check on you. I know this must be difficult for you.”

“Do you?” I demand. “Do you have any idea what I’m going through?”

“I know if my sibling was suddenly gone, I’d be a mess,” he murmurs. His soulful brown eyes catch mine, holding my gaze. “And if I were about to lose my last link to them, I don’t know how I’d survive it. So, yeah, I have an idea.”