“Mommy!” Clementine shrieked as she toddled toward me.
My heart went into full-on arrest and panic wrapped around me. Snapping my head back, I saw that Michael was still outside and hadn’t heard her. The nanny, on the other hand, was standing in the entrance to the kitchen with a narrowed gaze.
Clementine had been calling me that for almost two weeks now, but never had she done so in front of Michael. I wasn’t certain how to handle it. A part of me loved the very idea that I would get to call this beautiful, precious little girl my daughter. Another part of me knew she wasn’t mine, and that Michael wouldn’t approve. But the biggest part of me was worried he would approve, and that name would come with a price I couldn’t possibly pay. Not now that Logan had entered into my life.
Keenly aware that I would most likely have conceded to such terms before Logan made me feel unbalanced in a way I couldn’t wrap my head around, I never wanted to have to choose between Clementine and Logan. I hoped it would never come to that. I’d tried to explain this to Logan this morning but I just couldn’t get the words out. If he had even an inkling that Michael had expressed interest in me, I wasn’t certain how he’d react. Or maybe I was certain. And I couldn’t take that chance.
Besides, I rationalized, Michael had never openly made a play for me, or told me directly that he wanted me, Not yet, that small voice inside me stressed.
Guilt pricked me for not mentioning my concerns to Logan. I’d been trying to shake my thoughts off as preposterous, but I just couldn’t because they simply weren’t.
As of late, Michael’s desire had been written all over him. It was in his eyes and the way he looked at me, in his lips and the way they parted when he saw me, in his words and the way he spoke them. I think Logan had sensed Michael’s interest in me from the first time we met in Michael’s office, even though at the time, I was completely unaware of Michael’s feelings.
Before now, I had the illusion of his marriage to my sister to hide behind. Now that Lizzy was dead, though, I was worried that once the grieving widower was done mourning, the subtleties would be done, too.
God, I hoped not.
For now, I could handle this. I just had to keep Logan and Michael apart. As much as I wanted to tell Logan how Michael made me feel, it wouldn’t help anyone; in fact it could jeopardize my relationship with Clementine, and she was the one thing I couldn’t bear to lose.
“Up,” that sweet little voice urged.
More than happy to comply, I lifted her and cradled her in my arms. “Have you eaten your lunch, sweet girl?” I asked.
“I was just preparing it,” the new nanny, Heidi, said in her German accent.
Heidi was in her mid-twenties and at almost six feet tall, she looked like she should have been a supermodel, not an au pair from Germany who’d just moved in with Michael and my niece.
“Great, I’ll sit with her.”
As I walked toward the kitchen, I glanced at the photos around the house. Michael’s mother, his sister and her family, him and Clementine, just Clementine, but there were none of him and Lizzy, or Lizzy and Clementine.
Out of nowhere, but not for the first time, it struck me that Michael and Lizzy might not have been happily wed. I’d never asked. Yet, there were no pictures of the two of them in the house, no wedding mementos anywhere, and he very rarely talked about her. When he did, she was Elizabeth, a name I know she’d have never allowed, as that was the name our father called her.
“Where’s my girl?” Michael called from the front door.
I looked over at him and pushed all of my craziness aside. Today was a day to mourn my sister. Tomorrow, I’d worry about what came next.
“Daddy. Daddy!” Clementine yelled in a burst of excitement.
Right there was the problem. The hex to all the negative theories I had about Michael. He loved his daughter and she loved him. No matter what he was, he was a good father.
And what I wouldn’t have given to have had a father like him.
LOGAN
I had a teacher in the sixth grade who used to nag me about my lack of focus.
If only she could see me now. Every fiber of my being was focused on figuring out what the fuck had happened to not only the rest of the stolen cocaine, but also where the hell the five million dollars in cash was. Gaining this knowledge would help me prove or disprove that O’Shea was way more involved than he let on.
In addition, I still had to figure out what Patrick was really after when he made the demands on O’Shea.
The money?
The drugs?
Lizzy?
The connection?
Everything?
If he was after Lizzy, she wasn’t in the picture any longer. Had he taken her out, not O’Shea?