“Talk to me,” I say, my temples pulsing painfully.
Does she know? How could she possibly know?
“It’s not a big deal. Nothing happened. It’s just this boy—this man. He tried to hurt me. He scared me. I’m sorry. Can I see you? I tried calling Sophia, too, but her phone is on silent. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry, Caitlin,” I tell her firmly. “You have nothing to apologize for. Are you in the office?”
“Yeah. I’m with Peter.”
“Okay. I’m in the garage with Sophia. I was going to give her a ride home.”
Something twists in my gut at the half-truth.
I was going to give her a ride.
But that’s not all I want with my daughter’s best friend.
“We’ll be right up, okay? Just sit tight.”
“Okay, Dad. Thank you.”
I hang up and glance at Sophia, expecting to see some resentment in her eyes. The last thing she wants, surely, is to be reminded of Caitlin after what we just did.
Hell, I know it’s the last thing I want.
But her face whelms with understanding and concern for her best friend.
“Is she okay?” Sophia murmurs.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “Apparently some motherfucker tried to hurt her.”
Anger creeps into my voice, making my words grim and sharp. I clench my fist at the notion of anyone trying to cause harm to my only child.
But she won’t be your only child forever, a voice whispers deep inside of me, from the primal piece of me that has claimed Sophia. You’re going to have a whole new family with Sophia.
Maybe that’s true, but there’s nothing in this world that would make me abandon Caitlin.
Sophia’s forehead furrows, and she sighs.
“Kenny,” she murmurs. “I bet it’s Kenny.”
“Her ex-boyfriend?” I say. “They broke up when she was still in high school.”
“He never got over it,” Sophia says. “He’s a freaking creep. Come on, let’s go and see her. And Solomon?”
“Yeah?”
She bites her lip and releases it a moment later.
I fight the urge to touch her face again, to feel the warmth of her cheek against my palm. There’s something so captivating about the way she’s looking at me right now, the light dancing in her eyes.
It’s a light that beckons me toward a future, our future.
“I don’t think we should tell her about what happened here,” she says quietly.
I almost tell her that we’ll have to at some point, but that’s a conversation for later.
Right now, we need to be there for Caitlin.
“Okay, Sophia,” I say, somehow mustering a smirk. “After all, you’re the boss.”
She rolls her eyes, a giggle escaping.
It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.
I wonder if our children will have the same laugh.
I stride into my office with Sophia at my side.
Caitlin sits at my desk, looking for a moment the same as when she used to visit me as a girl. She’d sit at my massive desk with a just-as-massive grin on her face, playing with her dolls or with her nose buried in a book.
She always said she liked sitting there. It made her feel safe.
She glances up, her eyes black pits where her crying has ruined her mascara. Streams of it mark her cheeks, long jet-black lines.
Her gaze flits between me and Sophia and, for a crazy moment, I’m sure she somehow knows what happened between me and her best friend in the garage. I imagine her leaping to her feet and pointing her finger at me, screaming that I’ve betrayed her.
We’ve betrayed her.
Sophia hurries around the desk. It takes a herculean level of self-control not to let my gaze move to her shifting ass cheeks, my memory full of the way she looked when she lay back on the hood of my car, her fertile flesh red and excited, her fuck-me-hard pussy pink and tempting.
I grit my teeth and glance at the windows, the city dusky with the setting sun, and then back to my daughter and her best friend.
“Oh, Cait, I’m so sorry,” Sophia murmurs, leaning down and putting her arm around my daughter. “Was it him?”
“Yeah,” Caitlin sighs, reaching up to hug her friend back. “He was waiting for me outside my class with a bunch of flowers. I’ve told him I’m not interested like a hundred times. I don’t know what his problem is. I don’t know what I’ve done to encourage him.”
“No,” I say flatly, pacing over to the desk. “Never say that, Caitlin. This isn’t your fault. He’s the fucking creep. He’s lucky I don’t snap his neck.”
“Dad, please,” she says, a sob threatening to creep back into her voice.
“Please what?” I snap.
“Please don’t make this worse than it already is,” she moans. “How is kicking this guy’s ass going to make my problems go away?”
“It’d scare him off, for one,” I say, laying my fists against the desk. “What did he do to you, Caitlin? Did he lay his hands on you?”
Sophia gives me a warning look over the top of Caitlin’s head, something like, Be nice, be careful. She’s feeling fragile right now.
It’s like we’re a couple and we’ve already developing secret channels of communication. I have to fight the insane urge to smirk.
“Caitlin,” I say, softening my voice as much as a man like me can. “Okay—I won’t kick his ass. But you need to talk to me.”
“What did he do?” Sophia murmurs, massaging Caitlin’s shoulders.
“He tried to give me the flowers,” Caitlin says, speaking slowly, voice trembling as she battles away tears. “I said no. I might’ve cursed at him. And then he started shouting at me, calling me all kinds of names. When I walked over to the car, he wouldn’t let me close the door. That’s it. He didn’t touch me.”
I look closely at her, trying to see if she’s telling the truth.
She stares back at me, defiant and fierce, the same way she looked the day her mother suddenly deserted us.
“Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy hiding?”
The memory stabs at me.
What sort of a woman walks out on her daughter?
“I promise,” she says. “He didn’t touch me, Dad. I’d tell
