Moving slowly toward us, he cleared the gravel in his throat. “Seems everyone is up early this morning.”
“Daddy!” Olive leaped off my bed and ran straight into his arms.
Gil dropped to one knee, wrapping her tight in his embrace. “Morning, tiny spinach. How did you sleep?”
“Fine. The mattress was super comfy. But then I woke up, and you weren’t here.” Her head tilted. “Where’d you go?”
Gil gave me a guilty glance, climbing back to his feet. “I watched the sun rise.”
Raking a hand through his hair, he looked my office attire up and down. “Heading in this early?”
I nodded. “Duty calls.”
“It always does.”
His face filled with love, ruining me all over again. I wasn’t used to this respectful version of him. The one who accepted my boundaries and didn’t scale my fences to talk to me.
I didn’t know if I liked it. If I was honest, I hated the distance between us even while we stood so close.
“O...I—” Raking a hand through his hair, he sighed. “Thank you for letting us stay the night.”
“You’re welcome.” Something lodged in my throat, a stone heavy with hurt and honesty.
Olive piped up, “Have you seen Olin’s tattoo? It’s amazing! Like amazing, amazing. Can I have one, Dad?”
The tension evaporated as Gil snapped into father mode. His eyes gleamed with strictness even as his lips quirked in a grin. “Any drawings you do, missy, are to end up on paper only.”
“What about on people? Can I paint naked people?”
“When you’re older, fine.”
“So when I’m older, I can get a tattoo like O’s?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Olive pouted, hanging on Gil’s hand. “I’ll make you say yes. I always make you say yes.”
Gil chuckled painfully. “That’s entirely true.” He looked at me, his eyes clear and smile simple. A simple smile of frustration and pride for his child. “She’s a master at getting anything she wants.”
I laughed quietly. “Maybe you’re just a soft touch.”
His simpleness vanished under a cloak of awareness. “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m being too soft on you, too.”
My heart pattered quickly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean...I still want to talk.” Patting Olive on the butt, he said kindly, “You. Shower. Now.”
“Aww, but I don’t—”
“Shower and I’ll cook you pancakes for breakfast, and then, we’ll spend the day together. Just you and me.”
Olive’s adorable face lit up. “All day? Really?” She wriggled in place. “No job searching? No working?”
“Nope. Just you.” He bowed to kiss her, covering her with unconditional love. “I want to spend the day with my favourite girl. Job hunting can wait. Maybe we’ll go apartment searching instead, so we don’t impose on O any longer than we have to.”
“I like living with O, but I can’t wait to spend the day together. Yay!” Olive sped toward the bathroom, throwing a wave in my direction. “Bye, O. Have a good day working.”
“See ya.” I waved to a closed bathroom door, laughing quietly. “She certainly adores the ground you walk on.”
“And I can’t imagine my life without her.” His tone slipped into despair. “Shit, I can’t leave.” He scowled at his ankle. “I’m under house arrest. Is it okay if I hang here with her? I’ll do my best to find alternative arrangements online.”
My heart squeezed. I’d opened my home to him because it was the right thing to do, yet I couldn’t deny I’d been selfish too. Selfish and dishonest because as much as I didn’t have the strength to deal with the mess between us, I wasn’t ready to never see him again.
“Of course.”
He rubbed the back of his nape. “You must think I’m pathetic. Unemployed. Locked in one place. A single dad who can’t do anything right.”
I stepped toward him. “I don’t think you’re pathetic, Gil. I never have.”
“But you’ve had enough of dealing with my nonsense.”
“No. I just...” I held up my hands in surrender. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know about anything. I don’t know about you or me or what I should do...it’s terrifying.”
He stormed toward me, grabbing my cheeks and holding me firm. “All of this is fucking terrifying. Knowing I’ve lost you. Knowing I’m about to lose Olive. My freedom. My future.” His thumbs ran over my cheekbones, his hands shaking. “Knowing I’m one of the reasons you’re afraid.” His forehead pressed against mine. “It fucking butchers me, O. I never meant to hurt you. I’ll never forgive myself for painting you, drugging you. I could apologise every damn day of my life, but...it’s not going to change anything.”
I swayed in his touch, suffering heat and hunger.
The same violence that clawed for a fight returned, and I didn’t entirely know why. Gil had apologised. I’d forgiven him. We should be able to move on.
And yet...we couldn’t.
We kept clinging to each other in unhealthy ways, making us weak and wanting.
My lips throbbed for his.
His body stepped into mine until no space existed between us and his head tipped down. His mouth descended, and we both jerked at the connection.
Hot.
Painful.
Unforgiving.
I sighed.
He groaned.
His hands fell from my cheeks to wrap around my hips, pulling me into him, making my stomach flip.
The kiss wasn’t planned.
Our confessions messy and dangerous.
But as his tongue touched mine, and we began a dance that twisted me up and made me fly, I didn’t care.
I hugged him back.
I kissed him back.
And then it was over as he pulled away.
The early morning sunshine shone through the window, highlighting a shadowy bruise on his jaw and the discolouration under his eye, reminding me violence had found him once again.
That his troubles weren’t over.
“Are you okay?” My question was breathy, my heart out of control.
He chuckled darkly. “No, I’m not fucking okay. I miss you, O. I’ve missed you my entire goddamn life.”
My knees wobbled. “I meant your incident with whoever hurt you.”
“Oh, that.” His forehead furrowed. The connection between us faltered as he took a step back. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
His departure wrenched deep inside me but my question had done what I’d intended. I’d popped the bubble we’d been in. The bubble we had a habit of creating. The precious, perfect moment where it was just us and kisses and nothing else mattered.
If we could live in that illusion, we could be happy.
But we couldn’t because real life wasn’t that easy.
“Justin said a few men surprised you outside your warehouse. That they were friends and family of one of the painted girls.”
Gil stroked his jaw where a bruise hinted he’d been punched pretty hard. “They got a few strikes in, but I didn’t let them use me as a punching bag like I did my uncle, if that’s what you’re worried about. I fought back.”
“I’m just worried that society is lynching you.”
“They don’t know I didn’t kill those girls.”
“No, but vigilante justice is dangerous.”
He shrugged. “Nothing I don’t deserve.”
“Don’t. Don’t keep saying that.”
He didn’t argue. Instead, he stared at me the way he’d stared at Olive. With undying affection and unconditional love. “Feel free to throw a punch too, O. A fist would hurt far less than you cutting me out of your heart.”
Tension once again detonated around us.
My heart flurried.
My stomach knotted.
I couldn’t look away from him.
This was another blistering moment.
A moment that could fix all other moments.
A fragile moment where we could break the ice, talk, and find happier ground than this precarious plateau we currently navigated.
But I didn’t know how.
Gil raised his hand as if to touch me. He licked his lips as my name fell with a whisper, “O...I—”
I shook my head. I backed away.
Gil honoured my wishes.
Barely.
His body bristled with explosive need. The sudden softness of before vanished as he clipped, “If you don’t leave to go to work now, I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do. I won’t care my daughter is the bathroom. I won’t care that I hurt you beyond anything. I’ll grab you and fuck you, and I won’t let you out of bed until you forgive me.”
I stood rooted to the spot.
Unable to move.
Unable to stay.
It was my turn to struggle with a sentence. “Gil...I—”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, his hand trembling. “Go, O. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have.” He looked up, his eyes blazing emerald desire. “And I will hurt you. That’s why you’re keeping your distance, isn’t it? Because you know that soon I’m going away. And no one knows for how long. I could be an old man before they let me out. I might die in there. What sort of bastard would I be to fight for you to love me, only to abandon you all over again?”
He gave me the saddest smile. “Fuck, I wish I’d never let you go when we were younger.”
I tripped backward.
I’d waited so, so long to hear that.
It sucker-punched me in the chest. It ripped out my soul. It brought tears to my eyes.
Olive darted from the bathroom with toothpaste dripping all over her pyjamas and her toothbrush in her hand. “Dad, I don’t like O’s toothpaste. Do you have the stuff we use?”
And just like that, another moment was gone.
Again.
I sucked in a breath, jittery and lost.
Gil swallowed back the hurt between us and ducked to scoop his dirty daughter from the floor. “Sure, it’s in my bag.”
Life once again carried us in different directions as he performed fatherly duties, and I grabbed my handbag, looked at him one last time, and slipped out the door.
I was two hours early for work.
I was trembling like a fool.
I was in so much more trouble than I feared.
Chapter Twenty-Two
______________________________
Gil
I LASTED THREE days.
Three long, terribly excruciating days of loving O, wanting O, knowing I couldn’t have O.
We’d both come to the same painful conclusion.
This was all we could afford.
This tentative friendship.
This tense flatmate arrangement.
After that first day when O went to work and I did my best to come to terms with letting her go, I looked for apartments so I didn’t have to destroy any more of her life.
But the market held no decent rentals and the ones viable required a one-year lease. I had no idea when I’d be called to trial, and frankly, I couldn’t fucking afford anywhere anyway.
Not with my business in ruin and hate still vicious online.
I had to accept that for now, I had no choice.
No choice but to stop cursing Justin for his charity and stop hating myself for taking O’s generosity. This was my life right now...no matter how I wished it wasn’t.
Life slipped into a routine.
O would go to the office, and I’d spend the day with Olive, all while doing my best to find work. I allowed the necessity of earning money and the needs of life to drive me, but I also permitted myself space to enjoy my daughter. To make up for lost time. To learn all about her and the growth she’d done in the year that I hadn’t been part of her life.
I did it for her.
I did it for me.
We made memories that hopefully would sustain me through whatever was coming.
By the time O returned in the evenings, I’d already have dinner cooking and conversation carefully stayed on Olive and her increasing excitement of returning to school.
O’s idea of a tutor was great but just added yet another financial strain.
I made a note to see about taking out a loan, so I could make Olive’s hopes a reality. Not that I held my breath with my current shitty situation.
When bedtime came around, O would vanish into her room, and I would lie on her couch doing my best not to get hard or burst through her door and force her to listen to me. To tell her I was wrong in staying away. That I needed her to fight beside me...like she always had.
I missed her.
I wanted her.
But I wouldn’t do that to her.
At least having Olive between us gave us safe harbour and prevented any chance of breaking our strange, brittle truce.
Our voices had to stay light and civil for innocent ears. Our interactions had to be upbeat and chipper, all while we acted our arses off for my daughter’s sake.
It physically crippled me watching O laugh with Olive and Olive fall in love with O. They’d been thrown together by a mad man—two, including me—and that bond only grew stronger the longer we stayed in O’s tiny apartment.
I knew I couldn’t let them get any closer. I was only setting Olive up for yet more heartbreak if I did. O was leaving on a jet plane, and Olive would soon have to face my disappearance for a second time. Plus, O couldn’t be expected to share her heart with a child created by our old teacher and me.
But knowing all that didn’t mean I could stop the inevitable connection they shared. The sweetness when Olive showed O how to blend watercolours, and the pride when O showed Olive how to dance.
Fuck, it would’ve been so perfect if O was mine.
We could’ve been a family.
A true, happy, perfect family.
Instead of this pretend pocket of time, both of just waiting for it to end, preparing how to tell Olive that life wasn’t fucking fair and her hardships weren’t over yet.
“Dad....Dad! You’re not painting.”
I snapped out of my thoughts, slamming back into the present where I hung with Olive across the street from O’s apartment. I hoped the distance from the approved flat and this park wouldn’t set off the sensor in my anklet.
Poor Olive had cabin fever.
We’d come to the tiny square between four busy roads to paint the fountain splashing over marble swans and lilypads.
I’d carried my portable easel, a selection of paints, and a packed strawberry jam sandwich—her favourite—and spent the afternoon while O was at work painting the sun-glittering structure with my daughter.
“Sorry.” I held up my paintbrush. To be fair, I wasn’t doing much. The sketch and slowly-coming-to-life painting was all Olive’s, and once again, I was blown away by her young talent.
She had the scale nailed. The shadows perfected. The bend of the swan’s neck lifelike.
“What’cha thinking about?” she asked.
I smiled, nudging her small shoulder with mine. I didn’t have chairs, so we’d set the easel low so we could sprawl on a blanket. “Nothing much. Just how talented you are.”
“Nah, I’m not nearly as good as you.”
“You’re getting close.” I eyed up the way she blended white, blue, and black to make a shade of grey so similar to her eyes. “I’m very proud of you.”
She blushed. “You’re a good teacher.”
“Nope. It’s all you, kiddo.”
Her tongue stuck between her teeth as she shaded the swan’s neck. “O said she was proud of me too. She showed me another dance move this morning while you were still sleeping.”
“She did?”
How the hell did I not hear them?
“Yep. In her room. She said I have good balance.”
I pretended to shove her, jerking her back into place before she fell. “You do. Look how stable you are.”
She snickered. “Do you t
hink we can stay with O? I really like living with her. She’s super nice.” Her sweet gaze met mine. “I like her and you like her. I know you do. You more than like her. But you’re sad too.” Her head cocked, sending shiny hair over her shoulder. “Why are you sad? Don’t you like living with O and me? Do you want to go back to the warehouse?”
I swallowed the sudden obstruction in my throat. I’d long ago learned not to be shocked at the intuition of children and their perception of the truth, but it still punched me in the chest. “I’m not sad. I’m so happy we’re together again.” Dropping my paintbrush into the water jar, I added, “And you know we can’t stay with O for much longer, right? This is only temporary. She has her own life to live, little spinach. And we’re not part of it.”
“We could be. She likes you too, even though she’s mad at you right now.”
I froze. “How do you know she’s mad at me?”
Had O talked to her?
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
Our drama was our own fault—my fault—and shouldn’t be dumped on a kid.
Olive scowled as if I was an idiot—which I was, so I couldn’t argue. “I know the way she talks to you. She really likes you, but you did something, and she’s mad.” She pinned me with a ruthless stare. “Whatever you did, you should apologise and then we can all move into a bigger place where we all have bedrooms and can be happy forever and ever.”
Shit.
This was getting bad.
Olive had attached herself way too much to O.
I should’ve taken her to Justin’s so she could bond to him instead. How the hell was I supposed to dump her on him when I got sentenced and expect her to be comfortable living with yet another strange man?
Fuck.
My phone rang, vibrating in my pocket.
I didn’t want to answer it.
Nothing good ever came from answering my goddamn phone, but I pulled it out and climbed to my feet. “I’ll be a sec, okay?”
Olive nodded, pinning all her attention on her painting again. “Okey-dokey.”
Pressing accept, I walked away, answering the unknown number suspiciously. “Hello?”
“Gilbert Clark?”
The Finished Masterpiece (Master of Trickery Book 3) Page 62