Once Upon A Half-Time 1(88)

“Because I’m trying to help you? Because I care about you? Because I’m trying to make it easier on you?”

“I can make this a hell of a lot easier, Elle.”

Lachlan didn’t look at me. He slammed the door and left me in a dark, frustrating silence. I whispered after him, wondering just how much I’d lost in those heartbreaking seconds.

“I’m doing this because I love you.”





22





Lachlan





The door slammed behind me.

And I knew I fucked up. I was getting pretty good at it.

Three times now I’d nearly ruined my life.

The first was when Victoria and I decided we didn’t need to use a condom. I screwed up again when I let Mom adopt Sebastian instead of taking responsibility for him myself.

And tonight, like a jackass, I’d yelled at Elle. I blamed the woman I loved for my life turning to shit.

That was a rookie mistake.

Elle was right. About everything. I needed help. Hers. Jack’s. The team’s.

That was the reason she kept secrets from me. Not that she didn’t trust me, but because I was jammed too far up my own ass to think of anything but my own pride.

It had to change.

I’d made a promise to my family that I’d provide for them. I’d do everything in my power to protect that promise…but did that include lying, stealing?

Cheating?

What the hell was I going to do?

I pulled into my driveway. A red Kia parked in front of my garage.

Son of a bitch. I knew who owned it. Of course she’d come to my house.

Victoria waited for me on the porch, kicked back on a patio chair.

“You’re out late,” she said.

I kept my voice low. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?”

“You can get off my property.”

Victoria frowned, twisting a dark curl in her fingers. She handed me a manila envelope.

“I think you know what’s inside that,” she said.

“Guessing it isn’t sunshine and rainbows.”

“It’s a lawsuit—”

I ripped the envelope in half and tossed the pieces on the porch. “Drop it.”

“Not until I have my son.”

“He’s not your son.”

Victoria thought she could argue with me. “Only because you won’t let me be a part of his life.”

“You chose not to be a part of his life.”

“I was young and foolish,” she said.

Like it made any damn difference. “But now you’re older and broke.”

“I’m going to fight until I get rights to my son.”

“You want to see your son?” I was done playing. “Fine. Follow me.”

Victoria smiled like she’d won some great victory just stepping into my house. She claimed the chaise lounge in my living room. Elle’s chosen throne. I said nothing. Didn’t yell. Didn’t get mad.

I brought her the photo albums Mom had put together. The ones from when Bast was little.

“Let’s see what the kid’s been up to.” I opened the first album. “Here’s Sebastian on the day he was born. You probably never saw him in the incubator or on the oxygen. Remember? Because you told the nurses you never wanted to see the brat. You wanted the nightmare to be over.”

Victoria stiffened. “Lachlan, I had just given birth.”

“That doesn’t excuse you. Look at him.” I pointed to the picture of my premature son. “Sick and underweight, because you refused to eat towards the end of the pregnancy. You didn’t want to show.”

“I was a teenager.” Victoria slammed the album shut. “I was scared.”

“Yeah? So was I.” I opened the next album, lingering on a picture of me holding Bast when we finally got home. “Here’s his crib. I had it in my room so I could switch off with my Mom on feedings and changings. This was his first bath. He peed all over me, but Mom said I did the same thing to her during my first bath. Here’s him in his bouncer—he loved that fucking thing. Cried like a banshee the day it broke. Mom and I had to search the couch cushions and in the seat of the car to scrape together enough money to buy a new one.”

“What’s your point, Lachlan?”

“The point? The point is that here…” I showed her a picture of my smiling, exhausted mother bouncing a three-month-old on her hip. “This is his mother. This is the woman who raised him. Who fed him. Who changed him, swaddled him, sacrificed her sleep, her time, her life to raise a baby that wasn’t hers. He was happy and healthy because of the work she did.”

“I’m not here to apologize for the past,” she said.

“Wouldn’t forgive you if you tried.” I grinned and flipped the album to when Bast was a bit older. “We took this when he said his first word. Know what it was?”