Kissed and Missed (Daddy Issues #2)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

JULIAN

TWO YEARS LATER

R iley is already at the café when I arrive.

She’s sitting at a table by the window, her gaze on the sunny street beyond. As I enter, she looks up, our gazes connecting from across the room, and my heart is in overdrive as I move toward my daughter, seeing her face for the first time in two years.

I haven’t been miserable during that time. My life is happy and fulfilled. I have a wife who loves me, and more to be thankful for every day. Even so, not a single day has passed that I didn’t feel my daughter’s absence, or that I didn’t wish things were different.

“Hey, Ri,” I croak, stopping beside the table.

Her bottom lip trembles. “Hey, Dad.”

I take the chair across from hers, jittery with nerves. “How are you?”

Not quite meeting my eye, Riley fiddles with the napkin in her lap. “Okay. Thanks for meeting me.”

Getting her email was a surprise. Since our falling out, we’ve had only sporadic contact, mainly through her mother, who was all too happy to pass along our child’s contempt.

In the days since I agreed to meet her, I’ve often wondered or suspected that this would be a financial request. A relationship centered on money is all I know with Riley, why would this be any different?

Now that I’m here, though, I can sense a change in her. Instinctively, I know that she isn’t the same person I knew.

“So, you married my ex-girlfriend, huh?” asks Riley with a weak laugh.

I scrub my hand over my close-cropped beard, gazing at her. “I did.”

She attempts a smile. “How is all that? Marriage? Living on the East Coast?”

“Good,” I answer truthfully, but a rock has dropped into my stomach. Of everything about this lunch, telling her this news was what I was most anxious about. “We go back and forth quite a bit, but it will slow down soon. You’re, ah , going to have a sister.”

Riley stills, her eyes widening. “Wow. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” I wait, tension bleeding into my shoulders as I prepare for the outrage to be unleashed.

The last thing I’m expecting is for Riley to shake her head, letting out an incredulous little laugh, as if she’s just as surprised by her reaction as I am. “That’s… actually kind of cool. When is she due?”

I swallow, frozen stiff, as if moving too fast will destroy this moment. “In about three months. This is our last trip before the baby comes.”

“Do you guys have a name picked out?”

I’ve never felt this thrown off balance in my life, and that’s including the reaction I had to my wife when we first met. “We’ve been talking about it. There’s a short list if you’d like to see,” I admit. Still reeling as I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone, I show her the shared note Honor and I have going which has dwindled to half a dozen names after months of debate.

There hadn’t been any discussion between me and my ex-wife. She told me she liked the name Riley, and I—overwhelmed and depressed by the unexpected left turn my life had taken—accepted it without question.

After two years of knowing Honor, of loving her and our relationship, I shouldn’t have been surprised when she plopped down next to me on the couch one evening and started quizzing me on my opinion of the names she’d found. I was, though, and ended up spending the better part of the night between her thighs, worshiping my wife for being the incredible woman and partner she is.

Now, Riley examines the list with interest, her gray-blue eyes—so like my own—skimming over the screen. “I like Eliza,” she declares finally, passing the phone back to me. “Edie Ballard is super cute, too, though. I think that’s my favorite.” For the first time since I sat down, she meets my gaze directly.

“Why did you want to meet, Riley?” I finally ask, not sure I can take skirting around the question for one more minute. She seems different, but if all this is to get money out of me, I would rather know sooner rather than later. Already, I feel so much hope, and I can’t bear for it to all be for nothing.

My daughter winces, her hands falling back to her lap. “I just wanted to apologize. In person. I know I was kind of out of control for a while there, and I treated you really badly. You didn’t deserve it, Dad, and I’m so sorry. Like, really, really sorry.” Her eyes are shining with tears as she continues, wiping them away on her napkin. “I’ve been going to therapy for about six months now, and she helped me realize a lot of the unhealthy patterns in my relationship with Mom. That’s not to say she’s responsible for my behavior, because she’s not. I’m an adult. I know right from wrong, and I made my own choices.”

I feel my eyes burning, too, as my eldest daughter straightens her spine and lifts her chin, obviously gathering her courage for whatever she has to say next. “I don’t want money from you. I just… I would really like to reconnect. If you want to.”

If I want to?

“Kid,” I croak, weak with joy and relief, “I can’t think of anything I want more.”

When I get home, I find Honor in the kitchen, quite literally barefoot and pregnant. Her pale hair is tied back, a few strands hanging loose around her face.

There has never been a time I wasn’t wildly attracted to my wife, but lately? Watching her body grow with our baby? Christ, I can barely keep myself off her.

“Hey!” Honor’s eyes widen as she spots me. “How did it go?”

I don’t respond at first. I can’t. Drawing forward, I wrap my arms around her, pulling her as close as I can with our unborn daughter between us. The scent of her hair, the feeling of her hugging me back, all of it is so familiar now. I’ve held this woman thousands of times, and yet, so often, I’m still filled with a deep, warm sense of gratitude.

“I love you,” I croak at last, kissing her hair as I bask in the brand-new reality that the most painful part of my life—the estrangement with my daughter—seems to be over. “It went well. Very well.”

Honor draws back, gazing up at me with wide, shining eyes. “ Really ?”

I nod, my throat tight as I press my hand to her swollen belly. “She’s excited about the baby,” I report with a choked, disbelieving laugh. “Edie was her favorite name.”

“That definitely wasn’t the reaction I expected,” Honor says, her expression glowing with relief and happiness. “I guess she’s Edie, then. If big sis is on board.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I blurt out immediately, because even if Riley is my daughter, Honor shouldn’t be forced to forgive her for the behavior that ended their relationship.

My wife fixes me with a fond, exasperated look. “I’m over it, Julian. I promise. It was a long time ago, and I did marry her dad. You’ll remember the internet crowned me the revenge queen for that move.”

A low chuckle rumbles in my chest as I lean forward to kiss her briefly. “I invited her to dinner tomorrow, before we leave. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is,” Honor tells me gently. “I can find something to do if you’d rather it be just the two of you. I know you have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Stay.” I tuck a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, enjoying the way she leans into my touch with a sweet hum of contentment. “It would be good, I think. We need to start to move forward. You’re my wife. There are no parts of my life where you aren’t welcome.”