Chapter 18 House Divided
HOUSE DIVIDED (KANE)
The night is a window to a dark ocean called eternity.
There’s barely a cloud obscuring the stars, blinking lighthouses on shores we’ll never see.
Out here with the kids, my worries should be just as distant, even though they’re really just a few feet away.
I can’t dwell on that.
Not with Sophie peering through her telescope, mapping what she can with her stargazing app.
Dan has his drum pad outside, tapping out an old Van Halen song with his headphones on. The kid’s got good taste, all thanks to yours truly.
It should be peaceful. Quiet. Clear.
And I really am trying my damnedest to be present and listen to my fatherly instincts.
“Hey, Dad? You awake?” Sophie snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“Huh?” I grunt.
Shit, so maybe I’m not listening well.
“What planet is this? Do you think it’s right?”
I take the phone from her hands and look at the screen. It shows us an overview of the night sky overhead with nice labels. You can narrow down any section, easily zooming in and searching the names of the major stars and planets named to track with the sky.
There’s more on constellations, too, which Soph has spent a long time working on. She wants to know them all by heart one day.
“Which one do you mean, honey?” I ask.
“Look here. I don’t know if it matches.” She drags me under the telescope, and I look through the lens.
It’s too faint to be Jupiter, but the telescope captures the faintest fuzzy rings. Definitely Saturn.
“Should be there on the app. Bet you five bucks you can’t find it.”
“Daaad,” she whines, but she’s smiling. “I wanted you to get it for me.”
“Where’s the fun in that, baby girl? And how will you learn if you don’t do it yourself? Look harder, then you tell me what that is.”
“Not fair,” she hisses as she takes the phone and dips her face back under the telescope.
My mind goes back to what Margot said.
About running.
About how I mouthed off, calling it a mistake.
A heat of the moment slip. Almost inevitable when I was pissed off and frustrated and she tried to reason our way out of a bad situation.
If something goes to shit, just say so.
I can handle the truth.
Now, our names are linked in public, and the ugly all-seeing eye makes everything more complicated.
The truth is, I can’t fold her life into mine. It’s too complicated and we’re too incompatible.
That woman deserves better than more rumors breathing down her neck.
And I didn’t mean she was a mistake.
I don’t regret our time together.
The thing I regret isn’t Margot Blackthorn—it’s how this fuckery could hurt her while she’s boiling over our stalker stress.
I damn sure regret having no idea how I’m going to make it better.
“Saturn! Found it!” Sophie says triumphantly.
I beam her a smile. I hope it doesn’t look too absent.
“Great job, Soph.” I mean it, though.
Dan looks up from drumming, his little face tense with focus as he pulls off his headphones.
Sophie goes back to stargazing with her phone in one hand and her face pushed to the telescope, but Dan watches me with a seriousness that seems older than his nine years.
Normally, I’d laugh.
Tonight, I just wonder if he knows his old man royally fucked up.
That makes me ache, thinking he could have that awareness.
They’re both growing up so fast and I can’t keep up.
Every time I think I’m used to the stage of life they’re in, they grow a little more and time skips forward.
These kids are turning into well-rounded people. I feel like I’m meeting them for the first time every few years.
“Dad,” Dan says, leaving his drums and coming to sit beside me.
“What is it, Bud?”
“Something’s wrong,” he says, regurgitating a phrase I use on them all the time. “Why are you worried?”
Damn.
Of course, I’ve told them the media hounds know we’re here. Not to scare them, but because I don’t like keeping too many secrets.
I want them to trust me, and I need them to feel safe.
They’re too young and thankfully too innocent to understand the scummy dark side of fame and money, but they do know not to ever speak to reporters.
“Is it because people know you’re here?” His forehead pinches. “So what? Why should we care what they say?”
“Not that simple, little man,” I say gently. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just us, but we’re complicating Margot’s life, too. And that’s on top of the intruder crap.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that why…” He trails off, glancing up in the direction of her room, his face clearing.
“Yeah. It’s a big deal,” I tell him.
“But why? I mean, aren’t you complicating it in a good way? Maybe she doesn’t like people taking pics of her, but she smiles and laughs and she’s nice to us. I don’t think she cares about the burglar anymore and neither do I!”
“That’s not all that matters,” I say, even though it’s true.
Margot obviously enjoys the time we spend together, and she’s instinctively good with the kids.
Hell, kinder and more attentive than their own mother, even if the bar’s set so low it scrapes the grass.
“Then what else does, Dad?” Dan asks. “I bet she likes you. Way more than any crush I’ve seen at school. You get all grumpy when she talks to that ceramics dude. Lee or whatever.”
“I do not,” I growl, prodding him in the side. “Take that back, boy.”
“See? Busted! You know you do.” He laughs. “Gah, why do grown-ups have to make everything so confusing anyway?”
I wish I fucking knew.
Since I don’t, I tickle him until he’s red-faced and begging for mercy, and I’m the one who needs it tonight.
When did my own son get wiser than me?
Everything feels complicated as hell, sure, but maybe I should pull my head out of my ass and try again.
Maybe we should talk, and I should explain what happened back there.
The rest is up to Margot.
Assuming it’s not already too late for her to hear more of my excuses, my worries, and everything I wish I could control.
That’s not fair.
The least I owe her is an explanation.
We spend the night apart and it’s a restless goddamned absence.
Best to give her space, though, and by the time I’m padding downstairs to brew some coffee the next morning, I’m ready to lay my cards out.
But there’s a noise in the hallway that stops me cold.
Another intruder?
Impossible. None of the cameras went off and pinged my app.
Only, when I hustle into the kitchen with my fists ready, it’s just Margot.
She’s standing there, dressed in olive slacks and a crisp white blouse, with those big suitcases behind her.
She stops and stares at me, eyes wide. Her heart-shaped lips twitch.
What the actual fuck?
We gawk at each other for an eternity.
Her mouth is tight, her face almost as pale as that shirt.
She looks like she got about as much sleep as I did, and I hate it.
“Margot,” I grind out. “What are you doing?”
She stiffens. “I didn’t think you’d be down yet.”
“Obviously.” I gesture at her luggage. “Is that why you’re sneaking out without a goodbye?”
Her mouth opens, closes, and then her face falls.
“Duchess, are you shitting me right now?” There’s a jagged lump in my throat. “You weren’t even going to say goodbye to the kids?”
Her nostrils flare and she folds her arms.
“I… I figured you could do that for me.”
“Yeah, because they’d love that.” I snort. “Whatever your beef is with me, I thought we were better than that.”
“What else do you expect, Kane? Should I just stick around, waiting for you to realize you fucked up? We had less than a week left anyway.”
Less than a damn week, yeah.
Still more time than this exit would be.
And it hits me like an uppercut, I’m not ready for our time together to end.
In the silence, her red-rimmed eyes flick to mine and away again. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Where were you planning to go? Home?” My voice is hoarse.
“I was going to catch the next flight out of Bar Harbor to Portland. From there, not sure,” she whispers. “You’re welcome to the house as long as you’d like, if you think it’s safe enough. I’ll be out of your hair and you guys can—”
No.
Fuck no.
She stops talking as I stride forward, catch the back of her neck in my hand, and pull her into a violent kiss.
Her hands flatten against my chest like she wants to push me away, but we both know she won’t.
That isn’t what we want.
Not when her mouth softens.
Not when she melts into me.
Not when this pitiful mangled sob boils out of her.
“Kane,” she strains out, but I shake my head.
“I know. You feel like you have to go because of the bullshit I said last night. I take it back. I’m sorry. Just hear me out first? Please, hear me out, and then you can decide if you still want to leave.”
Her eyes fill with tears. I fucking hate that she’s crying because of me.
“You don’t have to explain anything. Really, what’s the point?”
“I do,” I insist. “You don’t know everything about me yet, and I want you to understand what happened.” I smooth my thumb over her cheeks and the tear trails there. “Let me have a chance to give you the truth.”