Chapter Eleven
Derek
I shouldn’t be here.
The thought repeated itself in my head as I sat in my truck a dozen houses down the road from hers. Engine off, hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
I sat there watching as the street shut down. Porch lights turning off minutes before the lights in the windows.
Except hers.
I could still taste her. The food we ate at dinner was flavorless compared to her. I could still feel the way she melted against me, her fire giving way to something warm and inviting. The memory of the way she surrendered the moment my lips touched hers burned like a brand on my skin.
She deserved better than me.
A man who beat his wife.
A man who became what he hated most.
A man who couldn’t walk away.
I walked away like a fucking coward. Left her standing there against the wall with swollen lips and confusion in her eyes. And I’d done it because I could. Because I was an asshole like the man who raised me.
Walking into that restaurant and seeing her with Zero had me wanting to put my fist through his face. I walked away without a hello to my daughter. That was the kind of selfish bastard I was.
I should go home.
My hands reached for the keys, started the ignition, and put the truck in gear. Slowly, I drove down the street until I was pulling into her driveway.
She sat on her porch, mug cradled in her hands as she stared at me.
I cut the engine and stepped out, boots hitting the asphalt with deliberate weight.
I closed the door quietly—knowing Frankie was asleep inside—and leaned against the truck, holding her gaze.
Waiting for her to tell me to get the fuck out. To leave her alone.
Leave Frankie alone.
I pushed off the truck and walked toward her, hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her.
Stopping at the bottom of the steps in front of her, I asked, “Frankie asleep?” my voice rough. I cleared my throat, hoping the words would come out clearer next time.
This woman rattled me. And she had no fucking idea how much.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice soft and steady. “Why are you here?”
“Fuck if I know.” I ran my hand through my hair, frustration eating me alive. Talking to women had never been difficult for me. I’d charmed Sam in a matter of moments. Marsha even less.
But there was something about Kat that had me on edge. Maybe it was the fact that she was my daughter’s mother. She had the power to take her away from me, not that I had her. I’d walked away when I had the chance, not knowing how to keep my anger in check.
I still didn’t know how. But I could stop myself from lashing out. Progress, Haizley called it.
“How was your date?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed, and I saw the anger flare up in them, making them sparkle in the moonlight.
“Did he kiss you goodnight?” The words came out in a growl, and I didn’t bother hiding the rage that grew from picturing his mouth on hers.
“You need to go,” she said, her words cutting me in two as she stood up and turned her back on me.
“Kat.” Not a question. A command.
She didn’t turn. She stood rigid with her hand on the doorknob, waiting to hear what I had to say.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked over her shoulder. Her eyes filled with pain and what looked like pity. “What are you sorry for, Derek?”
Everything, I said silently. For walking away from my mother when she refused to leave the bastard who was beating her. Walking away from Marsha when she told me she was pregnant. Signing away my rights to my daughter. Lying to Sam. Beating the fuck out of her when she told me she was pregnant.
I was sorry for hating Jack when he’d done nothing wrong. For telling Frankie no when she asked me to join them. But most of all, I was sorry for walking away from Kat tonight. Leaving her dazed and confused after kissing the hell out of her.
But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I told her a fucking lie.
“I’m sorry I ruined your date.”
She took a deep breath and turned the knob until the door opened. She stepped inside and turned to face me. “It wasn’t a date,” she said right before she closed the front door.
My eyes closed in relief. My next thought was to run up the steps and bang on her door until she opened it. But I didn’t do that either. I walked back to my truck and backed out of her driveway and went home.
“Derek, why do you think you don’t deserve forgiveness?”
Haizley asked the same question every fucking week, and I avoided it every time. I never knew how to answer it.
Until now.
“Because there is no excuse for what I did,” I answered, staring out the window at the house down the street. It had been days since I stood in front of Kat and said I was sorry, with a bullshit excuse about ruining her date.
“Forgiveness doesn’t excuse what you did.”
“Then what’s the fucking point?” I asked, craning my neck to pin her with a glare. She never flinched. I couldn’t count the number of times she told me she wasn’t afraid of me. Even before the cameras recorded our sessions.
Not the sound, she’d said.
Video only.
For her protection.
She claimed it wasn’t her decision. That Gunner insisted. I knew that big fucker didn’t trust me. I wasn’t sure any of them did. But King let me stay. Let me work for them. They used me for my skills; I was a damn good builder, so they tolerated my presence to have their houses built.
“Forgiveness acknowledges that what you did was wrong. It helps release anger or the desire for vengeance. Jack forgave you because he wants you in his life.”
“Jack forgave me because I saved his daughter.”
“Yes, you saved Charlie and, in the process, you killed someone who once meant something to you.”
Marsha didn’t mean shit. She was a woman I dated for a while. I fucked her, but I’d never have married her. The woman was batshit crazy; I knew that when I met her. But she was fucking good in bed.
I ran a hand over my face.
That wasn’t something I could reveal to Haizley. She already knew how much of a fuckup I was.
“What about Sam?” she asked.
“What about Sam?”
“Why do you think she forgave you? Was it only because you saved Charlie?”
My eyes searched the floor for an answer other than the one I knew. The one Sam gave me that I just couldn’t accept.
“She never should have forgiven me.”
“Derek, I was there when she forgave you. I know what she said.”
It had been during a session with just Sam and me. Jack didn’t need to hear everything we talked about, and even Jack agreed. He understood we had some shit to work out. I didn’t doubt for a second that Sam told him everything, though.
“I forgive you, Derek,” Sam said, tears running down her cheeks.
“I didn’t ask for forgiveness, Sam. I don’t deserve it.”
We sat on the couch next to each other as Haizley guided the conversation with vague questions. It was what she did during my private sessions, too. It was fucking infuriating that she wouldn’t just tell me the answers.
I had to work them out on my own, she said. That was how you learned, she said.
“The man who hurt me wasn’t the man I knew. The man I fell in love with. You’re a good man who did a bad thing, Derek. That doesn’t make you a bad man.”
I hadn’t believed her then, and I still didn’t believe her now.
“Good men don’t do bad things to innocent women.”
“But Sam wasn’t innocent, was she? She cheated on you and tried to pass Charlie off as your daughter.”
“Are you blaming the fucking victim?” I growled.
“No, I am trying to get you to understand that we all do things in the heat of the moment when consumed with emotion. It doesn’t make us bad people.”
Her voice lowered at the end, and the way she’d said “us” made me wonder what she had done. I didn’t ask, knowing she wouldn’t tell me.
“Sam was innocent. I lied to her. I knew she wanted children, and I led her to believe I wanted them too because I was a selfish fucking prick.”
“You’re making excuses, Derek.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Haizley blew out a frustrated breath, her shoulders sagging as she leaned back in her chair.
She was always so professional, so carefully composed and unemotional, that seeing her react like this—seeing genuine frustration break through that therapist mask—made me think the end was coming.
Any second now, she’d finally admit I was a lost cause and end these sessions.
She’d tell me she couldn’t help me anymore, that I needed someone else, someone better equipped to deal with my particular brand of damage.
Only, I didn’t want them to end. I needed these sessions more than I cared to admit.
Haizley gave me something I needed. A way to understand the patterns.
The rage that lived in me didn’t come from nowhere.
It had roots. My father’s fists, my mother’s silence—those things had built something in me brick by brick, blow by blow, year after silent year.
Something dark and volatile I needed to control, not eliminate.
Because it was a part of me now, woven into the fabric of who I was.
She was helping learn to control it. Helping me learn to trust myself. Trying to teach me how to forgive myself. She’d helped me to forgive my mother. That alone was worth everything.
“You’re making excuses for why you shouldn’t forgive yourself.”
“I don’t deserve fucking forgiveness,” I snapped.
Haizley sat back in her chair. “Let’s change the subject for now. Have you spoken to Frankie?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I?” I countered.
“She’s your daughter.”
It was my turn to be frustrated. Haizley refused to understand the law. “She’s not my daughter. I gave up that right when I signed those papers.”
“It doesn’t change biology.” Haizley had a faraway look in her eyes when she said it. “I recently met my father.”
I moved back to the couch and sat down in front of her. Haizley didn’t share much about her private life, but living in a small town, you heard rumors and stories.
“I thought your parents died in a car accident?”
“They did. What I didn’t know was that they had adopted me.
While in New York with Melissa, I learned things I never knew.
Including who my birth parents are. My mother is gone; I’ll never get to meet her.
But my father.” She smiled, and it was infectious.
I smiled with her, wanting to know everything.
“How did you feel when you found out?” I asked cautiously.
It had been a trap. I knew from the smile she showed me at my question that she revealed this information because it directly related to me.
“Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe it. I didn’t know I was adopted, so there were a lot of emotions about that. Grief, betrayal. All normal reactions for someone who learns their parents don’t share the same blood.”
“I think Frankie knows she’s adopted,” I muttered.
“She does.”
“What about your father?” I asked. “What’s he like?”
“He’s... a lot,” she said. “He’s done a lot of bad things in his life, but he’s also done a lot of good things. He’s married, has a son.”
“So you have a brother?”
“I do.” Haizley laughed.
“Did you forgive him? For not being in your life?”
“He didn’t know about me. My mother told him, but he didn’t believe her when she couldn’t produce me. He walked away and never looked back.” She shrugged.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Not exactly, no. But when I found out the truth, I had a choice to make. I could walk away, the way he did. Tell him I didn’t want him in my life. Or I could accept his flaws.”
“What did you choose?” I asked.
“I chose to get to know him. He’s my father, and there is a connection between fathers and daughters.
One that is unbreakable. Derek, the things he’s done are far worse than what you did.
” She held her hand up when I tried to interrupt.
“I’m not excusing either of you, but I lost my dad when I was sixteen.
I loved him so much. Now I have a chance to have another one.
One who will do anything in his power to ensure I am safe and loved.
That’s all a little girl wants from her dad. Love and protection.”