9. Amara
AMARA
Time fractures. One second I'm standing in my doorway with June clinging to my leg, the next I'm staring at Cassian's face while my entire world collapses around me like wet cardboard.
His eyes move from June to me, back to June. I watch the processing happen in real time. The confusion dawns into understanding, understanding sharpens into certainty.
He knows. God help me, he knows. My hands shake. I press one against the doorframe to steady myself.
"June," I manage, voice coming out strangled. "Go to your room, baby."
"But—"
"Now. Please."
She looks up at me, those innocent eyes wide with confusion. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, sweet girl. You didn't do anything wrong." I smooth her curls back from her face, force my voice into something resembling calm. "Just go play for a bit, okay? I need to talk to this... to the man at the door."
"I'm sorry for answering," she whispers, guilt coloring every syllable.
"It's okay. Really. Just go."
She obliges, casting one last curious glance at Cassian before disappearing down the hallway. Her bedroom door closes with a soft click that sounds deafening in the sudden silence.
I turn back to Cassian. He's still standing there, frozen mid-breath, looking like someone just reached into his chest and rearranged his organs without anesthetic.
"What the fuck," I breathe out slowly, gripping the doorframe so hard my hand nearly cramps up painfully, "do you think you're doing here?"
His mouth opens and closes a few times before he finally speaks. "I came to talk. About business. Black Lake and Sapphire Studios, a potential collaboration…" He stops, shakes his head like he's clearing water from his ears. "But that doesn't matter anymore, does it?"
"You need to leave."
"Amara."
"You need to leave right now."
"That little girl…" His voice cracks, gesturing inside with his hand. "She has my eyes."
I don't respond. I don't know how to. My throat has closed around words I've spent five years not saying.
"How old is she?"
Silence.
"Amara."
"That's none of your business."
"The hell it isn't." He takes a step forward. I move to slam the door but he catches it with one hand, not forcing it open but holding it steady. "If that little girl is mine?—"
"She's not." The lie tastes like ash.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Then let me get a DNA test." His jaw sets, that stubborn Griffin determination I remember from college settling over his features. "If she's not mine, you've got nothing to worry about. We'll do the test, it'll come back negative, and I'll leave you alone for good. I promise."
My silence is deafening and damning. As much as I want to deny it, I can't. My body won't let me.
He frowns. "She's mine. Isn't she?"
I can't do this. I can't stand here in my doorway with my daughter twenty feet away and have this conversation that I've been avoiding for five years and watch Cassian's face as he puts together the timeline, as he realizes what I've been hiding.
"I'm not discussing this with you."
"We're discussing it right now, Amara, whether you want to or not. You disappeared six years ago. No explanation, no goodbye, fucking nothing. You were just gone. And now you're back with a daughter who has my eyes and you expect me to what? Pretend I don't see it?"
"She's my daughter."
"And mine." He jabs a finger into his chest. "She's mine too."
Tears prick at my eyes. I blink them back furiously, desperately wiping at my eyes. I am not going to cry in front of him. I am not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how completely this is destroying me.
"You lost your chance," I whisper.
"What?"
"You lost your chance years ago. You made your choice and it wasn't me. So no, you don't get to show up now and demand anything. You don't get access to my daughter. You don't get explanations. You don't get shit."
"What choice? Amara, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Raylin," I spit the name out like venom. "You chose Raylin."
He recoils like I slapped him. "I never?—"
"You were with her constantly. Your penthouse, those fundraisers, everywhere I looked, there she was.
Touching you, talking to you, acting like you belonged to her.
" The words tumble out, years of resentment I've been choking on.
It fully dawns on me now just how much I've let this hatred consume me the longer I've let it fester in my mind.
"And you let her. You never pushed her away, never told her to back off. So I assumed?—"
"No, Amara. You assumed wrong."
"Cut the shit, Cassian. It was pretty damn clear that I was temporary and she was permanent."
"What are you even saying? You left before I could explain. You didn't even give me a chance!"
"There was nothing to explain!" My voice rises. I catch myself, force it back down. June's in her room. She doesn't need to hear this. "I saw enough. I saw you with her and I knew I couldn't compete with that. With her money and her history with you. So I left before you could leave me."
His face goes pale. "Amara?—"
"And then two weeks later I found out I was pregnant," I admit, completely defeated.
"Two weeks after I convinced myself you'd chosen someone else, I'm staring at a positive test and trying to figure out what the hell to do.
So I ran. To London first, then Barcelona.
And I built a life for me and June that didn't include you because I thought you didn't want to be included. "
"You thought…" He breaks off, clasping his hands together and bringing them up to his lips. "You really thought I chose Raylin over you?"
"What else was I supposed to think?"
"That I loved you!" he yells. "That I was completely gone for you, that Raylin meant nothing and never had, that every second she was near me I was wishing she was you instead!"
I flinch. My stomach seizes up.
"I spent six years looking for you," he continues. "Six years wondering what I did wrong, what I said or didn't say that made you disappear. And all this time you thought I'd chosen someone else? Someone I barely tolerated?"
"You never told her to leave you alone."
"Because she's been a family friend since we were kids and I was trying not to cause a scene! But I never touched her. Never gave her any indication that I wanted what she wanted. And I sure as hell never stopped wanting you."
My knees buckle. The doorframe is the only thing keeping me upright.
"Please," he says quietly. Desperately. "Please let me see her again. Let me be part of her life. I know I missed five years. I know I can't get that back. But I'm here now and I want to know my daughter."
"She doesn't know you exist."
"Then introduce us."
"It's not that simple?—"
"It is exactly that simple, Amara." His jaw sets. "She's my daughter. I have rights?—"
"Don't." My right hand balls up into a fist. "Don't you dare threaten me with lawyers and custody battles.
You want to know why I left? It was because I had nobody.
I thought you were with Raylin. I thought I was just about to be alone.
So forgive me if I'm not ready to just hand over access to the most important person in my life because you showed up on my doorstep and decided you want to play dad. "
"I'm not playing anything!"
"You lost that chance," I repeat. "Six years ago. You lost it."
I step back. Start to close the door. His hand catches it again, holds it open.
"Amara. Please."
"Leave, Cassian."
"I won't."
"Leave."
The fury in my voice must have convinced him. His hand drops gradually from the door. He steps back, eyes still locked on mine, looking like I just gutted him in broad daylight.
"This isn't over," he whispers.
"Yes it is."
"No." He shakes his head. "It's not. That's my daughter in there. And I'm going to know her, Amara. One way or another."
I slam the door. The deadbolt slides home with a satisfying click.
Then my knees give out completely. I sink to the floor, back pressed against the door, hands shaking so violently I have to press them against my thighs to make them stop.
Everything I've built, everything I've protected, all just came apart in the space of five minutes.
Footsteps approach from down the hall. Small feet on hardwood.
"Mama?"
I look up. June stands there in her pajamas, face scrunched with concern.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, baby." I wipe at my eyes quickly. "I'm okay."
"Who was that man?"
"Nobody. Just... he was nobody important. Don't worry about it."
The lie feels like swallowing glass. But what else can I say? That was your father, who I've been hiding you from for your entire life because I was too scared to tell him you existed?
She sits down next to me, small body pressed against my side.
"You're crying," she observes.
"Just a little."
"Why?"
"Sometimes grown-ups cry when they're overwhelmed, sweet girl. It doesn't mean anything's wrong."
She accepts this with the logic of a five-year-old who trusts her mother implicitly. She then leans her head against my shoulder, humming softly. I wrap my arm around her, pull her close, and breathe in the coconut smell of her shampoo.
There's no way I can tell this sweet girl how our lives just changed for the worst. So I stay silent, comforted by her scent and the feel of her little body against mine.
June is mine. She always has been, and I don't intend to share her with Cassian fucking Griffin simply because he has decided to show up in our lives again.