Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(56)
Author: A.L. Jackson

She removed herself from my hold and looked away embarrassed, then back at me. “I guess I always knew.” embarrassed, then back at me. “I guess I always knew.” She sniffled, her mouth twisting in a self-conscious sort of smile and her expression sad. “I’d always hoped that it was all about the child, that you punished yourself because of it, and wouldn’t all ow yourself to move on and love me.” More tears fel down her face, and she looked down in a shame that was real y my own. “But when you’d make love to me . . . wel . . . I knew you weren’t. You were always a mil ion miles away. I just didn’t want to believe you were with her.”

More regret.

I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize again, knowing words would never make up for what I’d done.

Instead, I held my palm to her face and wiped away another tear that fel down her cheek. “You deserve so much more than one night, Britt.” She deserved so much more than the two years I had stolen from her, so much more than I had ever given her, so much more than I could ever give her.

Al I had was for Elizabeth.

Brittany closed her eyes, leaned into my hand, and for a moment, seemed to indulge in my touch, before she stood and without looking back walked away.

Never had I wanted Elizabeth more.

The need was suffocating as I rode the hotel elevator to the eleventh floor and opened the door to my suite. Not bothering to switch on the light, I stood in the dark, empty room, the only il umination coming from the glow of the street lamps below.

The aching numbness I had wandered through since Sunday had become a constant throb, pressing, pulsing, and forcing its way out.

Today had been torture, burying my father, facing the pain I’d caused my friend, sitting through the reading of my father’s wil .

Confusion clouded my heart and mind with uncertainty, too many questions, and too many whys.

I’d wanted nothing that was his, and I still hadn’t come to terms with what he’d wanted me to have.

I was sure he’d have erased me from his wil and, in essence, from his life, removing me from what I knew in his mind would be his most valued gift.

To his widow he’d left the house, his cars, and enough money to maintain it all , to afford her to live out the rest of her days comfortably. But he hadn’t left her his vast fortune, the inheritance he’d received from his parents. A quarter of it had been left to me, and the rest he’d given to my mother.

With this announcement had come the first real emotion I’d seen from Kendra, first her look of confusion and then the offense with being denied something she believed she deserved.

Mom had broken down and cried out that she didn’t understand. She’d begged for answers to questions that no one knew, why Richard would choose this life over her and then turn around and try to give it to her. For both of us it was an exacerbation to our confusion.

When we’d stood to leave my father’s study, his attorney had taken me aside and given me a key to the bottom drawer of my father’s desk. The key had been left in a safety deposit box in an envelope with my name on it.

Inside the drawer, there were pictures, all of them of me.

Some I could remember, others I could not. But it was what I had found at the bottom of the drawer that had real y shaken me. It was an envelope, and inside was the picture of Lizzie I’d left him the last time I’d seen him and a crinkled, folded up sheet of paper, the edges frayed and torn as if it had been folded and unfolded a thousand times.

It was a picture that I had no recol ection of, but one that had obviously been drawn by my hand, the crude child’s work depicting a man and young boy, the worn caption Dady Lovs Crisitian written at the top.

I’d understood immediately what he was trying to say.

It had hit me ful force, and for the first time it real y hurt that I’d lost my father.

He’d loved me, and he’d never once told me.

I looked around my empty hotel room and tried to hold onto the anger, but it was gone. In its place was only pity.

The clock beside the bed read just after midnight.

For the first time since I’d reunited with my daughter, I had missed our seven-fifteen call .

I kicked off my dress shoes and peeled the jacket from my body. As I unbuttoned the first couple of buttons of my shirt, I felt despair setting in.

My head spun, and my stomach twisted in knots.

My father was dead, and I’d never see him again.

Gone.

I wanted Elizabeth. I needed Elizabeth.

Grabbing my jacket from the chair where I’d tossed it, I fumbled through the pockets, produced my cel phone, and sat down on the side of the bed. I was desperate to hear her voice.

She answered on the first ring as if she’d been expecting me, waiting for me; the dulcet sound of her voice my consolation, my breaking point.

“Elizabeth.” The tears I’d prayed would come final y broke free, and I was at last able to mourn for my father.

“Oh, Christian.” Elizabeth’s tone was soft and understanding and held me the same as if I were in her arms—the only place I wanted to be.

“Elizabeth,” I cried again. She was my only solace, my first reminder to never become like my father. I’d come so close—had nearly given it all away.

Had he ever felt the regret that I felt? Had there ever been a day when he’d realized he was living the wrong life; that he never should have let my mother walk away? When he knew he was dying, did he wish he could have been he knew he was dying, did he wish he could have been given one last chance to tel us how he felt about us instead of waiting until he was gone and tel ing us the only way he knew how—with what he’d left behind?

I choked over the emotion, sobbed against the phone, pleaded with her again. “Elizabeth.”

I felt as if I were drowning in my father’s mistakes—mistakes that I’d made my own.

I was through wasting my chances. If I died tonight, I’d leave Elizabeth with no questions, nothing to decipher, no reason to wonder.

“Christian?” Elizabeth’s worry traveled over the distance and touched my heart.

I cried harder, wept for my father who’d been too proud, and vowed to myself that I would never be too proud.

“I love you, Elizabeth,” I wheezed out the words, unashamed and laid bare. She had to know. “I love you so much.”

From the edge of the bed, I curled in on myself and pressed the phone to my ear, silently begging her to be brave enough to say it back.

Please, Elizabeth, say it back.

I needed to hear her say it back . . . I needed her to take me back.