Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(6)
Author: A.L. Jackson

He all owed the pain to wel up in his chest, and he said a silent goodbye to the girl he would always love. He stepped back and let the door close between them. As he escaped down the hal , he trained his attention on the floor, not all owing himself to look through the large glass window where he knew his child slept. He knew if he saw, he would never be able to walk away.

Elizabeth was taken care of and happy, and for once, Christian would do something that he wasn’t doing for himself.

After all , it was for the best.

Chapter 01

May 2010

I stood in the middle of my office, taking in a deep breath as I looked out over San Diego Bay. What seemed like thousands of sailboats dotted the water, bobbing in the cool breeze. It was beautiful, calming, and so different from the urban chaos I’d lived in during my first two years as an attorney serving as a public defender in New York City.

I’d never been to San Diego, though I’d heard so much about it.

Elizabeth was from San Diego, growing up here. I’d spent countless hours listening to stories about her, her mother, and her two sisters. Every Saturday they’d take a trip to the beach no matter what the weather. They didn’t have a lot of money, and it was an outing that cost nothing more than the smal amount of gas it took to get them there.

Elizabeth would never say they had been poor, though clearly they had been. She would assert so many were far worse off than her family. She would say her mother worked hard, and she and her sisters never went without the things they needed.

I wondered about her often even though it had been almost five years since I’d walked out of that hospital and carried on as if there weren’t a completely different life I should be living. I’d always expected to hear something, a subpoena for a child support hearing or a request that would be altogether unbearable—one asking that I relinquish my rights as father because somebody else wanted that title—but none had ever come. I’d ensured I would always be easy to find, it taking nothing more than entering my name in a search engine, and Elizabeth could pick up the phone and call me directly. But she never did.

I was haunted by the choices I’d made, plagued by insomnia and anxiety with most nights spent wide-awake in regret. I knew nothing of my own child. Countless times, I’d typed Elizabeth Ayers into my computer but found I could never complete the search. As much as I wanted to know, I didn’t deserve to know. What gave me the right to delve into their personal lives, to know where they lived, if Elizabeth had married, my child’s name? No, I had no right, but that never kept my thoughts far from them.

I sighed heavily when the buzz from my phone pulled me from my thoughts. I dug into my pocket, sliding my finger across the faceplate to accept the call .

“This is Christian.”

“Christian, how are things coming over there?” Without greeting, which was no surprise, my father got straight down to business.

I proceeded to fil him in on my perception of the building, the office manager, and my assumption that everything was coming along as planned even though I’d only arrived the day before. I’d gone directly to my condo, exhausted from the three-day drive.

I’d flown out the month before to meet with my realtor and purchased a new high-rise condo just a five-minute drive from the new office. I’d always known one day I would work for my father’s firm, I just had no idea my father would open a new branch on the other side of the country and ask me to head it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

As the years had progressed, my respect for my father had dissipated, and my resentment had grown, leaving us little more than business partners. The night of my graduation dinner had been the last of the family I had known. It was the night Claire had packed a suitcase, and Richard had watched the best thing in his life walk out the door and had done nothing about it. I hated my father for it because it only made me see myself.

When I had glimpsed the discontent in my mother’s eyes that night, I’d had no idea how deep it went.

It had been a new beginning for us as mother and son.

She had come to me, weeks later, distraught and in tears, confessing the many ways she believed she had failed me.

She told me that as a young woman, she had been blinded by wealth and society, and she had pushed me to do great things because she loved me and wanted the best for me, but had somehow forgotten to teach me to be compassionate and kind along the way. She had told me she’d grown to care nothing about those things, and when I’d sat there and told her about Elizabeth, it had broken her heart. She felt that she’d somehow failed me. I had disagreed. My failure was all my own.

But most of all , her concern had been with Elizabeth—the girl who had given birth to a grandchild Mom would probably never be given the chance to know. Mom had admitted then that she’d been so fond of Elizabeth, though regretful y she’d never shown it. Mom had said that Elizabeth had reminded her too much of the girl she used to be before she’d lost herself to a world that had been so appealing when she’d married into it.

Through it we’d become desperately close, relying on one another because we were the only person the other had. She was my closest confidant— my only confidant—and it was clear to her that I held myself in reproach.

Honestly, she did too. She wanted to know how I slept at night, knowing I had a child out there somewhere. I told her I didn’t. She begged me to go find them, still encouraging me to make it right.

She disagreed with my rationale. She told me that keeping distance would do nothing but cause more pain, not nul ify it. Obviously, the distance caused me pain. Yes, she knew I was to blame, but she insisted that didn’t mean I didn’t deserve a second chance.

Since my mother had left him, my father had never once mentioned her name. Every conversation had centered on my schooling and, once I’d graduated, the firm.

Just like today. I finished the short call with my father and hung up after promising him I would call him the next day with an update.

Looking around my office, I wondered where to begin.

My large mahogany desk sat facing the door, the dark wood gleaming with the sunlight shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. On its surface sat only a phone and nameplate, belying the clutter of the rest of the room.

Stacks of boxes leaned against one wal , and volumes of books sat in front of the matching mahogany bookcases waiting to be organized. Years of case studies needed to be filed, most of them sent from the main office in Virginia.

I exhaled a weighty breath through my nose, not yet ready for the task ahead of me.