Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(71)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“Chances are we’l settle this thing out of court, and we may not even need to use this, but you have to have somewhere to start.” I knew he meant it as encouragement, but he real y didn’t understand the consequences of what he was asking of me, because I knew, giving the go ahead on this would seal our fate. Elizabeth would never forgive me, and I’d never be given another chance to prove to her how much I real y loved her. It destroyed me to think of shutting that door forever, but the truth was she had broken my heart—had broken my daughter’s heart.

I didn’t want to break the promise I’d made to never put her through a custody battle, but I would never break the promise I’d made to Lizzie; that as long as I lived, I would never leave her.

Matthew’s and Mom’s voices played loudly in my mind, Give her time . . . give her time. I just didn’t know how much time I had left, how much longer I could tolerate watching my little girl suffer.

I raked a hand through my hair and slumped further onto the table. “Just . . . give me a couple of days, and I’l let you know what I decide.”

Thursday night was fraught with nightmares I wasn’t entirely sure were dreamed as I wrestled with the decision that had to be made. I contended with the part of my heart that said I would wait for Elizabeth forever, the part that loved her so much it caused me physical pain.

I pushed that part aside as I rose from my bed Friday morning so fatigued and drained that I could barely stand. I went into the office in a haze with no idea how I would survive this, but knowing for Lizzie, I would let Elizabeth go.

By late afternoon, I felt myself ripping apart, coming unglued. The pain and guilt and anger I’d shouldered all week had become too much. The last bit of hope I’d held onto withered when I entered the hol ow space of my condo.

I shed my suit for jeans and a tee, wishing for the Friday before when Lizzie and I had shopped and made plans, how she’d buzzed in excitement as I’d helped her dress for her mother’s birthday. It was the same night Elizabeth had agreed to go to New York with me—the night she held me in her arms at the foot of her staircase.

Instead, I sat on the couch with my phone in my hand building up the nerve to make the call that would sever Elizabeth from my life forever. I looked out at the boats bobbing in the bay and pictured Lizzie’s face and hands pressed to the window, could hear her sweet voice as she counted them, and knew there was no other choice to make.

The light tapping at my door stopped me in mid-dial. It was a tiny sound coming from low on the door—a knock I knew could come from no other person than the one I wanted most.

Crossing the room in two steps, I tore the door open.

For a moment, I froze as I came to the realization that I wasn’t hal ucinating, and Lizzie and her mother were actual y standing in my hal way. Lizzie stared up at me. She looked sick, her little body weakened with the wear of the week. Her deadened expression was gone, though, her cheeks pink and chapped and stained with tears. The emptiness had vanished from her eyes; in its place was both hope and despair. I lowered myself slowly, reached for her, and pulled her into my arms.

She wrapped her sweet arms around my neck and stuttered over the tears that began to fal , “Daddy.” The emotions I’d repressed the entire week in my shocked grief now fel free in an overwhelming surge of relief, and I sobbed into her neck as she sobbed into mine.

I chanted her name, hardly able to believe she was real y here.

“Lizzie,” I said again as I pulled away just enough to see her and to wipe the tears from her cheeks. I held her face between my hands, probably a little too tight. “I missed you so much, baby girl. Do you understand how much I missed you?” I stressed the words desperate for her to understand I’d never wanted this separation. She nodded and cried as she spoke in her soft angel’s voice, “I missed you so much too, Daddy.” She scraped the nails of her fingers against my skin, dug in, and hung on.

Exhaling heavy and deep, I brought her against my chest, and she locked herself to my neck. I squeezed her with one arm around her waist and a palm on the back of her head, looking up at Elizabeth over Lizzie’s shoulder.

I was almost shocked to see she looked like death, as if she’d been to Hel and taken me with her. The fatigue, worry, and hurt marring her face, the perfect partner to mine. Her jaw quivered and shook from where she stood, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She swall owed and looked away as tears streamed down her face.

I stood and pulled my daughter up with me. Lizzie latched her legs around my waist just as tightly as she wound her arms around my neck and whimpered as if she were terrified I might let her go. I shushed her, ran my hand through her hair, and promised she wasn’t going anywhere—that I wasn’t going anywhere. I did not intend to let her out of my sight anytime soon.

I turned and left the door wide open. Elizabeth could stay, or she could go. At this point, I couldn’t bring myself to care. The only thing that mattered right then was the shaking little girl in my arms.

I carried Lizzie across the room to the adjoining kitchen and rested her on the counter, the distance of the large room and my back to Elizabeth our only privacy. I didn’t go far, just inched back enough so I could drink in her eyes, read her expression, and understand what she felt.

With her hands in mine, I asked her, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Were any of us okay?

Would we ever be?

Lizzie shed a new round of tears, trembled under my hands, and said, “You left me, Daddy . . . I was so scared you might never come back.” I had no idea how we would ever be all right or if I could ever forgive Elizabeth for what she’d done.

I pressed my lips to her head, smoothed away the matted locks of hair sticking to her cheeks. “I’d never let that happen, princess.”

She captured the solitary tear sliding down my cheek, rubbed it between two fingers, and whispered intuitively as her eyes burned into mine, “Mommy is so sad, Daddy.” It was my child’s plea for me to somehow make this right.

This time I had no clue what to say, had no answers, and could make no more promises. I only whispered,

“Daddy is sad too.”

I held her there for the longest time, and while she cried a week’s worth of tears out against my shirt, I murmured every reassurance I could find. I told her that I had been thinking of her every second, promised her that no matter what, her mother and I would make sure this never happened again.

I felt Elizabeth’s movement from behind, the sound of the door close, and the soft shuffle of her steps over the hardwood floor. When her weight settled on my leather couch, I knew she had chosen to stay.