Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

" W HAT THE HELL WERE you thinking, Taylor Fox?"

Walking through the front door the next morning, having been dropped off by Melanie's mother, Taylor looked exhausted. He presumed the sleepover had not involved much sleep.

Despite the passage of the night, Noah's temper hadn't improved. Probably in large part because he'd done what he hadn't wanted to do in the restaurant and come home for a deep dive on social media, losing himself in all the posts about Louisa.

And then losing himself in photos of her and Ares, and feeling like he was torturing himself for no reason because that was in her past. Never mind how happy they looked. He was sure if he hunted around, he could find some photos that told a similar story with him and Amy when they'd been a mess almost from the start.

"What?"

"You tipped off the press, right?"

Her eyes went wide, and her lower lip trembled. She dropped her bag to the floor and crossed her arms over her chest. Okay, she was ready for a fight?

"Why did you do it?"

Silence stretched between them, and he found himself desperately hoping she'd deny it. He needed her not to have been the culprit. Maybe there was some other answer. Someone else could have seen them and tipped off the press.

"For the money, obviously," she said, with a roll of her eyes.

He braced his palms on the counter, anger and disappointment surging through him. His own daughter was unrecognizable to him. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" he asked, deathly quiet. "Why would you do this to her?"

"To her? To her? Is she all you think about, Dad? Don't you care?—,"

"Don't you dare act as though you've been wounded here. Yes, I care about Louisa. She is a wonderful, kind, brave woman who just wanted to get away from all that, and you fed her to the lions. Why the hell would you do this?"

She flinched.

"I have never been more ashamed of you in my life."

She sobbed, and spun away from him.

"Don't you walk away from me. We're not done."

"I'm done," she screamed. "I am so done."

"Stop." His voice was naturally commanding, but he was still surprised when Taylor did freeze.

"What?"

"What's gotten into you, Tay? Why would you do this?"

She whirled around to face him. "Why do you think?"

"I have no idea. I'm honestly at a complete loss. What did you stand to gain by hurting her?"

Taylor flinched. "Hurting her? Hurting her? What about Mom? What about me? Don't you think we're hurting too?"

He stared at her.

"You're ruining my life."

He felt as though his insides were shriveling up. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"I don't want her."

He stared at Taylor, finding it hard to breathe suddenly.

"I don't want her in our lives."

"Taylor—," he tried to keep his voice calm.

"I'm serious, Dad. She's not a part of this family."

"She's—,"

"You took me away from Mom. You owe this to me."

He stared at her.

"I should be there for her." Taylor wrapped her arms around her waist and sobbed. He stared at her, frowning, not understanding.

"Louisa?"

She glared at him witheringly. "For Mom."

"What do you mean?"

"I know , Dad," she ground out. "I know about rehab. I know about the car accident. I know about her addiction. How long did you think you could lie to me about it?"

He stared at her, as the bottom slipped out of his world. "How?"

"How? How? That's what you care about?"

He stared back, with no answers. He had been so angry, but now he felt totally on the back foot. "How?" he asked again.

"Instagram," she muttered.

"You don't have Instagram."

She rolled her eyes. "No, but Melanie does, and Becca does, and Halley does."

He closed his eyes and felt everything tipping away from him. "I see. How long have you known?"

"Months."

He opened his eyes and stared at her. "Oh, Tay," he said with a shake of his head, as his daughter's awful, awful behaviour suddenly started to make sense. "I wish you'd come to me about this."

"Why? You didn't show me the courtesy of honesty, so why would you expect it in return?"

He grimaced, because she had a point. "I didn't want you—your mom—," he dragged a hand through his hair. "I didn't know if you would understand."

"I'm fifteen," she said again, tapping the side of her head in a gesture of frustration. "When are you going to realise that?"

He shook his head. He was messing everything up. He felt woefully ill-equipped as a father. He felt like a failure in every sense of the word.

"I just kept hoping she'd get better, and everything would be fine."

Taylor sniffed. And then sobbed. His heart broke, and he recognized that no matter what, this was his daughter and he loved her, and he had to be right here, with her. He closed the distance between them and pulled her into a bear hug, and she didn't fight him. She didn't resist. She pressed her cheek to his chest and sobbed. They stayed like that a long time, him holding her, knowing that nothing mattered quite so much as making sure Taylor was okay. He'd made that promise to her the day she was born, and he never intended to break it.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly, stroking her hair. "I should have had this conversation with you a long time ago."

"Yeah," she sniffled. She pulled away from him, just enough so she could look up into his face. "At the party…"

He stiffened imperceptibly. "Yes?"

"I remembered," she whispered. "I remembered Mom taking me to a party. The smell—the booze, the smoke. It was all so familiar. And I remember being so scared. I was only little, maybe eight or nine. I hid in the kitchen, and then you came, and you scooped me up and took me away, and I was safe. I'd forgotten, until that night. I'd forgotten how often she'd…"

"Yes," he said.

"And all of a sudden, you were spending all this time away from me, and you were so happy, and I just…I didn't want to lose you, Dad. You're all I've got."

"Oh, honey. You're never going to lose me," he promised, kissing the top of her head. "I will rescue you from any party, anything, any time. You have my word."

"What about Mom?" she looked up at him, her eyes earnest. "How can we help her get better?"

"I'm doing my best. She's in a great facility, so maybe this time…"

Taylor squeezed her eyes shut. "Maybe." The word was ambivalent, at best. She sighed. "Can we maybe just go to Gramma's today? I know it's a day early, but…I kind of just want to be away from all this for a while."

He heard her plea, her sadness, her desperation. Such echoes of his own emotion. He thought of Louisa, and how desperately he didn't want to leave her. But he knew he had to choose Taylor. He had to, because she was a child, and he was her father, and that was a sacred, unrelenting duty.

"Okay, we'll go today," he said, concealing his own wishes. "I've got some things to take care of this morning, but we can leave after lunch."

She looked up at him, her expression briefly flashing with impatience but then she nodded. "Okay. This afternoon."

He read the press release right before he got in the car, and his blood boiled as the words slammed into him.

Louisa Petrakis denies new romance. The piece went on to say that theirs was strictly a working relationship, that she was looking forward to seeing the fruits of her labour in terms of a record-breaking launch of a Fox hotel, and from there, the press release pivoted to the hotel's virtues. Cleverly done, indeed.

But her denial of their relationship hit him hard in the solar plexus, so he drove with a sense of foreboding, all the way to her place and pulled up just around the corner. He walked quickly with his head bent, just in case there were paparazzi lingering; there weren't.

He knocked when he got there, and waited, trying to work out what the hell he was going to say.

Louisa wrenched in the door, dressed in a pair of linen pants and a cotton shirt, with an anxious look on her features as she scanned behind him.

"What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk."

To show her silent agreement, she opened the door and gestured for him to come inside. She closed the door quickly and slid the lock in place.

"About our business relationship?" he asked, then shook his head in frustration, because he had no business going on the defensive.

"It was just easier to diffuse it," she murmured, moving deeper into her apartment. "Would you like a coffee?"

He shook his head. "I've talked to Taylor."

Louisa nodded.

"She leaked it."

She shrugged. "Yeah, I was pretty sure she had."

"She's finally talking to me, explaining how she feels. Why she feels the way she does."

"I'm glad," Louisa said, but slowly, carefully.

"She should never have done that. She was worried she was losing me."

"That makes sense."

"To a teenager, yes. I suppose it does." He sighed. "It turns out, she's known about her mom's addictions for a while. She's been dealing with that, on her own. Or worse, using her adolescent friends for guidance, instead of coming to me."

"She's a teenage girl," Louisa said. "Talking to your friends about your problems goes with the territory."

"Still, I wish?—,"

"You should have spoken to her first," Louisa said, gently. "But I know you know that."

He closed his eyes.

"You wanted to protect her, but it was always going to come out."

He ground his teeth. "Yeah."

"Is she okay?"

He stared at Louisa, his heart squeezing then dropping. She was actually showing concern for Taylor in that moment? That was why he loved her. And he realized then that he did love her. Utterly and completely. It made this all the harder. "She's—going to be. I'm going to make sure of it." His voice was strangely thick. He cleared his throat. "I have to focus on that."

Louisa's throat shifted as she swallowed quickly. "Yeah." The word was barely audible.

"I'm going to take her home this afternoon. To my parents," he clarified. "We'll probably stay there for the rest of the holidays."

Louisa's skin paled but she didn't visibly react.

"I've fucked it all up," he said, dragging a hand through his hair. "Everything. From the minute I left Amy, I've made one wrong decision after another. I need to start making right decisions." And then, in a voice he barely recognized, "She's my kid."

Louisa's eyes were suspiciously moist. "And you're her dad. Her only dad. She needs you now." She blinked away quickly. "Of course, you have to look after her."

"I wish—I want?—,"

"It won't work," she said quietly. "You need the breathing space to concentrate on Taylor, and I want to keep a low profile. Nothing about us makes sense anymore."

"That's not true," he disputed it immediately. "So much of us makes sense. If it was six months down the track, then it would all be different."

Her expression was one of skepticism. "Perhaps." She lifted her shoulders. "But it's now, and we're here." She bit into her lip and then said, in a voice that was clear and unemotional— regal. "I'll miss you."

His heart twisted. His gut rolled. He stared at her as though she'd just laid out a plan for his execution, except, hadn't he done that? Wasn't he the one who said that he needed to focus on Taylor?

"Listen, Louisa," he took a step towards her, hating the distance between them, needing to get through to her.

But she shook her head quickly and took a step back. As though the distance was her salvation. "It's okay," she promised. "It was never meant to be for keeps, remember? We just forgot that, somewhere along the way."

But he wanted it to be for keeps. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He just couldn't see a way to make that happen. He had no way of knowing how long it would take him to reconnect with Taylor, nor to help her through this phase.

"I love you," he said, swallowing roughly.

She closed her eyes and nodded once. Was that it? What did he expect? A matching declaration of love, while he was putting an end to this? It didn't matter. He needed Louisa to know so that when she looked back on this, she understood what his decision was costing him.

"I'll hand the rest of the campaign over to Stuart," she said crisply, so he frowned because he wasn't thinking about the business at all. "He knows most of the details."

Noah crossed his arms. "You don't have to quit."

"We're almost through anyway; they'll call me if they need me, but I think going back into your office would just fuel the fire."

"So, you'll return to the agency?"

She nodded quickly. "Yes."

"You have to understand?—,"

"That's what really sucks, Noah. I do understand." And then, she stepped forward, and forward again, until she was standing right in front of him. "I was borrowing you, but you'll always be hers, and that's the way it has to be. It's how it should be. You're a great dad."

"I've done everything wrong."

"You've loved her. You've kept her safe. You've always been guided by wanting her to be happy. Taylor will understand that, one day." She lifted a hand to his cheek and his whole body sparked in response.

"And what about you, Louisa? What about us?"

Her throat shifted visibly as she swallowed, silence static around them as she searched for words. When she spoke, her voice was soft and husky. "I'll always remember you—this—as one of the best times of my life. You brought the sun out from behind the clouds for me. That's what I'll remember."

He cursed inwardly. She was way too fair, and kind, and gracious. She was his match, his other half. She was the air he breathed, and he had no idea how he'd go on breathing without her in his life. But Taylor had made her feelings clear, and he had to prioritise her.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered, kissing the top of her forehead. "I would do anything to change this."

"I know." She tilted her face up and caught his lips with hers. "It's okay. It's just how it has to be." And she pulled away from him, an uneven smile on her beautiful face, that he didn't even try to mirror. He didn't know if he'd ever smile again.

The second he left, Louisa pressed her back to the wall and slumped to the floor, control snapping, the tears coming freely now. She dropped her head forward and gave into the grief that had started to build inside of her from the moment she realized Taylor had gone to the press.

Because she'd joined the dots a hell of a lot faster than Noah had. The benefit of a little perspective and distance, she thought, sobbing into her palms. She hadn't known exactly why Taylor had gone to the media, but she knew that it was a move of desperation and that the teenager clearly needed her dad.

If Noah hadn't come here to say exactly that, Louisa would have ended it with him for exactly the same reason. She couldn't be with him if it was detrimental to Taylor. While the two were hardly friendly, Louisa was already predisposed to love the girl for the simple reason that she was Noah's child.

She sobbed again, feeling as though for the second time in a year, she'd lost a future that should have been hers. Except she'd never really wanted to marry Ares and become Queen. It had been an idea that had built almost without her consent, growing and suddenly becoming impossible to extricate herself from, as approval for her as his partner increased and it was all of a sudden taken as gospel that they'd marry. So, when she'd imagined her life as his wife, and the mother of his children, it had been because other people had foreshadowed that for her.

With Noah, it had all been so organic. She'd just loved being with him. He'd sparked something inside of her that had gone from ember to flame in a matter of days, and suddenly, she'd been warm and content all the time.

She'd imagined their lives, and Taylor had been a part of that, but she'd even started to hope for more—another baby, perhaps, a little brother or sister for Taylor. A rich, happy life with the man she truly, utterly loved.

I love you.

He'd said it, and the words had been like acid because they were everything she wanted to hear, but nothing she could accept. She loved him too, but it didn't change anything. There was no way for them to be together.

Sadness threatened to engulf her.

She pushed up carefully, then made her way to the sofa, where she lay down and stared at the wall, tears falling down her cheeks as the sun travelled through the sky and the day passed in a blur that Louisa barely registered.

She was alone, and devastated, and unlike last time, she didn't even have the energy to think about running away. She stayed on the sofa, bereft, and simply hoped that time would work some magic and eventually, she'd feel okay again.