If Curtis had touched a single hair on Eloise’s head, I’d hold him down while Diego beat him, I didn’t care how much bigger than me Curtis was.
“His office or his hotel?” Diego asked as we climbed into his car.
I’d be offended if he thought I might know, but now wasn’t the time for anything but going. No thinking. No feeling. We just had to get this done. “Office.”
I had no idea why that was my answer, and the entire way there, I fluctuated between that and home in my head, but I didn’t share the doubts with Diego. We needed to pick a single direction, not waver.
Curtis’s office was in one of those shared workspaces, where anyone could reserve a room or a desk. When we stepped inside, Diego seemed to know exactly where we were going, so I followed. The woman at reception tried to stop us—I caught something about you don’t belong here—and we brushed past her without pausing.
He was in one of the individual offices, rather than the common working space, and when we pushed into the room, he was on the phone.
Eloise on the floor in the corner, playing with building blocks. My heart bounced that she looked okay. And when she looked up with a smile, I almost dared feel relief.
Not yet, but soon.
“Daddy. Carly.” Eloise grinned.
“I’ll have to call you back,” Curtis said to whomever was on the other end of the line.
I crouched and held out my arms. “Come here, sweetie.” I focused on Eloise.
She ran up to me and gave me a big hug, and I held her facing away from the room while Diego swung a fist at Curtis’s face, and connected with a sickening sound.
Fuck. Yes. I covered Eloise’s ears. “Were you having fun?” I asked softly. This might be a beautiful scene for me, but she didn’t need to see it.
“Listen, you fucking wanna-be—” Curtis looked furious.
Diego punched him again, this time in the stomach.
“I just wanted to talk to Car—”
Diego grabbed Curtis by the shoulders, cutting him off, and drove a knee into his groin. Curtis grunted and dropped to his knees.
“Nobody move.” Police burst into the room.
It didn’t matter if I’d understood the words or not, their tone was indication enough. I should be grateful they got here so quickly after us, rather than wishing Diego had a few more minutes to pound on Curtis.
Diego held his hands in the air and stepped back from Curtis.
“He’s her father,” I said.
The next few hours passed in a blur. Confirming Eloise was safe, and Curtis was the one who took her, answering questions for the police. Watching Diego and Raul wrap Eloise in their arms and being pretty sure they weren’t letting her out of their sight for a while.
Sitting in the midst of it all as one specific and harsh reality sank in. This was all my fault.
As the longest day in the history of days wound down, Diego and Raul were finally able to take Eloise and go home. Daria had sent her girls back to the cottages with Brooke and Adam, and waited for me.
I was both grateful to have her here, and feeling completely unworthy of the consideration.
We didn’t say anything on the ride back. When we stopped by the place Brooke was staying, Daria’s girls were happy to see her, and an ache grew in my chest at the overall vibe in the air. That closeness and kind of family feeling I didn’t even have with my siblings. Megan, Jeremy, and I were close, but Daria, Harmony, and Alana needed each other.
Harmony was a bundle of energy when we got back to our place. “Can we do this again tomorrow?”
Daria shook her head. “No, hon. We can’t.”
Please, God, never again. Please.
“Do your boyfriends know Donovan?” Alana’s question jarred me on multiple levels.
They’re not my boyfriends, the protest died in the back of my throat. “Who?”
“That’s why he looks familiar.” Daria puffed out a sigh. “The guy who came back with Diego was on a show years ago, when he was a kid. Donovan’s Wilde Ride. They still play the reruns.”
I never even thought to ask what Joystick was doing there. “Yeah, I don’t think they know him. He was… I don’t have any idea.” And honestly, it was the least of my concerns right now, what some former child-start wash out was doing first with Isabella and then with Diego.
“Come on guys, bedtime.” Daria ushered the girls toward their room.
I sank onto the couch, and tried not to play the entire day on repeat, to a steady beat of guilt.
I failed. The gnawing inside just kept chanting your fault, your fault, your fault. What if Eloise hadn’t been okay? What if—
“Are you all right?” Daria’s question drilled through my thoughts.
“Totally fine.” I couldn’t even summon the strength to fake a smile.
Daria sat next to me. “Are you sure?”
“Totally,” I repeated. “I mean, except for… What if this is my fault?” All of my doubts and guilt poured out in a long string of rambling brain vomit, and when I reached the end of the thoughts, I looped back to the beginning.
The hand on my leg startled me, and I looked up to see Daria watching me with concern on her face. “You can’t do that,” she said. “You can’t lose yourself in those kinds of doubts.”
Easier said than done. “I can’t not.”
“If you don’t pull away, this will devour you.” Daria’s voice was kind. Concerned. “I’ve played the what if game so many times with the girls’ safety, and you can’t. This wasn’t your fault. Curtis did this.”
I didn’t deserve her worry. “Because of me.”
“Because he’s a Grade A asshole.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Daria talked over me. “I promise you, as hard as it is to believe right now, you need to not fall into that hole. It won’t help anyone. Not you, and not Eloise.”
The name made my insides clench again, and tears pricked my eyelids. “I guess.”
“You’ll get there.” Daria squeezed my knee. “Try to get some sleep?”
I nodded. But sleep wasn’t my friend that night. When I did manage to doze off, it was to a cascade of nightmare scenarios in dream form, and every single time it was my fault.
I gave up around four in the morning, and forced myself to wait until after six before calling Raul.
“Ciao.” He sounded more exhausted than I felt when he answered the phone.
“Did I wake you?”
His laugh was sharp and bitter. “No.”
“I wanted”—needed—“to check and make sure Eloise was all right.”
This time his sigh was soft. “She seems fine. She slept in our bed, but as far as I can tell, she thought she was playing at your friend’s work all day.”
My friend. The words nauseated me. “How about the two of you?”
“We’ll be having nightmares for a while,” Raul said.
Yeah. I knew what that was like. “I’m sorry.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my voice from cracking. “I didn’t know he would—”
“It’s not your fault.” Raul’s assurance came quickly.
That didn’t make me believe it any more than I already did. “You should both take the day. I have everything under control at the church, and I can keep them on track. Take the time with your family.”
There was a pause, and for a moment I thought Raul might argue. He just said, “Thank you.”
I went through the motions when I got to the worksite, but fortunately everything ran smoothly. It seemed without Curtis trying to sabotage the project, we had a lot fewer errors.
So much of this was my fault. Daria was wrong. Me being involved with this project caused this problem, and threatened one of the sweetest souls in existence.
When I got back to my cottage that night, I politely shrugged off Daria’s attempts to distract me, slipped in my earbuds, and spent the evening writing up instructions for Diego and Raul.
I saved the message as a draft, nauseated both at the thought of sending it and the thought of having to sit on it any longer, and called Kandace. We exchanged pleasantries. I was grateful she didn’t know about the events of the day, because I wasn’t sure I could handle that kind of heavy conversation.
Not that I could avoid it. “I-can’t-stay-here-to-see-this-project-through-to-completion.” My words ran into a single blur as I forced them past my lips before I could hesitate.
“I— Oh.” Kandace went silent. The empty air stretched on longer than I cared for. “Is everything all right?”
“The project is fine. Fantastic. I should’ve said that up front. The guys are fantastic.” In fact, they were almost perfect. “But…” How much should I tell her? All of it. As little as possible. I had no idea.
“But what?”
I fiddled with the edge of my notebook, picking the corner of the cover until the layers of paper started to fray. I should’ve planned this call before I made it, but I needed to operate on momentum so I didn’t question everything I was doing. “My ex-husband approached them—Diego and Raul—after they pitched you but before the deal was final. He may have been interested in their project, but he’s also interested in my involvement in it. He’s already caused problems.” So many horrific scarring problems. “And my being here is making things worse.”
His being in jail would hopefully stop them, but we could have that part of the conversation when I got back to The States.
“Carly, I—”
“Daria can manage this one. I’ll give her whatever she needs. Work with her on all of it. The guys are good, and they can be trusted to work with a remote project manager. Please.” I didn’t mean that last word to come out sounding so desperate.
But I was.
“Okay.” Kandace sighed. “I trust you on this. Are you heading home in a few days then?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay. Well, we’ll talk when you get back. And Carly?”
“Yeah?
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
I didn’t know how long until I would be. “Totally fine.” I hung up before she could question me further.
When I told Daria I was heading home with them, she just frowned. “Are you sure?”
No. Not even for a second. “I’ve never been more certain.”
“Okay.” She pulled me into a hug, and my heart fractured at her acceptance.
I sent the men an email the next morning, as I was waiting to board my plane. Thanked them for the great trip, told them again I was sorry, and said they could contact Kandace if they needed anything.
And I turned off my phone, so they couldn’t call me and protest. It was time for me to go home.