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"It’s late," I pointed out. "You don’t want to be wandering this city by yourself at this time of night. Please, Jo."
She sighed, her shoulders slumping down. She knew there was no point in arguing with me.
"Sure," she muttered, and she let me lead the way to the car. Sliding in to the seat beside me, she glanced over at me, the silence between us almost too intense to handle.
"Can we talk?” I asked her. She tensed.
"About what?"
"What do you think?" I replied, turning to face her. "Come on, Jo. You know what I want to talk about. My daughter."
She sucked in a sharp breath when I said those words. It was the first time I had come out and spoken them aloud, and, yeah, I had to admit, it felt kind of strange to be coming out and saying it out loud like that. But it was the truth – it was the truth, and I would have been crazy to try and pretend it wasn’t. I didn’t care how difficult it was for her to hear. We needed to face up to the reality of the situation, no matter how difficult it might have been, no matter how messy.
"Okay," she muttered, staring down at her hands in her lap. "What do you want to talk about?"
"I want to see her."
Her head snapped up and she stared at me, brows furrowed.
"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed. "No. No way. Not a chance."
"Why not?"
"Because...because of who you are!" she protested, gesturing to me.
"What? Her father?"
"No, Bratva," she corrected me. "You’re Bratva. And I can’t risk letting someone who’s involved with that kind of...that kind of work into her life. She’s just a little kid, she doesn’t need to be exposed to that-"
"I’m not going to expose her to anything," I replied, keeping my voice as calm as possible. "You don’t even have to tell her I’m her father. I just want to meet her, that’s all."
She fell silent again, chewing her lip. I could see her green eyes glinting in the light from the dashboard.
"I don’t think it’s a good idea," she muttered, her voice dropping slightly.
"Why not?" I demanded. "You don’t think I have a right to see my daughter?"
"It’s not about that!" she shot back. "You haven’t been a part of her life at all, not for a moment. I’ve gotten used – we've both gotten used to living without you. Do you know how confusing it would be to her, to have someone turn up out of the blue?"
"I told you, you don’t need to tell her my relationship to her," I replied, doing my best to keep my voice steady.
"All we did was have sex a few years ago," she told me bluntly. "I don’t owe you anything because of that-"
"But you owe her the chance to know her father, surely," I pointed out. "You owe her that."
She turned to me. I could see the doubt in her eyes, all the questions that were spinning, out of control around her head.
"Can you please give me time to think?” she begged. "I...all of this is so much for me to wrap my head around. I can’t just let you walk into my life again, not when I’ve spent so long trying to get it just how I like it..."
I nodded, letting out a sigh. It was the best I could hope for. Not exactly what I had been dreaming of, not the perfect answer, but at least it was something. At least she was willing to give me the chance. Considering it might not have been exactly what I wanted, but shit, I knew the chances of her just agreeing right off the bat and going along with this were pretty damn slim.
"That’s fine," I replied, and she let out a long, shaky breath.
"Good," she muttered, and I found that she was still looking at me – her eyes, softening, into something sweeter, more gentle.
"What is it?" I asked her. The air seemed to have shifted between us. It was the first time we had really been alone together, out of sight of anyone else, and it suddenly struck me that we were just a few inches apart.
And I knew that look in her eyes. Even in all the time that had passed, I could remember the way she had looked at me back in the club, the night we had met. Lids heavy, eyes wanting, her face a mask of need.
