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“Why have you come out of hiding, Phoebe?”
I glanced at Jaxon standing behind the cameraman, nodding in encouragement. I swallowed and licked my dry lips. “My father, Daniel Dalton, kidnapped our infant daughter. I’m hoping someone out there can help us find them.”
Phil turned back to the camera, his fake sincerity starting to grate on my last nerve. “To set the scene, let’s take a look at previous clips from our unauthorized broadcast, Into the Mind of a Monster. I must warn you, the images you are about to see are disturbing.” The camera panned away and Phil looped his finger in a circle, motioning for the control room to roll the clip. He patted my knee. “You’re doing great.”
As the red light above the camera flickered off, I let out the breath I’d been holding. I rubbed my hands against my face. Fuck the makeup. I didn’t give a damn. My nerves were about to snap. I never anticipated having to nosedive into the past. Phil Carlson pulled a classic bait and switch on me, and I’d have his balls on a platter for it.
Just as I felt tears sting my eyes, a hand landed heavily on my shoulder. Not in the mood to talk, I batted it away. “Not now, Jaxon. I can do this by myself.”
“I’m sure you can,” a familiar baritone voice called from above my head. “But if you’ll let me, I’d like to be beside you.”
My two lives collided as my throat tightened. I didn’t have to turn around. My heart saw him. My eyes didn’t have to. “You’re late.”
Our go-to banter during a crisis took center stage.
For some reason, it seemed like the right thing to say.
His other hand wound around my hair, pulling it back until I looked up at him. His face softened, and his eyes were no longer hard. “Traffic. It won’t happen again.”
And just like that, I knew we were okay.
Julian and I weren’t like other couples. We didn’t need flowery words or long soliloquies to apologize for acting like asses. I didn’t expect jewelry peace offerings, or him to buy my forgiveness. One stupid exchange of words that’d mean nothing to anyone else, meant the world to us.
A stage hand pulled up a second wingback chair, and Julian moved it across the stage until it bumped right up against mine. Reaching across the joined armrests, he entwined our fingers and gave my hand a squeeze.
Suddenly, the fear was gone, my strength returned.
The cameraman counted back down, the red light ignited, and Phil Carlson’s teeth took center stage. “Heartbreaking. Chilling. A family torn apart by a father’s blood thirst for his own family.” I rolled my eyes. He turned his attention to Julian. “I see we’ve been joined by the illustrious Julian Bale. Welcome, Julian.”
Julian nodded. “Thanks.”
“Now that you’re here, could you please tell us how you and Phoebe met?”
Twenty minutes later, Phil had oohed and ahhed over our meeting, our unbelievable roller coaster ride with his stalker, my pregnancy, and our move to Los Angeles. I finished out the story with Iris’s birth and her kidnapping. The private details of our lives, we kept to ourselves, such as our fights, our separations, and Zane’s little blue pills. We knew what to say and when to skip over things that had no bearing.
Toward the end of the broadcast, Phil gave us a chance to speak into the camera and make our pleas to the viewers and directly to my father. As usual, Julian spoke eloquently and professionally, years of media training serving him well.
Me? Not so much.
I held it together while begging the viewers for information. When addressing my father, all the pain and suffering I’d endured at his hand bubbled to the surface. I knew my eyes held fire and hatred, and I didn’t give a damn. I refused to beg that man for anything, but the last line I spoke in the broadcast echoed in my head for the entire ride home, the entire time Julian tried to force feed me a sandwich, and the entire time he lowered me into bed and covered me up.
“I’m not scared of you anymore. I won’t beg you for anything, because I know it’s what you want. You get off on it. You may have my child, but you’ll never have me. We’ll find her, you son of a bitch. And when we do…god help you.”
God would never help him.
Satan, maybe.
But never god.
***
The bed creaked with his weight. I smiled and reached for his hand, sighing as his lips buried in my hair. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” I said quietly. “I’ve been awake for a while.”
“So why didn’t you say something?”
My throaty chuckle elicited an eyebrow quirk, and I smiled. It was a move I thought I’d forgotten. “Because I was listening to you think.”
