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“It’s fine, gorgeous.” Pushing up on my knees, I cupped her face and smiled at her sheer beauty and my heart stuttered. “I love you so much. You’re it for me, you know that don’t you?”
Her gaze softened even more than I thought possible, and she gave me a single nod. “Same,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I found you. What if I hadn’t gone into that bar?”
“You did, so don’t worry about it.” I reached for her knickers. “Lift your legs up.” She did as I asked, and I pulled them and then her leggings halfway up her legs. “Want tissue or the bathroom?”
“Bathroom,” she replied, so I finished redressing her and then helped her to her feet.
“You go first,” I told her. My dick would have to wait for some attention.
As she left the room, I decided there and then I was going to marry her, I just had to speak to Maddy first to make sure she was okay with it. Then she and I were going ring shopping. First, though, I needed to wash my face and then check on my daughter.
“Can I come in?” I asked, poking my head around Maddy’s bedroom door a few minutes later.
She was on her side with the glow of her phone lighting up her tear stained face. Her lips were curled inward, and her little face was so sad I desperately wanted to kick Zak in his nuts.
“Hey, Dad.” Maddy put her phone on her chest of drawers and gave me a sad smile.
“Good bath?” Sitting on the edge of her bed, I ran a hand down the long plait that she’d put her hair into.
“Yeah, okay.” She sniffed, a single tear creeping down her cheek.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I know it’s all too much for you. Ana and now this with Zak. Have you spoken to him?”
She shook her head and dropped to her back, resting her forearm over her eyes. “He’s called me a few hundred times. I’m guessing Liam told him that I’ve seen the picture.” Her breath was shaky as she placed her hand on her stomach. “I don’t know what to do, Dad. It’s bad enough that I’m sad about Ana, and I’d just decided to speak to him instead of blaming him, and then…” Her voice broke, but she held it together. “And then I saw the picture of them together and it just broke my heart even more.”
At that momentmyheart broke, too. My poor little girl she was absolutely devastated. She’d been dealt two hard blows in a matter of days; her grief being doubled by Zak’s actions. How could he not realise what it would do to her putting that picture up? How could he do that to her, my baby? Because I had to admit, it didn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d do. Yet the evidence was there to see.
“Take my hand, sweetheart.” Maddy laid her tiny one in mine, and I wrapped it up tight. “Are you sure you’re ready to go back to school?”
“I’ve got to go back sometime and apparently we’re having a special assembly for Ana tomorrow. Millie Burton messaged me, Em and Liv.”
“How are you going to deal with Zak?”
She tried to disguise the whimper, but I heard it and felt a pain in my chest.
“I’ll have to speak to him,” she finally said. “Find out why and,” she shrugged, “and when?”
“Yeah, I can’t get my head around when he met up with her again, are you sure it was him.” Zak was a good kid, and I found it hard to believe he’d do that to Maddy. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t kill the little fucker and bury his body where no one would find it if he had.
“I’m sure,” Maddy replied, her voice almost a whisper.
“Well, I still think you should listen to what he has to say but stand your ground and remember you’re a Newman. We don’t let people treat us without respect.”
Nodding silently, she pulled up into a sitting position and threw her arms around me. “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Inhaling I recognised the smell, it was the baby shampoo I always used on her when she was little. When things were going on in her life, like exams, or her first dance recital, which was also her last, and when her boyfriend broke her heart, she always used it. It was like it gave her comfort.
“You know this is all your fault,” she muttered against my chest.
“What is?” I pulled back and frowned at her.
“The Zak thing.”
I sifted through my brain trying to think of what I’d done to cause Zak to be a little wanker to her. “I don’t know what I did, but?—”
“You’re just too good, Dad,” she sighed with a roll of her eyes. “You’re a high bar to reach and he didn’t make it.”
My chest went tight as my heart grew with the amount of love and pride that had just been pumped into it. If ever I’d doubted that I’d not managed to do my job as a father properly, then Maddy measuring every boy against my qualities, proved me wrong.
