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He laughed softly. "Fuck, Sofia, I didn't want to live under a bridge either. I never would have wanted you to give that up for me. I would have gone with you rather than let you stay, if you'd tried to make that choice."
She stared at him. "Gone with me?"
"Yeah, I had nothing there. I mean, yeah, I had Brody and the others, but they weren't my family yet. I had shut them out."
"You would have gone with me?"
He frowned. "Is that bad?"
"Just…God…" She threw up her hands. "I never even thought of that. All this time, and I never even thought you'd go with me. My experience with my mom and dad was that it was always one-sided, that the woman always had to give it all up. You would have gone with me?"
Keegan stood up and caught her shoulder as she started to spin away. "Sofia," he said softly. "I say that now, but I was a stupid eighteen-year-old hoodlum back then. Who knows what I would have done?"
She stared at him, but didn't try to pull away. "When I found out I was pregnant, I was two months into college. I freaked. I didn't know how to find you, and you were homeless, right?"
He nodded. "I was." He was suddenly tense, waiting to hear about that moment that could have changed everything.
"I had to do better for my daughter than my mom had done for me. She married a guy who never amounted to anything, and he nearly broke us both."
He ground his jaw, but what could he say? That was who he'd been back then.
She looked down at their joined hands. "I was trying to be brave, but I was scared. I was in the hospital alone after Gabby was born, and I met a guy who was there, visiting a friend of his who had also given birth. He was everything my mom had dreamed I'd marry: rich, attractive, connected, nice." She looked at him. "And he wanted me and Gabby. I was stunned. He swept me off my feet, and within six months, we were married, and I'd quit school to raise Gabby."
God, she still remembered that whirlwind time, the magic feeling that life had finally given her the dreams she'd always had. That things had finally worked out for her.
Keegan was watching her, an inscrutable expression on his face. "What happened?"
"He came home from work late and drunk, and he hit me." Involuntarily, she touched her cheek remembering the pain of that strike.
Keegan closed his eyes. "Son of a bitch."
"And then he threatened to hurt Gabby if I told anyone or tried to leave."
"Bastard. How long did you stay?"
She grinned. "My mom taught me how to be strong and how to protect my kid. So, the next day, I went to see a lawyer, a woman, who was very good and very helpful. A week later, when he was on a business trip, I went to the bank and got a bunch of cash, loaded the car, and Gabby and I ran away."
"Nice. You started making plans immediately. Gabby's lucky to have you."
She flashed a smile at him. "Well, honestly, it took a while to stop feeling guilty that I'd believed in him for as long as I did, but I read a lot of self-help books and listened to podcasts, until I realized that I wasn't the issue there."
"Absolutely correct on that." He raised his brows. "You faked your death?"
She nodded. "I had to. He would have hunted us down, I had no doubt. So, Eliana, my lawyer—"
The name startled him. "Eliana? Eliana Tiernan?"
She looked at him in surprise. "Yes. You know her?"
"Yeah, I do. She works with our family a lot, and my brother Dylan has a crush on her. She specializes in helping women break free of bad prenuptial agreements."
"Oh, she does a lot more than that. She got me and Gabby new identities, helped us set up a new account with the money I'd taken, and got all the legalities arranged for me to start our new life."
Damn. He was impressed. "I always knew she was a badass, but not at that level."
Sofia nodded. "I'd heard of her when my mom and I had been at shelters. Women talk about her. She wouldn't even take any of my money. She wanted me to have it all to take care of myself and Gabby."
He'd known Eliana worked pro bono for the clients that needed her services for free, which is why the Harts had created a charitable fund for her to draw from, but hell. Small freaking world. "I'm glad you had her."
