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Delaney
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bennett
I stumble back from having Delaney pressed against the frame of the greenhouse, her words on repeat in my head.
Leia… she’s yours.
Yours.
Mine.
I have another daughter.
“What…”
She moves to the side and walks a row over by the daffodils. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but you had gone back to Willowbrook by the time I found out, living happily with Kristie, ready to welcome your new baby, and I was still in California.”
“You never reached out.” My mind is clogged with emotions, trying to sort through them and not be rash in my reaction, but all the years I’ve had with Wren, I’ve lost with Leia. Sharp pain presses into the center of my chest. Even if I push aside all the time I’ve missed, the betrayal I feel… that Delaney kept me from my own daughter and allowed her to be raised by a monster of a man.
My subconscious reminds me that Delaney knew nothing of the real man she married, but I push the thought aside, uninterested in understanding her viewpoint right now.
Wetness wells in her eyes. Usually, I’d crumble at seeing her upset and want to fix it somehow, but my anger only simmers hotter. How dare she cry when I’m the one who didn’t even know I had another daughter.
“I…” She shakes her head, then squares her shoulders. “I have no excuse. I’m sorry.”
I feel my eyes practically bulge out of my head. “You’re sorry? Sorry? For what? Keeping the knowledge of her existence from me? For never allowing me a relationship with my own daughter? For letting another man raise her? There’s a lot to be sorry for.” My voice is rising, and as much as I try to calm myself, the blaze burning inside me won’t go out.
She wipes her tears with the backs of her hands, and her gaze meets mine with a fire I’ve never seen. “You left me. You picked her, so what was I supposed to do? Show up at your doorstep, ring your doorbell, and say guess what, you knocked us both up? Hope that you’d pick me and Leia over your original choice? Only to allow my daughter to be inflicted with the pain you left me with when you changed your mind again? I said I was sorry, and I truly am, but I made the best choice I could at that time with the information I had.”
I inhale and stare at the ground, hands on my hips, trying like hell to stay calm because screaming and yelling at each other isn’t going to change this situation.
“I thought?—”
I raise my hands to stop her. “I think I need some time before I can discuss this.”
The door to the greenhouse opens. “What are you guys doing?”
I weave around the row of Swiss chard and slide around Poppy at the door. Without waiting, I trudge back up to the shop and see Poppy’s UTV she drove down here. Fuck it, I slide in and drive off.
I drive around the ranch, unsure where to go, who to tell, or how to process the news that’s just been dumped in my lap.
I have another daughter.
With Delaney.
Why does what was always my dream now feel like a nightmare? This is all wrong. The way this is happening is all twisted.
My mind traces back to all the moments I’ve shared with Wren—the birthdays, the Christmases, the Halloweens. All of those with Leia are gone. She spent them with some other man she believed was her father. Where do we even go from here?
Somehow lost in my thoughts, I end up at the stables where I ditch the UTV for Cedar. Nash glances over, appraising me.
“He good?” I nod toward Cedar’s stall.
“Yeah.” Nash looks me up and down.
