I forced a smile. “Maybe. Once.”
Eve’s voice coiled through my mind, thick with contempt. “Cheap gestures, she hissed. Don’t dress them up as love”.
“I’m not”, I told her. But my fingers had curled into my skirt without realizing it.
Elijah shifted his weight, eyes narrowing slightly. “I think it would be… interesting to meet him.”
“Why?” My voice was sharper than I intended.
He shrugged, but his gaze stayed on me, measuring. “Because he sounds like a good dad.”
The words sliced through me. Good. They thought good was shopping trips and horses and sweets at bedtime. They couldn’t know what good had looked like before Vincent shattered it—when love had meant safety, not performance. My mouth filled with the taste of bitterness, the old memory of betrayal, but I swallowed it down.
Cal
