Chapter 3: Ghosts Don’t Cry—But Daughters Do
1216 Words
(Liam Romano POV)
“Isabella, sweetheart, what are you crying for?” I muttered, rocking her gently against my chest. “Your mother barely held you. Don’t act like she left a void.”
Her tiny fists punched the air, furious, her face red and scrunched like I’d torn the world out from under her. The high-pitched wails echoed off the nursery walls, slicing through my skull with the precision of a blade. I paced the floor, boots creaking against the old hardwood, her cries crawling down my spine like fire ants.
I’d changed her. Fed her. Offered the frozen teether. Still, she screamed like grief had made a home in her bones.
“Maybe it’s that damn formula again,” I growled, casting a glare at the bottle lying half-empty on the nearby dresser.
“Doctor swore it was hypoallergenic. You’ve soaked half your onesie with it already.”
She didn’t care. Not about my frustration, or the formulas, or the world crumbling outside this room. Her little face tightened, cheeks damp with tears that kept falling like she knew more than she should—like betrayal could bleed into baby skin.
Her mother should’ve been here.
Madison.
Shallow. Self-obsessed. Useless, even when breathing. She’d pose with Isabella just long enough for a filtered photo, then disappear behind brunch menus and lies.
And now? Now she left this behind.
My mess.
“You didn’t deserve her,” I murmured, the bitterness crawling up my throat like bile. “You deserved someone who saw you. Not a mother who treated you like a goddamn accessory.”
A muscle in my jaw twitched. Maybe I should’ve ended it myself. Could’ve saved us all the trouble. Saved Isabella the confusion. Saved me the humiliation.
Because if I had known—if I’d seen the signs earlier—that Madison would crawl into bed with Ethan Miller of all people? That spineless bastard with more debt than integrity?
“I gave that piece of s**t a job,” I spat. “Saved his house. Gave him a paycheck. A future.”
And he repaid me by f*****g my wife.
My wife.
The woman who wore designer guilt and glassy apologies. The woman who looked me in the eye and smiled while sleeping with a man who couldn’t even hold eye contact in a boardroom.
Who cheats on a mob boss? And with a goddamn bookkeeper?
“They deserved each other,” I hissed, rocking Isabella faster, trying to calm the storm in both of us. “Two rats clinging to each other, thinking they’d find a back door out.”
Dead now. Both of them.
Good.
But Hailey Miller?
She didn’t fit.
I hadn’t expected her.
At the station, she stood there like marble—calm, collected, holding her baby like he was the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. There was no hysteria, no drama. Just quiet devastation that burned colder than rage.
It wasn’t pity I felt. Not desire either.
It was… curiosity.
Because she wasn’t what I pictured when I thought grieving widow of a traitor. She looked like she’d stepped out of another era. A perfect, pressed blue dress that cinched at the waist. Hair pinned back in a sleek bun. No mascara streaks. No trembling.
She walked in like dignity still meant something.
Where the hell had Ethan found her?
I remembered her at the welcome dinner—Ethan’s welcome dinner, to be exact. Madison, predictably, had bailed.
Claimed pregnancy nausea, though somehow it never struck when she was downing mimosas at rooftop brunches or wrapped in robes at some overpriced spa.
I walked in alone that night. And Hailey—God, Hailey—stood out like a lantern in a room full of smoke.
That belly of hers practically demanded reverence. She glowed—not from foundation or filters, but from something real. Something soft and warm and painfully pure. The kind of woman men ache for but know, deep down, they’ll ruin.
Ethan had his arm slung around her like she was his victory lap. That smug, lazy grin stretched across his face while every man at that table clocked her once… then twice. She was elegance in skin and breath. And he knew it.
Even I couldn’t stop myself.
My eyes had drifted—her hips, her full mouth, that quiet grace—and then the guilt slammed into me like a freight train.
I left early, jaw tight, fists tighter. Walked straight into the penthouse to find Madison sprawled across the couch with two of her fake-laugh friends, a half-burnt cigarette dangling between fingers too glossy to hold anything real.
“Really?” I snapped. “You’re pregnant with my kid and smoking like it’s rush week?”
She didn’t even flinch. Just shrugged, exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “Relax, Liam. One won’t kill it.”
It. That’s what she called Isabella. Not her, not our daughter. It.
I should’ve left then. But the truth hadn’t surfaced yet. And by the time it did, she had my child strapped to her body like a bargaining chip.
Ethan had to be out of his damn mind. Who walks away from a woman like Hailey? The man used to talk about her like she’d been cut from heaven itself. Everyone at the firm knew the story—high school sweethearts, real Notebook bullshit.
Then came the pregnancy. A baby boy. Caleb.
Instead of stepping up, Ethan celebrated by gambling himself into a pit so deep he couldn’t see daylight.
“Liam, please,” he’d begged, voice thin and shaking over the line. “You’ve gotta help me out. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
And like a fool, I had. Tossed him a rope. Gave him some side work—off the books, no questions. Enough to keep the lights on.
And that rope led him straight to Madison.
“Keep it clean, Ethan,” I’d warned. “Don’t mix business with pleasure.”
He didn’t listen.
Now he was dead.
And all that debt? That avalanche of stupidity and secrets? It landed on her.
On Hailey.
Sweet, perfect Hailey.
With those tired, nurturing eyes and a body still built to cradle something fragile. The officers told me how they found her—dinner laid out, candles lit. Pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans with almonds. A meal prepared in hope and completely wasted on a man who was never coming home.
Now only Caleb would eat at that table.
I looked down at Isabella. Her cheeks were flushed and damp, lips parting with little fluttery breaths as she slipped into uneasy sleep. Her dark lashes fanned over her face, still twitching with the tail end of cries.
She needed something solid. Someone safe. Madison had never been that. Not for me, not for her daughter. But Hailey...
Hailey was.
Maybe this was my shot to fix what I’d helped shatter.
I needed a nanny. She needed stability. The arrangement made sense. Clean. Fair. Mutually beneficial.
But I’d be lying if I said it was just that.
Because part of me needed to see her again. Needed to feel her presence close.
She’d be better off with me anyway.
- Writer
