Page 10 (2/2)

After a long moment, she turns her head to whisper into my chest “And that was the first time I called you Daddy”

Hearing that last word nearly drops s I want froto take yet another step away

“And do you ree leaves her voice and in its place is the little girl Again, I nearly trip as it hooksknows its purpose

It’s her

It has been for too long and I will never let her go again

Never

C H A P T E R F I V E

PIKE

I settle ers have ever touched Her cheeks are flushed still as we stand together, feeling the war between us

Her eyes flicker Their hazel strands, laced with the reflection of the flae of reason

We’ve talked over every safe andthe elephant in the roo in intensity with every passing second I know she’s working at Tuck & Burton That she’s staying in her ain, back on Central Park South where we all lived together

I iine her in her rooht in, more tih it happened right now, in this instant

I’,its own But as she blossomed into a woman, even as those protective instincts re I’d never felt before A yearning for so dor will ever slake his lust but her flesh

His ownership of what he knows belongs to him and him alone

My eyes have not left her face in a long while, and finally in the silence, Willow relents and e no words, yet we say more than we have in all the years since we met