Out of my control.
“How do you feel about that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She’s technically his too, so if he wants a relationship with her, I should encourage it, but I…I guess she doesn’t feel like she’s his. She’s mine and—” She cut herself off, shifting in my lap. “She’s mine.”
I slid my palm down her arm to take her hand in mine, going through the motions though my head was miles away. “She is yours. You’re not going to ever lose her.”
That was a fact. No matter what happened, I would never allow anything to separate Cathrine from her daughter, not even the father of her child.
“Thanks to you.” Sitting up, she brought my hand to her mouth and kissed my knuckles, but I didn’t feel much of anything. “I would be freaking out times a thousand if you hadn’t gone to him like you had. And I know my knee-jerk reaction was to say you overstepped—which you definitely did—but in this case, I can only say thank you for being you and taking control. I would be floundering without you.”
“You would have figured it out, Catherine. You didn’t need me to do it.”
Out of my control.
“Sure. I would have ignored the problem until it had fallen down around me. Like my house.” She tugged on my shirt. “Which reminds me, will you come to the house with me tomorrow? I want to show you how good it looks. I’m pretty proud of all I’ve accomplished.”
I wanted to burn that house to the ground with Liam inside it.
But I nodded, blood roaring in my ears. My fingertips were numb, and my chest was in a vise. I recognized panic for what it was, remembering these feelings from when my mother was alive.
“Tomorrow.” I patted the outside of her leg, needing her up and out of here so I could catch my breath and think critically. Panicking would get me nowhere. “I have some work to do, so…”
“Oh.” She straightened. “Oh, okay. I’ll let you get to that.”
She walked out of my office, looking back twice. I should have said more. Reassured her in some way. But I wasn’t there.
I was losing my dad.
My mom.
In chaos.
The reins were slipping from my hands.
Joey wasn’t mine.
Catherine didn’t live here.
Out of my control.
This was why I didn’t do this. I didn’t open up to more people than I had to because I couldn’t control the outcome. Business made sense. I could predict market fluctuations. People weren’t so easy. Falling in love didn’t guarantee she would stay or even fall too.
Now that I had them, I wasn’t willing to lose Catherine or Joey, but I had to get my head straight. If I didn’t accept that I couldn’t control everything, I wouldn’t be good for either of them.
Catherine’s house was beautiful.
I hadn’t seen it since she’d started working on it. In fact, she had forbidden me from coming, wanting it to be a surprise.
And it was.
The new wood floors gleamed. The walls were freshly painted and crisp. She had a kitchen. A really nice kitchen.
With Joey in one arm and my hand clasped in hers, she pulled me through the house, enthusiastically detailing everything that had been done, pointing out how Miles had helped, what Raymond’s cousin had done, the projects she’d worked on with Raymond and Davida.
“I tiled that backsplash, Elliot. Me.” She beamed, her cheeks glowing rosy.
“Amazing.”
It was. She’d put her all into fixing this place up, literally dirtying her own hands to bring these walls back to livable conditions. More than livable. A nice family home.
It made me sick.
She looked so fucking pleased, and I couldn’t bring myself to match her enthusiasm.
But if she wanted this, I’d give it to her, even if it killed me to let them go. Catherine had to make the right choices for her and Joey, and if she thought living on her own was it, I wouldn’t stand in her way.
Her smile wavered. “Let’s go upstairs. Maybe you’ll be suitably impressed with my bedroom.”
“I’m impressed already, sweetheart. You wanted this, so you made it happen.”
She kissed my knuckles. “Without any help from you. Don’t you appreciate your independent girlfriend? If it weren’t so cringe, I’d call myself a girl boss.”
“Ah, good thing you told me it was cringe. I’ll return the girl boss mug I bought you.”
Her teeth nipped at my knuckles. “Don’t joke about that, Elliot Levy. That’s not funny.”