Her mother was beautiful. Sweet, loving, and she never turned Izzy’s father away. It didn’t matter to Izzy that her father wasn’t worthy of her mother’s love, it only mattered that her mother loved him. Unconditionally until the day she died. Understanding her mother’s feelings a little better, now that she had experienced them herself, Izzy didn’t feel so harshly about her choice.
Unlike her mother, Izzy didn’t have to rely on the benevolence of others to make her way. Izzy had options. She was a citizen, she was educated, and she’d learned several harsh life lessons early. From the day her mother died, Izzy had not depended on anyone for anything. She was an island. Or she had been until Flynn had dropped anchor on her shore.
As she turned left on Bellevue, she stumbled. Tension tightened her muscles. Just down the street on the left was the house where she had spent the first eleven years of her life. The house where her father still resided. The house Alex still called home.
Her pace slowed as the imposing iron gates leading to the Chastain estate slowly opened. She felt Flynn’s presence much closer to her now, his shadow running alongside hers.
A blacked-out black town car rolled out from behind the gates. As it decelerated near the street, Izzy slowed so as not to collide with it. Her eyes were riveted on the open back passenger window.
Anxious tension constricted her heart, causing her to gulp for breath.
From the inside of the car, her father’s handsome face stared at her. As the car turned right, coming her way, he continued to stare.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” Flynn said, taking her arm, pulling her away from the man who stared blankly back at her.
When recognition sparked behind the sea colored eyes she had inherited from him, hope swelled in Izzy’s heart. She reached out, moving toward the car.
Her father looked forward, dismissing her as he had all those years ago. The window slowly closed as the car accelerated and was gone.
Gulping for air, Izzy bent over, feeling nauseous. God, it hurt. Why had she stopped? She’d made peace years ago with the fact that she would never be more than a dirty secret to her father. That there was no place in his life for her. There never had been. There never would be. She hadn’t meant to reach out to him. She despised him! Why had she done that only to be rejected? Again.
Flynn’s big hand slid across her back and up between her shoulder blades. “I’m sorry.”
Still gasping for a deep breath, Izzy shook her head as anger seeped deep into her. Not at Flynn or her father, but herself. She was a fool to think even for one second that her sperm donor would give her the time of day. She’d been foolish to think Flynn would, too.
“Are you okay?” Flynn asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, gasping for breath. Nausea rolled through her again, the acid of the coffee rising in her throat. “I just need to catch my breath.”
The firm soothing pressure of Flynn’s hand on her back, as he rubbed her tense muscles in an effort to comfort her, made her want to cry for completely different but oh so familiar reasons.
Rejection stung.
Why she had opened herself, exposing her gooey vulnerable self, stymied her. Had she become her mother? The thought instantly gut-checked her. She could almost hear the clank of the metal walls as they dropped down around her heart. It would be a long time before she allowed anyone to get as close as Flynn had. Maybe never. The pain that followed was too steep a price for the precious little time that felt good.
She needed to suck it up. Get back on track by focusing on herself and finding Alex. Once she was found, Izzy could sleep at night knowing she had done the right thing, even if she never saw her sister again.
Fortified with new determination, she straightened and swiped away the mingled sweat and tears from her cheeks. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she managed a big smile. “Let’s wrap this up. I’m hungry.” She took off, leaving Flynn to catch up. When he did, he ran beside her stride for stride. By the time they made a full circle, she was emotional and physical toast. Burnt toast. No good for anything except pigeon feed, and even that was being optimistic.
Mustering some bravado as Flynn held the front door open for her, she said, “I’m going to jump in the shower.”
Wordless, he nodded when she passed by him. Minutes later Izzy stood beneath the hot spray. Putting her arms out, she placed her palms against the smooth cool tile and let the pressure of the water work the pain out of her muscles and the ache from her heart. When she found herself crying, Izzy didn’t fight the tears. She let it go. All of it. The yearning of a little girl for her father. The years of longing for the sister she loved to love her back. Her mother’s death. Reliving the day she was taken from the tiny Oakland apartment as the coroner zipped her mom up in a black body bag had been horrific.
Sliding down the shower wall, Izzy pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her cheek against them. Her time as a ward of the state had been a blur. She’d been placed with strangers who, while they were polite, weren’t family. They didn’t even try to be. Those first weeks were terrifying. She’d found solace in reading and school. The day she turned eighteen, she walked out the front door, not bothering to let anyone know she was leaving. She doubted they ever noticed she was gone.
Here she was six years later, still struggling to define herself when everyone connected to her either died or rejected her. Who was she? What did she want?
Hell, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wanted a law career. Her motivation had been to flip her father the bird by saying, ‘Look at me, I can get into your alma mater, Stanford Law, too, and I didn’t need my rich parents to grease the wheels.’
None of it mattered, she realized, because no matter what she did from this day forward, she was going to do it for herself. No more trying to prove herself worthy of the Chastain name. She was a Fuentes, and it was time she owned it. She’d survive today and tomorrow because she was a survivor. Damn if she wasn’t going to survive well.
Raising her head to rub her swollen eyes, Izzy froze. Flynn stood on the other side of the open shower, his stormy eyes catching and holding hers. He was still dressed in his running attire, the material clinging to his sweaty body so tightly she could see the rise and fall of his chest with each breath.
Without so much as a word, he grabbed the towel she had set aside, reached above her head and turned the rain shower faucet off, knelt down and wrapped her in the thick fluffy towel. He took her into his arms and carried her like a baby into the bedroom.
“He doesn’t deserve one tear, Pink.” He settled her onto the bed. “You’re ten times the individual he could never be.”
She sucked back a sob as fresh hot tears burned her eyes, damn it. Where was her strength? Why, when Flynn touched her, did she melt? “I’m a fool for hoping for something that will never happen.”
Taking her face into his hands, he forced her to look at him. “You’re not a fool, you’re brave. With a pure heart. Always willing to see the good in people when they are inherently bad.” He smoothed back her damp hair. “We could all take a lesson out of your playbook.”
It took all she had not to press her cheek into his big warm hand. This Flynn was the Flynn she had fallen for. “My mom loved him with every ounce of her being. His name was the last word she spoke before she died. He used her up, and let her die of a broken heart.”
Pressing his lips to her forehead, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she murmured. For so many things.
With the adrenaline spike Izzy had experienced when she saw her father now fully subsided, a deep-seated exhaustion stole over her. So much had happened in such a short amount of time; her ability to cope with it all wavered. “Let me sleep,” she murmured, closing her eyes, and finally—with no thought of what he would do or feel—Izzy melted into Flynn’s strong capable arms, deciding to savor this last stolen embrace.