“Where…? Where were you?”
“What?” Ben’s face fell and that horrible pain was etched back into his expression again, the skin around his eyes tightening as he searched our daughter’s face.
“I dreamed of you, over and over, but you never came. Where were you, Dad? Where were you?”
His hands opened and closed helplessly and he shuffled forward, before glancing up at me. I had to wear the blame for that and right now, he could’ve used that point. He could’ve revealed my fuck up, driven a wedge between me and my daughter as a means to create rapport himself. But he just shook his head slightly, as if making clear what was going to happen.
“If I’d known about you, I would’ve come, baby, I promise. Mum didn’t know how to find me and I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking. I’m sorry, darling. If I’d had one dream about you, Evie, I would’ve come, promise. Nothing would have stopped me.”
Taylor, Sophie and I watched the scene play out with grim expressions, each for different reasons, until Evie launched herself at Ben. She wrapped her arms around him so tight, not willing to let go for a second, and he gripped her just as hard.
“I’m not going anywhere, Evie. I wasn’t here when I should’ve been, but I can promise you that now. Me and your other dads are in for the long haul.”
“Other dads?”
I shot Ben a sharp look then as he glanced up at me over my daughter’s shoulder. Couldn’t we just deal with one issue at a time?
“I’m an alpha,” he said, pulling back slightly to look up into her face. “Do you know much about that?”
“You are born in packs and are always boys. You find an omega and have babies together. Mummy, are you an omega?”
“No, darling,” I said through gritted teeth. “That’s usually the way it works, but to make such a special little girl, we had to do things a bit differently.”
“So how many dads do I have?” she asked Ben excitedly as he lifted her over the wall to the beach beyond. “Do I have five? Ten? Do I have a whole army of dads? When can I meet them?”
“Soon,” he told her, holding her hand as he led her towards the water. “I just wanted some time to get to know you first, all on my own. You were a big surprise for me, Evie. I didn’t know you were my girl until I caught sight of you.”
“And you know me by scent, right? When I smelled you, I knew you were my dad. You smell like home and Nana’s fire and the way the kitchen smells when Mum uses the bread maker.”
“Yeah? That’s kinda what you smell like to me, too.”
Chapter 19
“Soo… how you gonna play this?” Sophie asked as the two of us lay out on our beach towels. Just lying on the beach and catching rays was a strange experience these days. Usually, I was rushing around after Evie, but while I didn’t look away from them for a second as she played with Taylor and Ben, it was oddly relaxing. The two men jumped to when she gave orders, placing packed buckets of sand everywhere she directed as she decorated each part of her massive sand complex’s walls with seaweed and shells.
“Play what?”
“Ben thinks you’re his mate now, doesn’t he? And so that means the other guys will, too.”
I shivered, thinking of shouty Logan, though my response became something quite different when I thought of Jasper. And what of his other brothers? I knew he had to have more than two. In my mind I put various alphas I’d met over the years in the role, finally settling on Reed.
Damn, he better not be, I thought furiously.I’d never walk again.
Sophie smirked as she saw me stare into space, considering her words.
“I’m not an omega,” I replied flatly, staring at the two guys and my daughter. “In theory, one exists out there, just for them. She’ll provide them with the sons they need whereas I produced a daughter. And anyway, I am hardly queen bee material. I love the city, good coffee and bookshops and—”
“Ben?” Sophie skewered me on that all too perceptive gaze of hers. “Could you love Ben? Because if that’s the case, none of the other shit will matter. Or if it does, you’ll find a way. Do I love Taylor’s rapid-fire dissection of his day when he comes back from the office? I’m not interested in game design at all, but when he’s all fired up? When he’s come up with a particularly elegant piece of code to problem solve something no one else could fix? His whole face lights up in a way that soon has me distracting him with more… intimate kinds of games.” She grinned lazily. “He’s pretty damn good at them too. All that hand eye coordination refined through years of playing computer games makes him good at—”
“Dear god, don’t you say another word,” I said, rolling over so I could catch some sun on my back, which was perhaps why I missed what came next. “I love Taylor like a brother, but—”
“Hello, ladies.”
A deep masculine voice had my head jerking up and Sophie did the same, but all that got me was an up close and personal view of a very nicely formed pair of feet. He quickly rectified the situation, dropping down into a squat so I saw a familiar set of grey eyes staring into mine, twinkling as he set down a coffee tray in front of us.
“Now, I have a cappuccino, a latte, a chai tea and some mocha, caramel, floofy thing that the person at the coffee shop seemed to think girls liked. What can I interest you in?”
“Who the—?” Sophie started to say, rearing up.