“Angel,” I whispered, and he frowned.
“What?”
A tear spilled down my cheek, and I quickly brushed it away. “Angel. Not Lana, never Lana again. I’m your angel, Drake. Don’t ever call me Lana again.”
“I…”
“And you are wrong. I don’t think you cheated with Gabriella. Even drunk, you wouldn’t do that, especially with her.” I lifted my hand, offering it to him, silently begging him to come to me. “You aren’t wrong for me, Drake. You’re the best thing in my world. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
He took a hesitating step forward. “I love you, Angel. More than anything, I love you.”
“I love you too.” It came out a vow, which it was. “Hold me, Drake. Please hold me.”
He moved quickly and then his arms were around me, and I felt some of my tension ease. “I thought I had lost you.” His tears soaked my neck as he buried his face in my shoulder. “I thought I had lost my reason for living.”
I combed my fingers through his hair, soothing us both a little. “You could never lose me, babe. I’m yours, forever.”
--
I was almost asleep when I heard the door to my private room open. Thinking it was Drake coming back after visiting hours, even though I had made him promise to go home and sleep, I raised my head. If I were honest, I would admit to being selfish enough to want Drake to come back, even though I knew he was dead on his feet after sitting beside my bed for the last three days.
It wasn’t Drake, however. I blinked in the dim lighting coming from the tall street lamps outside my window, thinking at first that I was indeed asleep and dreamed the man that quietly made his way toward me. I was awake, and he was very real.
“What are you doing here, Cole?” I demanded, my voice hoarse from the tube that had been down my throat during my emergency surgery three days before.
He stopped a few feet away. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dim light, but his face appeared pale. “Axton and I came to visit you yesterday, and I spoke to your sister and brother-in-law.” His voice was gruff, full of some emotion I couldn’t place in the old rocker. “Why didn’t you tell me, Lana?”
My heart turned cold, and I pulled the covers up to my chest. “Tell you what?” I tried to play dumb, but he wasn’t having any of that.
“You are my daughter.” He thrust his hands into his jean pockets as he frowned down at me. I wished I could see his eyes, those eyes that were identical to my own, but they were in the shadows. “Would you have ever told me yourself?”
I clenched my jaw, upset with my sister and Jesse for telling this man anything. “Probably not,” I told him truthfully.
A small grin tilted his lips even though his brow was still furrowed. “At least you’re honest. You have fire, Lana. God, you remind me…”
“If you say I remind you of you, I will throw something at your head!”
“…my sister,” he finished, a full blown grin making his face relax in a way that made him look at least ten years younger. “You remind me of my sister. You look a little like her, actually. I’m surprised that I didn’t notice it before.”
I didn’t want to get into a big discussion with Cole Steel. “What do you want, Cole?”
The grin disappeared. “I wanted to see how you are doing. To make sure that you were okay.”
I felt anger start to boil in my veins. “As you can see I’m alive.” He flinched as if I had slapped him hard enough to knock a few teeth loose, but I refused to feel sympathetic toward him. For me, his concern came eighteen years too late.
“I know you don’t like me much, Lana. I don’t blame you in the least for hating me, actually. When you were born, I wasn’t a very nice person, more like a real bastard.” He sighed. “I lost everything and I blamed you for it, even when I knew that you were the only innocent one in the whole damned mess.”
“I never wanted your money,” I spit the words at him.
“And I never planned on stopping the child support.” He surprised me by admitting that. “It was just a ruse to force your mother to let me see you.”
Despite myself, I found myself wanting to know more all of a sudden. “Why?”
Cole grimaced. “At the time I thought I was going to die of throat cancer. I wanted to make peace with everyone in my life, you included. That was before they removed the nodule on my vocals and discovered that it was benign.”
“I’m so glad that when you found out you weren’t going to kick the bucket you decided I wasn’t worth your time after all.” I rolled my eyes at him, angry with him and myself for even daring to wonder about that time in my life. “I think you should go now. I’m tired.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Lana. I’m sorry that I have.” His face was full of remorse, but I wasn’t willing to let myself care.
“Did you ever sort things out with your son?” I called after him before he had reached the door. The fact that I had a brother had never really mattered to me. Even at the age of eight, when I had first realized that I had a brother, I knew that the boy I shared blood with was a douche bag.
Cole turned. “No. His mother poisoned him against me. Now, even as successful as he is in the movie business, he isn’t much to be proud of. Not like you, Lana. You, I have always been proud of. For not turning out like your mother, for growing up to be so mature and independent.”
“Layla was a good role model. She raised me, took care of me, and did the things that you should have had the balls to do.” The words came out full of venom. “You weren’t man enough to take care of your responsibilities. Others had to do your job.”
“I know.” He wasn’t making excuses and that made me even angrier, which was completely crazy.
“You don’t deserve to be my father.”
“I know that too.”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Just stop it!”
“Stop what, Lana?” he asked, his voice calm in my fury. “Stop agreeing with you? I know that I’m a piece of shit. I know that I let you down when I should have done everything in my power to protect you. Not a day goes by that I don’t wake up hating myself because of what I did to you. Fuck, girl. I didn’t even know your name until Jesse Thornton nearly tore my head off yesterday. And when I realized that the little girl I had tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage was you… That my little girl had been so close to bleeding to death, and I hadn’t gotten to tell you all the things I wanted—needed—to tell you, I lost it.”