Part 2I Love You Too

With that, Teddy stood abruptly. His bodyguards and personal assistant immediately cleared a path through the throng of reporters, escorting him to his car.

My hands felt like ice as I turned off the television. The living room plunged into darkness, save for the single floor lamp in the corner casting a pale, lonely light.

And in that sudden silence, I heard a soft, choked sob.

I whipped my head around and saw her. My tiny daughter, standing frozen in the shadows, her face streaked with tears, her eyes wide with a pain she couldn't comprehend.

"Penny?"

I scrambled up and rushed to her, pulling her into my arms.

"Sweetheart, why aren't you in bed? What are you doing downstairs?"

She buried her wet face in my chest, her little voice trembling.

"Mommy, why did Daddy say he doesn't have a daughter?"

"If he doesn't have a daughter… then what am I?"

A knife twisted in my heart.

Teddy was a man of few words, stern and serious. He loved Penny in his own way, but he was rarely home, and his smiles were even rarer. Our daughter adored him, but she was also a little afraid of him, which had made her more sensitive than other children.

As my own tears began to fall, it felt as if the stubborn hope that had held me together for all these years had finally crumbled to dust.

I cupped her little face, wiping away her tears.

"Penny, do you want to leave this place with Mommy?"

"Where will we go?"

"Will we come back home later?"

I looked down and managed a small, sad smile. "No, sweetie."

"This isn't our home."

I looked into her eyes, my voice steady and serious. "This is Mr. Thorne's house."

"We've stayed for a very long time, and we've been a bother to him."

"So now it's time for us to leave and go back to our own home."

Penny nodded, not quite understanding but trusting me completely. "Okay, Mommy. I'll go wherever you go."

"Good girl."

I carried her back to her room, kissing her soft cheek.

"Go to sleep now. Mommy will stay right here with you."

After she was asleep, my gaze fell on the picture frame on her nightstand.

It was a photo of the three of us. Our only one.

In the picture, Teddy sat perfectly straight, his expression as cool and distant as ever. I was holding a one-year-old Penny, my smile a mix of shyness and bliss, my body angled slightly toward him.

His, however, was not angled toward me.

Once Penny was sound asleep, I took the frame and quietly left the room.

As I took a pair of scissors to the photograph, a sudden, sharp realization hit me.

The small gap between us in that photo, the space where our bodies never quite touched, had been left there for this very day, so I could cut along the line with ease.