Endeared (The Accidental Billionaires #5) - J. S. Scott Page 0,63

time ago,” he said in a chilly tone. “She was destined to become just like her mother. It was in her genes. If she’s not an alcoholic slut, she probably will be.”

“She’s not!” The words exploded from my mouth like a shot from a cannon. “She’s a beautiful, successful nurse practitioner who cares about other people more than she gives a damn about herself. Regardless of the fact that she never had anyone who gave a damn about her. She called you, asked for your help. How can any father deny a child that he knows damn well is suffering in an abusive atmosphere?”

“I sent the damn child support. That should have been enough. Her mother was a whore who was never sober, so I assume every penny of my money went toward alcohol. But I sent it until the day that Layla turned eighteen. I did my court-ordered duty. All I wanted was to never see either one of them again.”

“Layla was a good kid,” Aiden said furiously.

“She had the alcoholic genes. I knew she was going to end up just like her mother.”

Seth spoke up, his jaw tight. “She was being abused, you asshole.”

Caine rolled his eyes. “And what did you expect me to do? Her mother was a crazy bitch. She assaulted me, too. It wasn’t just Layla who had to deal with her abuse. Getting out of that situation and anything associated with it was the best thing I could do for myself.”

“You were a fucking adult,” I growled. “Layla was a defenseless kid. Your kid.”

“She was a teenager by then,” he argued. “She could defend herself, but she did anything her mother asked her to do. Layla was a lost cause. She was already brainwashed.”

I gritted my teeth. “She was terrified, not brainwashed. You should have taken her out of that whole situation.”

“I had my own issues to deal with,” Caine said, his tone full of hostility and self-pity. “I had child support to pay. I couldn’t get out of that. How was I supposed to start over with that payment always squeezing me?”

“You didn’t need to start over. You needed to take care of the daughter you abandoned to a violent alcoholic,” I told him vehemently. “Christ! Didn’t you feel anything for her?”

“Never,” Caine replied coldly. “I never wanted her. Didn’t want anything to do with her. I was ready to leave Layla’s mother when she got pregnant. Because of Layla, I ended up stuck in that marriage years longer than I wanted to be. I don’t even know if she’s mine. Her mother was cheating on me almost from the very beginning.”

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and brought up a recent picture I’d taken of Layla. I held it right in front of him. “Those are your eyes you see looking back at you.”

Would the man finally see all of the damage he did to his own child? Honestly, it shouldn’t matter whether Layla shared DNA with him or not; he’d been the only father she’d had.

Caine looked for a brief moment, and then looked away. “Maybe she is mine, but she looks a lot like her mother.”

So that was it?

No remorse?

No regret?

No kicking himself in the ass for never realizing that Layla was his biological daughter?

Nothing?

He still couldn’t see Layla as a separate person who was totally innocent of her mother’s crimes?

Brent Caine was a whiny, self-centered bastard who should have been castrated and never allowed to have another child.

Just imagining Layla as an innocent girl, stuck between a violent, alcoholic mother and this monster who wanted to deny she was ever born, was enough to make me totally lose control of the blinding rage that I’d managed to keep reined in . . . until now.

“You failed her,” I accused. “Every single person in her life failed her. I don’t know how, but she still managed to become the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. I think you knew damn well she was your kid, but you wanted to find a reason to hate her from the time she was born. What in the fuck is wrong with you? You’re a father the second that baby is conceived, and you act like that child’s father until you die. Layla didn’t ask to be born, and she sure as hell didn’t ask for an asshole like you to be her father, but you were all she had. You could have saved her from those beatings and the horrific