Page 12 of Garden Daddy

Now, it was all bubbling up to the surface at the worst time possible, and she couldn’t stop it.The barrier had broken, and there was no time to rebuild it.So, she sobbed and sobbed against his shoulder, letting the Little girl at her core cry on her Daddy’s shoulder and receive his comfort.

The comfort she’d needed so long ago, when he hadn’t been there to give it to her.

By the time she was hiccupping and finally able to get a hold of herself, her tears slowing, her breathing normalizing, she felt utterly spent.Marcus continued to make the soothing noises, his chin resting on top of her head, his hands gently stroking her.Her butt was still on fire, but the rest of her felt… better.

Calmer.

Empty but in a good way, as though she’d been holding something toxic and terrible inside her, and it had been purged.She felt lighter.

“Eden?”Marcus’ voice was hesitant.Soft.

All he knew was he’d been spanking her, and suddenly, she’d been sobbing in a manner extremely disproportionate to the spanking he’d been giving her.He was probably freaking the fuck out.

Eden giggled.

“Eden.”The hesitation was gone, and there was a hint of warning in his voice.“What just happened?”

“You’re right, I have feelings for you, but some of them are that I’m still so, so mad at you.”She hiccupped again.

7

Marcus

Relief flooded through Marcus.He didn’t think he’d been spanking Eden hard enough to make her cry like that because of the physical pain, but he’d worried there was some unknown injury or something that he’d hit upon.Instead, it had been an emotional injury, one inflicted by him… which meant it was incumbent upon him to make it right.

“You have every right to be mad,” he said softly, stroking her hair.

“There were things I could have done, too,” she admitted.“I was mad at myself by the time our marriage ended.It was my own fault for letting your life and your needs consume mine.I didn’t fight for myself until I realized that nothing I did was going to change your behavior.”

“I should have been paying more attention to you.I should have noticed how unhappy you were.”Instead, he’d been blindsided because he’d been so focused on himself.And that had made him angry and uncompromising.Neither of which had been good.

“I could have told you sooner.I could have gone out and made my own friends… I just, I hit a point where I didn’t know how to separate myself from you without actually separating myself from you.And I didn’t want to be with the person you’d become.”

“I don’t blame you.”The person he’d become had been a pretty crappy husband and an absolutely terrible Daddy.All things he’d made strides in changing after she’d left him.“Losing you was a huge wake up call to me.”

“Even bigger than your heart attack?”

“Much.”Because it was losing her that had motivated him to actually open his eyes to what he’d turned into.He couldn’t blame his diet or anything else for that.It was his behavior that had driven her away.Sure, he’d been angry and had wondered why she’d kept her unhappiness to herself, but he’d also known—deep down—that once she started trying to tell him, he hadn’t been listening.

A lot of therapy had helped him work through all of that and recognize what he could have done.Yes, there were things she could have done, too, but fundamentally, their marriage had needed a big shake-up regardless, and he hadn’t been willing to give it one until she shook herself right out of it.

He sighed.Even though she’d admitted that she had feelings for him, this wasn’t how he wanted her to give him a chance.He didn’t actually want her to be forced into it.He wanted her to want it.He’d hoped that sceneing tonight would put her in a position where she’d realize that a second chance was what she wanted.

“Eden… thank you for giving me the chance to scene tonight.I will leave you alone after this, I promise.The ball is in your court, and I won’t pressure you, and I’ll stop trying to antagonize you when we see each other with our friends.”

She shifted on his lap, stirring his cock again—his erection had deflated the moment she started sobbing so brokenheartedly—and he manfully ignored the involuntary reaction.Eden was not a pretty crier.Now that she was sitting so he could see her face, he could see her swollen nose and red-rimmed eyes, and the way even her lips had puffed up.

It didn’t matter.

She was always stunningly beautiful to him.

“What if I don’t want you to leave me alone?”

Marcus stilled, staring at her, trying to decipher if she was serious or if she was teasing him.But it was Eden.She might be a brat of epic proportions, but she wouldn’t joke about something like that.

“Really?”

She took a deep breath before answering him, as if she was gathering her courage.

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