Page 83 of Lela's Choice

“Lela excused your behaviour because of your grief in losing first your wife, then your older daughter. You’re wilfully blind if you can’t see Lela’s used every ounce of her love, compassion and intellect to keep your family together.” Someone needed to remind this old autocrat of Lela’s strengths, and Hamish seemed to have appointed himself as defender of her good name almost from the moment he’d met her. Praising her to her father was something he could do. “Eighteen bloody years and you want more.”

“She should be with me at home. They should both be with me.” The tremble in Vella’s voice surprised them both, while the sudden flash of emotion in his eyes reminded Hamish of Lela. The shape and colour were the same. The vulnerability he’d glimpsed in that fraction of a second was the key to why Lela loved him and refused to humiliate him.

Hamish gentled his response. “I know Sophie’s in contact with you, that you’re planning to go to Malta for her eighteenth birthday. Lela hasn’t turned her back on you. She couldn’t. You have your family today because she’s fighting for it.”

“That’s what you’ve really come to say.” Vella steepled his hands on his desk, his stare becoming assessing.What calculations was the old man making now?

“Yeah. She’s a miracle, Mr. Vella.” He rose to his feet and headed for the door, stopping when he reached it. “I also came to tell you I’m withdrawing my bill for services.”

“Why?” Vella inclined his head, focused on Hamish’s answer.

“Because it was a privilege and a joy to spend time with your daughter.”Message delivered.

Hamish saw Lela’s face everywhere, her fugitive smile, her serious concentration, and the passionate sparkle that lit the depths of her eyes. Frustrated arousal was a constant hum through his body, while an immobilising sense of loss made him lethargic, and for the first time in his life, disinterested in his work.

He couldn’t explain that. After Olivia’s death, he’d accepted any and every brief offered to him. The punishing fourteen and sixteen-hour days had kept him focused and sane, stopped him examining Olivia’s role in her own death. Doubting her had seemed disloyal until Lela made him confront the truth that not all women would have made Olivia’s choice, even if they were at war with him. Today he’d hinted to his partners that his current domestic violence case was likely his last. A condition he’d set for himself, if he was to have another chance with Lela.

“I don’t see the connection. We had a business arrangement.”

“Do you love your daughter, Mr. Vella?”

“That’s none of your business.” Vella stood erect.

“Lela thinks it’s conditional on her doing what you say, being who you want. That if she transgresses in any way, you’ll cut her off like you did her sister.”She also thought I was interested in the sex, not the substance of her.He was working on how to apologise for that lie.

“I’m sorry my older daughter died as she did, and that I didn’t do more to prevent it.” Regret stiffened Vella’s voice. “I was shocked and angry when she allowed that young man to trick her, to shame us.”

“Comfort her, is how Lela sees it. Grieving for her mother, loaded with responsibility for her younger siblings, she wanted someone to hold her.” Hamish wanted Lela to hold him, lovelorn idiot that he was.

“Carmen has a generous spirit, like her mother.”

“Did you take advantage of her mother as well?” Hamish was learning more than he expected from prodding the old man. Maybe the shock of living in a house without his daughter and granddaughter had forced some self-reflection.

“You know nothing.” Vella’s fist clenched.

“Have you told Lela how you feel?”

“You can’t know what it’s like to lose the love of your life.” Vella was playing the sympathy card rather than answering the question.

“The husband of one of my clients killed my pregnant wife.” And Hamish knew with blinding certainty—he’d loved Olivia, but she wasn’t the love of his life. Lela was. After less than a week together and three weeks apart, he had no doubt. And she was right—he’d been too caught in past guilt to see what she offered. Lela was first, last and always a protector. In Malta she’d taken care to protect her sources. Unlike Olivia she’d never weaponise a child, much less risk a child’s life.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Vella waved a hand in the air, letting his ignorance excuse his arrogance. “Carmen is stubborn.” Hamish lifted an eyebrow, and the old man hurried on. “A fighter. She misses her mother and sister. Losing them was hard for her.”

“Didn’t stop you trading on her loyalty, her readiness to forgive.”

“A father’s right!” The old Tatar admitted it, but claimed it as his due.

Hamish was contemplating committing a similar sin—trading on her readiness to forgive. The temptation to beg for a few hours of her time was a tiger clawing at his gut.

“I try not to repeat mistakes. I will never agree with her completely, but I’d cut off my right hand rather than lose her.” If Vella told her more often, something positive might be salvaged from the mess Hamish had created.

“Tell her, not me.” He closed the door behind him.

He had a hide lecturing her father, when he’d let her believe he didn’t love her. Love her! She sang in his blood. He could still smell her, still feel her in his arms when he closed his eyes to sleep at night. Not being able to see her, to touch her was a physical pain.

The fear he could knowingly put her in danger burned stronger.

Along with his current brief had come a warning that the client’s husband had more than once threatened violence to anyone who tried to keep him from his wife and kids. The wife and kids were in hiding, living each day in fear of their lives.

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