Page 85 of Double Daddies
“By breaking our hearts completely,” Drake added. A bitter smile played on his lips.
The last rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the beach. In the growing darkness, both men faced the reality that the love they held for Elle would remain a constant ache, a bittersweet reminder of what could have been. Their lives would continue, filled with board meetings, business deals, and charity galas, except it would be with an empty space beside them where a spirited tomboy Little should have been.
“We’ll survive this,” Damian said, though his voice wavered slightly.
Drake stood, brushing sand from his pants. “We always do.” He reached down to help Damian up. “This is the one time fighting for what we want won’t work. She made her choice, and for her own sanity, it was the only one she could make. We’ll have to accept she was the one who got away.”
As they walked back toward their mansion, the sound of waves continued their eternal rhythm behind them. Life would go on. They would remain the powerful, successful men they were and continue to find solace in their roles as Daddies.
But they both knew that no other Little would quite fill the Elle-shaped void in their hearts. That special space was reserved for a feisty, resistant, perfectly imperfect Little who had taught them that sometimes love wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between who someone was and who they were meant to be.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next morning
Elle
Elle stood in the doorway. Her heart constricted at the sight before her. Drake and Damian lay intertwined on Drake’s bed. Their usual commanding presence was softened by sleep and pain. They never shared a bed unless she was between them, their protective embrace creating her safe haven. Now, they sought comfort from each other, and the realization sent fresh waves of guilt through her.
“Oh, God, I love them so much,” she whispered. Her voice was barely a breath in the stillness of the room. Tears blurred her vision as she watched their chests rise and fall in synchronized rhythm. She had done this to them. Her fears, her assumptions, and her stubborn refusal to face the truth about herself had wounded these strong, beautiful men who had only ever shown her patience and understanding.
Drake’s words echoed in her mind, the ones that had shattered her carefully constructed walls.“We didn’t push you to transition into a girly Little once we agreed to the tomboy version, did we?”
The truth of that statement had hit her like a physical blow just as the airplane door was about to close. She had bolted fromher seat, ignoring the flight attendants’ protests as her heart pounded with the sudden clarity of her mistake.
Elle had built an elaborate fortress of assumptions, brick by brick, each one laid with the mortar of her insecurities.
“Stupid! I was so stupid,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself. Instead of having honest conversations about their expectations and asking how their dynamic would translate to their day-to-day life in Texas, she had let her fears write their story. She had been so focused on protecting herself from imagined threats, she had never stopped to consider she might be fighting against her own happiness.
The burden of what she might have irreparably damaged pressed against her chest. Trust, once broken, was like a shattered mirror. You could piece it back together, but the cracks would always show. She had taken their open hearts, their unwavering support, their willingness to compromise, and repaid them with doubt and rejection.
Without giving her racing thoughts another moment to talk her out of it, Elle kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. She settled at their feet, cross-legged, preparing herself for the moment they would wake. Her heart thundered as she waited, hoping against hope that she hadn’t destroyed her chance at the very thing she had been searching for all along. A place to belong, just as she was, with two men who had seen past her defenses to the Little she had been too afraid to acknowledge… albeit a tomboy version.
The early morning light streaming through the windows cast shadows across their faces, and Elle felt tears slip down her cheeks. How many nights had she lost fighting against this? How many moments of joy had she denied herself, and them, because she couldn’t trust in the love they so freely offered?
Drake stirred first, his eyes slowly focusing in the dim light. For a moment, he stared at Elle as if she were a mirage, fear andlonging warring across his features. His sharp intake of breath woke Damian, whose immediate protective tightening around his partner made Elle’s tears fall faster.
She watched, paralyzed, as they both sat up. Their movements were cautious, as if she might disappear if they moved too quickly. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken words and raw hurt. Elle’s hands trembled in her lap as her carefully prepared speech evaporated under their intense gazes.
Drake’s face hardened first as his vulnerability disappeared behind walls she had forced him to build.
“Why are you here?”
She flinched at the quiet steel in his voice.
“I…” Elle’s voice cracked. She forced herself to meet their eyes, even as Damian’s pained expression threatened to shatter what remained of her composure. “I was wrong. So wrong.”
“About which part?” Damian’s voice was hoarse, thick with emotion. “The part where you played us, or the part where you broke our hearts without a second’s hesitation?”
Elle’s chest tightened at the accusation. She deserved their anger and their distrust, but it still cut deep.
“About everything,” she whispered. “About who I thought you wanted me to be and who I pretended not to be.”
Drake’s jaw clenched, and his hands fisted in the sheets as if physically restraining himself from reaching for her. The distance between them stretched infinitely, though only a few feet separated them.
“I didn’t play you,” she continued. Her voice strengthened with desperation. “Every moment was real. Every laugh, every storytime, every... every time I called you Daddy. I just got scared. Scared of losing myself, when the truth is,”—she drew a shaking breath—“the truth is, I was finally finding myself.”
Damian blinked as if he was fighting tears, and Elle had to dig her nails into her palms to keep from crawling to him, to them both. But she hadn’t earned that right back yet. Maybe she never would.
