Chapter 45 Chapter 45
Lianas Pov
The knock rattled me out of my sleep like a gun shot.
It wasn't loud but it sounded too urgent. Too intentional. It wasn't like the usual tap of a visitor or the stutter-step thud of a delivery person. It was a knock that sounded quite unique.
I looked at the clock. 6: 57 a.m. What the hell?
Pulling my robe tighter around me, I padded to the door, still blinking the remnants of sleep from my eyes. The sun hadn’t risen fully, casting a soft amber hue across the street, washing the world in half-light. I hesitated, looking through the peephole.
Suddenly, I stepped back as if the sight had burned me. Dominic? What… what was he doing here?
My heart flipped, thudded, and then raced as the knock came again. Slowly, I pushed open the door, my knuckles white on the handle.
"Liana," he said, his voice unusually soft and cautious. He looked like a man who had not slept. His eyes had shadows under them, shadows not of tiredness but of restlessness, of fire gnawing from the inside out. His jaw was clenched, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, but his shoulders were bent as if the burden of something intolerable was weighing him down.
I pulled the robe tighter around me. “What are you doing here?" My voice cut sharper than I meant to. "And this early at that? How do you even know where I live?"
He hesitated. "I had to see you."
"That doesn't answer any of my questions.”
He looked past me, and into the house like maybe he expected someone else to answer for me. I hated that. Hated how he was standing on my porch like he had a right to be here. Where did he get his audacity from?
"I didn't mean to show up like this," he said.
"Obviously, you did." I folded my arms. "Dominic, I don't have time for your unnecessary conversations. What do you want?"
He shifted, obviously getting a bit upset by my approach. He extracted his phone from his pocket. I saw then how his hands trembled. He looked down at the screen for a fraction too long, then flipped it toward me. “What do you have to say about this, Liana.”
It was a picture of a child.
A girl. Hazel eyes. Tight curls. Lopsided grin.
I stared. Then stared harder. My heart dropped to my stomach. All the air left my lungs.I blinked, and backed away from the door like the photo might lunge forward and strike me.
"Where… where did you get that?" I whispered.
Dominic's tone was level, but there was a storm lurking beneath. "That is absolutely none of your business. I didn't come here to he asked questions. I came here to get answers.”
I laughed at first. “So you think you can just come to my house, ask questions and force me to answer? Bold of you Dominic.”
“If you're not hiding anything, I would suggest you speak up. I'm going to ask you this only once, is she my daughter? who am I kidding, she's a splitting image of me.”
“I…I don't know what you're talking about," I stammered. But even I didn't believe it. “You do not have a daughter in this house. Maybe you should go after your hoes.”
“Do not insult me Liana. I might have been promiscuous but I've always been a careful person and I always pay attention to details. If I had a child with another woman, I would have known.”
“But you had no idea you had this one?” I fired back.
“This is different. You were my wife, there was no need to be careful.”
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
"I want the truth, Liana.”
My eyes watered. I turned away, hoping he wouldn't see. My fingers trembled at my sides.
"You're lying," he said quietly.
I spun around, anger flooding up to meet shame. "What right do you have to stand here and accuse me… after everything?"
He moved forward, lips tightening. "I have every right. If she's mine, if she's my daughter, you had no right to withhold her from me."
Heat rose like fire up in my chest as my lungs struggled to expand. "And what would you have done if I had told you? Huh? When you were sleeping around? Coming home drunk? Throwing things and calling me names?"
He crumpled, just for a second.
“You think I was going to raise a child around that? You couldn’t even take care of yourself, Dominic.”
“I had a right to know.” His voice cracked. “I had a right to choose. To be there.”
“You lost that right when you walked away!” I snapped. “When you signed that contract overseas, knowing you’d be gone for years. When you prioritized your career and women and your damn ego over the family we could’ve had!”
Silence.
The truth echoed louder than any yelling could.
He ran a hand down his face, grief leaking through every pore. “I didn’t know. I was stupid, but I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want her to grow up thinking love looked like chaos,” I said. “And honestly? You were so deep in your own self-destruction, I don’t think you’d have noticed if I painted it on a billboard.”
“I would’ve come back,” he whispered.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” I said, softer now. “Because when you had the chance, you didn’t.”
His eyes were bloodshot. He stepped back, then forward again, like his own emotions were too much to contain.
“I need to see her,” he said.
“No.”
“Liana—”
“I said no!” I shook my head, backing away from the door. “You don’t get to show up out of nowhere and demand access to her life. She doesn’t even know who you are.”
He opened his mouth, his eyes glossy. “I’m her father.”
“Biologically, maybe. But that’s not enough. She’s happy. She’s safe. I won’t let you just—”
“Mum?”
The word sliced through the tension like a blade. heart dropped