I’d known it all along, and then I’d gone and gotten stupid and thought there might be something better out there. Some bigger purpose.
What bullshit.
Alone, I sat on my couch, drinking straight from the bottle because the burn that slid down my throat was the only companion I could ever rely on.
Sure as shit couldn’t rely on myself.
Grace had to learn that firsthand.
Most pathetic part was I somehow thought I had the right to ache and hurt and wish there was something I could do when they only thing I’d hit through the entire week was dead end after dead end.
I couldn’t find shit on Reed.
Fucker was squeaky clean when he was the dirtiest bastard around.
I took another pull of the warm liquid. Wished it was Grace’s hands. Grace’s sweet hands that could chase away any storm. The girl peace and light and everything I’d never known I was missing.
Missing.
That’s exactly what this was.
I was missing her like a bitch.
Really, what she’d done was summon a whole new storm. God knew that the girl had turned my life upside down.
The truth was, I’d never have been good enough for her. For them. I knew it to my core.
Misery beat through my body. Was pretty sure stumbling upon that girl was nothing but another penalty for what I’d done. A tease of what I could never have.
I knew it.
I knew it.
Chest aching, I looked over at the tablet that sat on the couch next to me, that fucking jewelry box sitting next to it, trying to stop the hurt lining my insides.
I needed to accept defeat.
This was over.
Just to punish myself a little more, I pulled the tablet onto my lap and swiped into it, a soft smile pulling to my mouth when I saw the background picture.
Grace and Thomas and Mallory making goofy faces where they sat on the floor in the bedroom where all the kids had been staying, Sophie with her little arms around Grace’s neck as she clung to her back.
Grace was angled toward the camera.
Felt like I could reach out and touch her.
Like she was right there and nowhere at the same time.
So damned lonely, missing them so goddammed much, I clicked into Thomas’s photo folder. Invading his privacy, the same way as I’d invaded their lives, an intruder who wouldn’t do anything but cause them pain.
Had I not chased Grace down that first night, this never would have happened. She wouldn’t have my name to tarnish hers. She wouldn’t have the media going wild with scandalous stories about her sleeping with her attorney. Wouldn’t have this bullshit that made her look like she was indecent and dirty, when the girl had the purest heart of anyone I’d ever met.
Her children her priority.
Her life.
Exactly what they were supposed to be.
Emotion surged my throat when the images popped onto the screen, the bright light glaring into my darkened apartment. Thomas had taken picture after picture of his sisters. Mallory being crazy and funny and the brightest thing on the Earth, and Sophie wrecking all that mayhem, the child nothing but a handful that I would do anything to hold.
There were some that Thomas had taken of himself. The boy stoic and proud and scared and too mature for his age.
My chest tightened.
Everything ached.
Then there was Grace. Always there. Always present. Always loving.
God, how could I have been so selfish to think I could fit into their world? That’s what I’d fucking done, wasn’t it? Started to imagine what it might be like to belong.
Really belong.
When the only thing I’d ever truly belonged to was selfishness and greed.
I clicked into a video.
Cringed a bit when I realized it was taken at the Dearborne estate. Still, I couldn’t stop watching it, their little voices breaking into the unbearable silence of my condo.
“Thomas, Thomas, are you recording me? I’m going to sing you your favorite song!”
Thomas scoffed. “Pssh . . . all you’re gonna do is ruin it.”
“Nuh-uh! I’m the best singer in the world and I’m gonna go to New York and be an actress or maybe to Hollywood so I can be in movies and then you’re gonna be sad you didn’t believe my dreams when I’m famous and you want to be my best friend. And I’m going to write all my own songs because I’m a writer and I’ll probably write all the movies, too. Maybe you can record them since you take such good pictures. Just don’t make me mad,” she warned with some of that sass.
A soft smile pulled at my mouth, while my shredded heart ached.
Mal Pal.
Pain sheared through the middle of me. And I just watched. Unable to stop.
“Sophie dance!” Sophie was bouncing around Mallory, always wanting to be in the middle of it.
Mallory started singing.
New Kids on the Block.
Good God, I was going to have to have a talk with Grace about that shit.
With the thought, a hot blade pierced my chest.
How the fuck had it gotten to the point that Grace no longer had the influence? That her right was taken away?
“Tom Tom,, dance, Tom Tom, dance!” Sophie chanted.
Thomas was angling his camera to get a close-up, her big blue eyes so excited and trusting.
The screen bounced around, and I could tell Thomas was setting up his tablet to record where he balanced it upright on a table. Then all three of them were in the middle of the room, dancing and singing and laughing.
My breath hitched.
It was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.
Only thing wrong with it was the location and the fact Grace wasn’t there.
A female voice called, “Lunch,” and the three of them took off. Thomas had completely forgotten about his tablet, leaving it recording as they scrambled off to eat.
I started to click out of that video so I could move onto another one when a male’s voice broke through the speaker, so distinct and recognizable my blood went cold.
“I told you she was going to be a problem.”
Lawrence Bennet.
I shot forward on the couch, clutching the tablet in my hand, staring at the screen that only captured a stilled picture of a living room. But it was the voices caught from somewhere off to the side that had tension racing.
Gripping and clutching.
“And I told you she was my problem and not to worry about it,” another voice hissed. One I wouldn’t recognize if it weren’t for the two foul interactions I’d had with him a little over a week ago.
Reed Dearborne.
“There’s a point where you no longer get to make that call. You put everything at risk, and I’m going to step in. I think you should know me well enough by now.”
Finally, finally, both of them stepped into the frame. Reed glanced around, his voice held low and hostility vibrating from his demeanor.
“You think you’re going to come into my house and start making demands? Do you know who I am?” Reed demanded.
Asshole was clearly offended Lawrence had the audacity to question him.
Lawrence lifted his chin like the cocky old bastard that he was. “I think the better question is, have you forgotten who I am? I built this company. This town. You. I own everything. So, when there’s a problem? It’s my job to fix it. Including when your pretty little wife goes rogue.”
My blood that had run cold froze over.
Reed flew into his face, like the fucker cared. “Stay away from her. If she’s an issue, then I will be the one to handle it.”
“She’s already an issue. The fact that she isn’t here and you can’t control her is proof enough.”
“And what do you think the media is going to say if she goes missing? Shows up floating in the river? All eyes are going to be on me. No one gives a fuck if one of the junkie whores goes missing. But a mother of three who just so happens to be my ex-wife? You don’t think that’s going to look suspicious or raise some questions? You know we don’t need that right now.”
Panic pounded through my veins. Rage jumped in to take a ride, too.
Lawrence straightened his tie. “Car accidents happen every day.”
“That’s the mother of my children you’re talking about.”
“Who is a liability. She will do anything to get custody of her children, including hire my fucking attorney. She’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say go. Last chance, Reed. Get her back here by the end of the month or I will take matters into my own hands.”