Freedom (Billionaire Secrets 2)

Her hands balled up into fists so tight her nails dug into her skin. This was the angriest she had ever been at Gary, and if she could have tossed the glass of juice in his face without drawing attention she would have. “Simon and I have done everything to shield Finn from reporters.” To the point where Simon had invited her to stay at his apartment, so they wouldn’t be followed to her place by overzealous photographers. Simon barely knew Finn, but he’d stepped up to try to protect her son. Which was more than she could say about Gary.

“I don’t need to hear another word of this,” Gary muttered.

“Why? Because this isn’t going the way you planned? Did you think you could force me to listen to your threats and lies?” She narrowed her eyes. “That’s why you wanted me in a public place. You wanted me to be so afraid of making a scene that you’d either get me to say something incriminating to placate you, or you’d say something that scared me so much I’d give up on fighting for custody.”

“Shut up.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” she snapped. “I know my moving on has destroyed all the lies you tried to bully me with when we were married. You claimed I was nothing without you.”

His face was turning bright red, his eyes bulging. No doubt he hated to see her stand up to him. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have had Finn.”

“You’re right, Gary,” she said, choking back tears. Her anger was giving way to hurt. Hurt that a man she’d been married to for so long could be such a hateful, spiteful person. All because she was starting to see that all the horrible things he had said to her might not be true. All because she dared to find happiness without him. Hot tears stung the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry in his presence. “Without you, I would never have had Finn. But now you’re trying to take Finn away. Not share custody with me. Flat out take him away from me forever. You’re using him as a pawn against me. You no longer have any control over me, but the one thing you can use against me is our son. And you don’t even the decency to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I don’t need to listen to any more of this.” He got to his feet. “I’m out of here.”

“You’re the one who insisted on seeing me, remember? Besides, you drove me here,” she pointed out. “How am I supposed to get back to work?”

“I thought you moved on from me,” he spat out. “Figure out how to get back to work on your own.” He glared at her and then stormed out of the deli, leaving her behind.

Tears threatened to fall, but she had to hold it together in public. If someone recognized her and took a photo of her crying, she didn’t think she’d be able to handle the humiliation.

She had to get out of here. Get back to Dover and focus on work to distract her from her anger and pain. Then get home and talk to her lawyer about her argument with Gary. If she was going to protect Finn, she had to make sure her lawyer had as much information as possible.

But first, she actually had to get back to Dover. Hands shaking, she reached into her handbag and grabbed her phone to call the one person she could count on to help her out of here. Simon.

Chapter 17

She settled into the passenger seat beside him, her face pale.

Simon stepped on the accelerator and drove towards Dover. The minute he’d ended the call from Heather he had cut his lunch meeting short and headed down here as fast as possible. She had sounded so unlike herself on the phone. Sad and afraid. When she had explained that she and her ex-husband her argued about their son, his protective instincts started going and he couldn’t do anything to control himself.

He stole a quick glance at her. Tears were starting to slide down her cheeks. “Are you sure you want to go back to work? You don’t look like you’re in any state to be dealing with stress right now.”

She exhaled a shuddering sigh and took off her glasses to brush her tears aside. “Work will get my mind off things.”

“I could drive you to my place or yours,” he offered. “I have no problem with you working from home for the rest of the day. We don’t have any more meetings scheduled for this afternoon.”