“I’ll tell Ines she has a new unicorn-vomit room and all the princess dresses she could ever want. She’s two. She doesn’t understand how relationships work,” he answered, and I had to shrug at that one. My girl could throw a mean tantrum, but mostly she was easy to please. Throw something pink and sparkly at her and you owned her soul.
“And Axel?”
“He’s a little man. I’ve got him covered.”
“He’s six,” I argued.
“I’ve been six before. He understands men better than you think. And regardless of who his biological father was, I swear to you that boy has a lot of me in him.”
“This entire thing is ridiculous. Not to mention illegal.”
“Everything will be fine. You just wait and see, Sunshine,” Ryker teased, setting his hand on my thigh to stroke my yoga pants affectionately. “Do you want to put your money where your mouth is?”
“Well apparently, all my money is gone, so there’s that,” I pointed out, making him snort a laugh.
“Okay, I didn’t want your money, anyway. I think if I can convince Axel all is well, and that this is normal, I deserve a kiss.”
“You sneaky fucking bastard,” I growled. Glaring at him, I plucked his hand off my thigh again and set it back on his side of the car. “No.”
“I’ll get one, anyway.”
I wanted to tell him he wouldn’t. I should have been able to tell him he’d never get a kiss from me, but somehow, the words just didn’t feel true.
I couldn’t go to anyone for help. I couldn’t let my kids know that the guy was crazy.
And my body seemed to think it was time to end my eighteen-month celibacy, since Chad and I hadn’t had sex for nearly six months at the end of our marriage.
Ugh.
What the hell was happening?
Eleven
Ryker
I was no stranger to The Peterson School for the Gifted. I’d hand delivered each of my more than generous monthly donations over the past few months to prepare for the coming turn of events where I had a son in the school.
I tried to picture what Principal Blanchet would say when I strolled up to pickup Axel and she realized I was connected to the woman she allowed the President of the PTA to bully. I hoped it tamed her shit down a bit, because even though she hid behind her neat and proper exterior, she acted like a bitch in heat when she saw me. Some women just thought they needed a taste of bad in their bed, but she’d never know what I felt like.
That was for sure.
What I had never done before was walk up the sidewalk to the front gate with Calla’s hand held in mine. She protested, pursing her bowed lips at me and giving me a glare, but kept silent. Anyone else and I might have worried, but I knew Calla like the back of my hand. I knew all her tells, knew every step she’d take and what she would do before she tried to run.
She wouldn’t get far, because I’d chase her. I would always follow her, but I’d had enough of living in the shadows of her life. It was time for me to live front and center with her, to enjoy the sun and the way she lit up the world. She just needed to accept it.
A few of the moms stopped to stare at us as we passed, and I immediately regretted not grabbing my suit jacket on the way out the door. Calla had distracted me with her pathetic half-attempt to walk out the door, like she’d genuinely thought she’d get anywhere. She would soon figure out that she wouldn’t. The only reason she’d fallen back on her snarky attitude was because she knew just how helpless she was.
So she’d try to annoy me until I didn’t want her anymore.
She just didn’t realize that I thought her attempts to be irritating were adorable.
The closer we got to the front doors of the school, the more hesitant Calla’s body language became. Every afternoon I watched her get more and more cautious when she came to Axel’s school. The mornings were one thing, when she could drop him at the gate and watch him walk in, but the school refused to let a child go unless a parent or guardian physically signed them out in the office. That meant Calla had to endure the judgmental glares of other moms, because even though she had finished at the studio hours ago, she still hadn’t had time to change into something these women thought appropriate.
After she finished work, she picked up Ines and ran errands, went home and cleaned, did any number of things that she would no longer have to worry about with me. She could invest time back into herself again, not because I didn’t love her the way she was, but because she deserved to have a life free from stress.
She shouldn’t have to run back and forth just to balance the kids and work. She had me to help with that.
“Mr. Fiore!” The Principal greeted me the very moment we walked into the front office. She stood from her seat, stepping around her desk and smiling at me with an overly enthusiastic beam that made me wince. “We weren’t expecting you today.”