Chapter Seventeen

Gray

I’m so full of rage I can barely think. Jorge grins at me, and Sloane doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. She looks proud . It makes me sick. I want to grab Jorge and bounce his head off the goddamn floor, kick him in the gut, make him scream in agony for daring to come here. And Callie… keeping it together all through dinner, somehow not freaking out when she was sitting across from the man who tormented her.

“What are you talking about?” Sloane says with pretend innocence.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I snarl. “I can see it on your face. Why would you bring him here? How did you even know?”

Finally, she drops the act. “Oh, don’t overreact. It’s just a little trick—a little fun. Jorge here has been dragging Callie’s name through the mud on some internet forums, so I figured, why not give them a chance to resolve the matter? You know that conflict resolution is my specialty.”

“Yeah, man, just rel—”

“Gray, don’t,” Callie whimpers, but I move without thinking before the reasonable part of me can have any say in the matter.

I grab Jorge’s shirt and haul him one-handed to his feet. He gasps, his legs kicking, his eyes widening as some sobriety creeps into him. He looks like exactly what he is—a pathetic douchebag. He gasps as I shake him. When he grabs my wrist like he’s going to pry me loose, he feels so weak. I could break him for even thinking about hurting Callie.

“What have you been saying about her on these forums?” I snarl.

“Puh-put me down,” Jorge whimpers. “I’ll sue you.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. You won’t have any evidence, you sick fuck. You need to be a man and stand by your actions.”

“Gray.” Callie’s voice is the only thing that tugs me back to reality. Her touch on my shoulder grounds me and makes me remember where I am. At my house, with my daughter inside. Any second, she could come out here and see her daddy behaving in a way he never has before. “You need to stop. Trust me, I’d love it if you could slap that smirk off him. But you can’t.”

Slowly, I put him down, my fists clenching, my mind burning with all the things I could do, with all the violence I could inflict on this little worm.

“Explain,” I growl.

Sloane is grinning at me in a way I seriously hate. It’s like she’s happy that she saw me snap and relieved she could drag me down to her level.

“It was nothing,” Jorge says, far less cocky now.

Sloane giggles. “Don’t undersell it, Jorge. You’ve been dragging her name through the mud. That’s why I reached out. Your prose was inspired.”

“Sloane, you have to realize how insane you sound,” I snarl. “You searched the internet for my nanny’s name, found somebody slandering her, and then arranged to bring him on a date with a fake name… why?” I can’t comprehend it. “It’s just sadistic.”

“Oh, stop,” Sloane says with a wave of her hand. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”

I stare at her, wondering if she really believes that, wondering how she and Wes can come from the same home but be so different, wondering how I ever thought I’d be able to build a family with this person. “No, it’s not. It’s needlessly cruel.”

“Listen, man—”

I glare at Jorge, and he shuts up. “No more out of you,” I snap. “Unless I give you permission to speak.”

“What’s needlessly cruel ,” Sloane hisses, “is you bringing a woman into our daughter’s home and trying to make her love her instead of me .”

“You left.”

“Well, maybe I want to come back.”

“You’ve proved tonight that you’re nowhere near mature enough to be a mother. This isn’t a slip of the tongue, a cruel comment. This was planned . This was premeditated fucking sadism.” I wave a hand. “Both of you need to get out of my house.”

Callie steps up beside me. She looks brave, but I can see the pain beneath her carefully neutral expression and behind her wide eyes. I want to hold her, telling her it’s all going to be okay. But that will just give Sloane more fuel.

“And you need to stop slandering me on those forums,” Callie says. “We both know I did a good job with your boys. I put up with a lot from you, Jorge. It’s not fair to slander me when all I ever did was care for your children while avoiding your advances.”

“I will,” Jorge says, looking at me.

I step forward, looming over him, almost wanting him to find some bravery so I can have an excuse to cave his teeth in. I’m burning inside with the urge to hurt him, to make him pay. I’m trembling with the desire to protect Callie, to shield her from Jorge and anybody else who’d ever try and hurt her.

“I’ll be checking,” I growl. “Every single mention of Callie gets wiped. Tonight. Or I’ll make sure it does. Do you fucking understand me?”

He stares up at me. Realization drains into his drunk eyes. It’s as if this has all been a game up until now. But he can see that I’m not playing anymore. “Yes,” he whispers.

“And you owe Callie an apology,” I growl.

“I’m sorry,” he says instantly, looking at Callie. “Seriously. I’ll delete it. You’ll never see me again.”

“It’s time for you both to go. Now,” I bark.

Sloane rolls her eyes, seeming incapable of understanding why I’m reacting this way. It’s like she fully believes I’m going too far. Not for the first time; I wonder if she’s a sociopath. It’s the only explanation for her and Wes being raised the same way but her ending up like this.

“You might be hearing from my lawyer,” Sloane says as I hound them through the house, not giving her a chance to say goodbye to Emery. I don’t want my baby anywhere near her.

“What does that mean?” I growl.

“Seeing Emery tonight has reawakened my maternal instinct,” she replies. “It’s made me understand how much I’m missing. I was suffering from some mental health concerns, but those have passed now, and I finally feel capable of being a mother.”

She speaks as if rehearsing what she would say in a court of law.

I grit my teeth but say nothing, ignoring the look of victory on her face. They climb into the car.

“You need to get a cab,” I tell them. “You were both drunk or high when you got here, and you’ve drunk even more.”

Sloane giggles in a twisted way. “Aw, are you worried about me?”

“Not you ,” I snap. “I don’t want you hurting anybody.”

“Oh, relax.”

“I’m serious.” I put my hand on the car door. “Park the car outside the gate. Get it tomorrow. You need a cab. Or walk into town and get a hotel room for the night. I’m not letting you drive out of here.”

“We’re so impressed by you,” Sloane says sarcastically as I lead them to the gate. “You’re such an honorable, upstanding person. We’re in awe of your morality.”

I ignore her jabs. There’s no point rising—rather, falling—to her level. At least Jorge has shut his goddamn mouth. He’s like a cowed schoolboy as he gives me his car keys so I can park his vehicle outside the gates. After giving him the keys back, they walk toward town, some distance between them. My head hurts as I replay Sloane’s words about the court.

Emery deserves so much better. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. We only met recently. But screw it. It’s the truth. Emery deserves Callie.