Chapter 2

Chapter Two

MONTY

"Did you thank your mother for the dinner she put together?"

It took Monty a second to realize his father was speaking to him. He blinked across the table at the woman who was six months older than him—almost to the day—and swallowed heavily before looking at his dad. Rodrigo stared back, his dark eyes unmoving as they fixed on Monty's face.

"Thank you, Poppy, for the?—"

" Mom ," Rod corrected.

Monty let out a sigh and passed a hand down his face. He started to feel heat in his cheeks and tingles along the edge of his jaw, and he fought back a wave of panic. Not now. Please, God, not like this . But his spells were, more often than not, brought on by the stress of his father's relentless quest to get Monty to bend to his will.

His first cataplexic incident had been after his father had started screaming at him for turning his law school application in three days after the date he said he was sending it. It wasn't even late, but Rod insisted that Monty's lack of organizational skills was going to lead to a life of poverty and dependence on him.

Never mind that Monty got in. That he graduated with honors. His father still berated him for "almost losing his chance to become something."

Monty tensed his jaw before he spoke. "I'm not doing this with you tonight. Your wife is not my mother. I have a mom."

"No you don't. Not anymore," Rod bit out.

It would have been easier if Monty's mother had passed, which was such a cruel thing to think. But she was alive and well and living in Naples with her new husband and two replacement kids. She'd gotten out of her marriage with a nice fat settlement that carried her through the months it took to make her new rich boyfriend a husband, and now the most she managed with Monty was a birthday call every couple of years.

He hadn't seen her since he was sixteen, and it was looking like that was going to be his last memory of the woman who had given him his dark curls and crooked eyeteeth.

"I'm not going to argue technicalities here," Monty said, setting his fork down. His arms felt heavy. Fuck, he wasn't going to get out of this one, was he? He flexed his fingers in an attempt to get his limbs to wake up, but he was falling fast. He glanced over at his sister, whose attention was on her plate, and his brothers, who were glued to their phones.

They were children, even if he was the youngest. Spoiled and selfish and useless.

"If you'll excuse me, I need to—" He attempted to rise, but his dad cleared his throat loudly, and he froze.

"Sit down," Rod barked.

Monty's legs gave out, not giving him a choice. He glanced at Poppy as the edges of his vision went white. If he was lucky, he was going to faint. Fainting meant he wouldn't be able to hear all the garbage his father would spew when his body slumped over.

The man seemed to think Monty could overcome his neurological disease with willpower, and the reason he hadn't so far was because Monty was weak.

Rod refused to accept test results or the diagnosis.

Poppy looked at him, her face filled with sympathy, and he wished he could hate her. But the truth was, she was lovely. She was kind and sweet, and he knew that while his dad doted on her with every fiber of his being, she deserved better.

She didn't deserve this constant humiliation Rod put her through every time Monty visited for dinner.

"Stop being a brat and just thank your mother," Carlos said.

Monty tried to answer, but his tongue had given up on him.

Poppy flinched. It had to feel weird that a man old enough to be her father was calling her mother.

"Monty," she said softly. "Are you okay?"

He forced his head to shake. He couldn't see much now. His eyes were getting heavy. "Don't let me drown," he attempted to say. His brain was too foggy to remember if he was sitting in front of soup.

The world went white.

Then it went black.

Blessedly, he was out.

Monty woke up blind .

No, wait. He wasn't blind. There was a wet towel over his eyes. He attempted to reach for it, but his limbs weren't entirely back online. He let out a soft groan, and then someone pulled it off, and he kept his eyes closed against the assault of bright lights.

He appreciated when he woke up prone instead of slumped over a table or curled awkwardly with his lower half twisted around a chair. Usually, when he was home, he had enough time to flop on the sofa before it all went to hell. At his father's house, the attacks came on too quickly for him to do anything about it.

And if it had only been his dad in the room, he would have been left to his own devices. There had been plenty of times he'd knocked his head on solid concrete because his dad couldn't be assed to catch him before he hit the ground. But when Poppy was around, she was kinder.

He recognized the smell of her perfume—something sort of floral. Like jasmine.

"It's jasmine and rose," she said quietly.

He managed to open one eye and saw he was halfway under the dining table. He twitched his feet. "Was I talking aloud?"

She smiled at him. "You do sometimes when you first start waking up. You told me about the bar exam last week."

Monty groaned and pushed up on his elbows. His limbs were weak, but he didn't feel too bad. He really did like fainting better. Cataplexy came with weird complications, like waking nightmares that left him paralyzed and unsure of what was real and what wasn't.

Though that wasn't entirely true. He did know that there were no chainsaw-wielding clown-bears in his father's house. But the visions were very, very clear. And graphic.

"Are you okay? Do I need to call anyone?"

The fainting was from a rapid drop in his blood pressure, and there wasn't much he could do about it. "I could use some salt."

"Like anchovies, or…"

"Table salt will be fine." He knew he sounded a little unkind, but stress-induced attacks never put him in the best mood. Then again, being in his father's house did that on its own. He sat up slowly as Poppy moved away, and he managed to get his back against the chair.

The world was still a little foggy, and a spell like this meant he'd be sleeping the moment he got home. He'd been having such a good day too. He thought if he could just get through this dinner without incident, he could spend his evening catching up on paperwork. Now that was shot to hell.

He didn't like using the word hate , but sometimes it was the only one that came close to how he felt about his father.

He just didn't understand why the man had to be this way.

"Here."

Monty looked over to see Poppy holding out a delicate crystal saltshaker. He curled his fingers around it and tipped a small pile into the palm of his hand. He could feel her eyes boring into him as he turned his face away so he could lick it. He always felt a little like a farm animal when he did that.

His cheeks were flushed when he turned back to face her, which was a good thing, he supposed. At least he had blood rushing upward instead of away from his heart and brain. "Merci. "

Her lips twitched. He was pretty sure she didn't speak any of his father's primary languages. His father had been born and raised in Lisbon, moved to Paris to open a new law office where he met Monty's mother—initiating his third divorce— then after she left him, he packed up and settled on the East Coast of the United States with his children in tow.

All but Monty had been adults when it happened, and Monty was forced to attend an English-speaking school where he was both loved and hated for his thick accent and his inability to understand or process slang. But he'd adapted, and at least his neurological symptoms hadn't started presenting themselves until just before he'd finished his undergrads. And they'd started slowly—one fainting spell here, a cataplexic event there. He skated by on hope and prayer, and it wasn't until the week before he took the bar that it got worse, and he was given his prognosis after four months of constant testing: a rare neurological condition with no real treatment or cure. No more driving for him. No more flying his own plane. No more taking risks. But at least he could still work.

He passed the bar and managed to make it all work as he started his new practice.

"Can I help you up?"

Monty shook his head, pressing his hands to the floor. He took it slow, but he was already feeling human again. "I'm going to call for a car."

Poppy bit her lip. "I could give you a ride. I have to run an errand anyway."

He was pretty sure she was lying, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was some kind of ploy cooked up by his father in an attempt to win him over. But no matter how much he liked her, he wouldn't call her mom .

She wasn't his mother. No one in his life deserved that title, and he was fine with it.

The most attentive parent he'd ever had was his grandfather, but he was seven years gone, and the only thing Monty had left from him was his inheritance in the bank, gaining interest because it hurt too much to touch it, and his plane, which he couldn't fly now because his brain had decided to be unkind and take away the one thing he and his grandfather had loved doing together.

He had Kylen, of course, the adorable, unavailable pilot who was willing to take him in the air anytime he felt like visiting his grandfather's grave. But it wasn't the same. Being reliant on someone for those little things—those little, personal things that no one else gave a shit about—that's what got him right in the gut.

But he supposed he could take Poppy up on her offer. She was probably trying to assuage her guilt for her husband's behavior, and Monty didn't really want to punish her. He was pretty sure she hadn't realized what she was getting herself into when she started dating him. And Monty wasn't going to try and pretend he understood why a woman in her twenties would want a man three times her age.

Well, there was the obvious answer—and it wasn't like Monty was here to judge any reason for a person to make that choice. But she was kind. Genuinely kind. And Rod was not.

"Sorry, never mind. I'll just?—"

"I'd love a ride. Thank you." He pushed to his feet and stared down at his mostly empty plate. It was roast duck and toasted baguette smothered in foie gras with a handful of runner beans. A pretentious sort of lunch when all he'd really wanted was to curl up with a pizza, do paperwork, then watch a true crime documentary until he passed out.

Poppy smiled brightly, relieved. "Yeah? Cool. Okay, let me grab my bag and let Roddy know."

He tried to hide his wince. Roddy . Bile rose in the back of his throat as he followed her into the foyer, where he'd dropped his keys on the little curio cabinet that he was pretty sure Poppy had brought in. It was definitely not to his father's tastes, but over the years, he'd let his girlfriends and fiancées decorate however they wanted.

He'd once told Monty it was the only way to make a relationship last. "You can throw away things as quickly as you throw away a woman."

Rod had been nothing but a beacon of how not to treat people, but he was also the reason Monty had been terrified to date. He'd been raised by this man, and there was a small, ugly voice in his head that said if he let himself get comfortable, he'd become just like his father. And that was something he couldn't live with, so he accepted short dates and random hookups. It would have to be enough.

No matter how much he wanted to be loved. No matter how much he wanted more.

Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his emails as he waited for Poppy to return. He only had a few cases. He was still getting established, and he was starting to feel a little anxious that he was never going to do more than this. That his father was right—that his career was meant for small-time nobodies and he'd never make anything of himself.

He'd been distracted by all the very well-off men his father paraded around when he was younger. He'd wanted to be like them: distinguished and respected just by entering a room. He wanted to be the lawyer turning away cases because he had too many.

Disillusion hit him the year after he passed the bar and realized if it wasn't for the money he'd squirreled away and the inheritance he hadn't touched, he'd be up the fucking creek.

His father would tell him that's what he got for going into family law. His uncles would tell him that's what he got for not being more ruthless and going after clients who had fuck-you money. But Monty was the fool who actually wanted to make a difference.

His father considered the Reed case to be an epic failure. To him, a win would have been stripping the mother of everything, giving sole custody of the little girl to his client, and forcing her to sell off everything she owned in order to pay her child support.

For Monty, it was getting Dallas the time he wanted with his daughter while ensuring he could comfortably co-parent with his ex. And he'd made a friend out of it too, something no one in his family would ever understand.

He and Dallas had been getting drinks a few times a month since the final custody hearing, and Monty was coming to realize that maybe he could be comfortable and settled here. Maybe he didn't have to run and start over where no one knew him.

"Hey." Poppy skidded to a halt, her boat shoes making a little squeaking noise on the tile, and she grimaced. "Sorry."

Christ, she was so young. He tried for a smile as he opened the door for her, and she hesitated before walking ahead of him, keeping her pace slow.

He realized what she was doing and held back a frustrated sigh. "I'm not going to keel over."

"No, I know. I wasn't worried about that." She flushed at his silence. "Okay, I was worried. The last time you were here, you hit your head on the pool deck."

That had been the cataplexy. He was walking beside his dad one minute and hit the ground in the next. He felt every inch of that fall. "I appreciate your concern, but at least I know you'll catch me if I go down."

He didn't bother pulling his punches this time, and from the look on her face, she knew it.

She didn't say anything else as she led the way to the circle driveway where her car sat. It was a cute little two-seater sporty thing with the top down. The weather was getting too cold and windy for it, but he just wrapped his jacket around him a little tighter as he climbed inside and waited for her to start up the engine.

She immediately hit the button to close the top just before they pulled out onto the main road, and he only regretted it because it meant she was going to want to make small talk. "So…"

He groaned. He couldn't help it. When she looked devastated, he sighed and said, "I'm sorry. It's not you. I don't actually hate you. You know that, right?"

Poppy scoffed. "Do I?"

"I hope so. I'm angry at him. Neither of us wants me to call you Mom."

She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. "No, we don't. It's weird , right? Like, Carlos and Angelo are twenty years older than me, and he makes them do it too."

He lifted a brow at her. "They've never been able to tell him no, no matter how absurd the request is."

Poppy swallowed heavily. "They're your half brothers, aren't they? From his first wife?"

"Second," he corrected. "My mother was his third. Catia was his first child."

"And I'm the fourth," Poppy said very softly and maybe a little sadly.

That was true—technically. His father never spent more than a few weeks as a single man. The fiancées outnumbered the wives, but the cycle was the same. Different woman with a new face and new story to tell, giving herself to a man who was making the same promises over and over. Eventually, they realized Rod was full of shit and left, and he didn't seem to care.

Though Monty did have to admit Rod seemed to love this one more than the others. He'd had a vasectomy years ago, but Monty had a feeling if he could, he would have had a child with her by now.

"Anyway, they're all my half siblings, but I don't think of them that way. We were all brought up in the same house. None of our moms ever fought for us."

Poppy looked like she had a thousand more questions, but from the way her cheek caved in, he could tell she was biting them back. "I…do you think he still loves her?"

Monty frowned. "Who?"

"Your, ah…your mom. Or any of his exes?"

Monty laughed. He didn't mean to, but he hadn't realized she was feeling insecure. "No, chérie. Because that would imply he loved her once, and I don't think that was the case. I think he married her because she was willing to put up with his bullshit long enough to have a kid with him."

She licked her lips, and he knew what was coming. "Do you think he loves me?"

"I'm not the person to ask." He did wish he could give her a better answer, but he didn't have one. He didn't want to lie to her, even if it would make her life easier, but he couldn't say no. Not with any certainty .

Poppy said nothing for a long while, and Monty appreciated the quiet as her car ate up the miles between his home and his father's. And the silence lasted until she was pulling onto his street. "I'll ask him to back off on the whole mom thing, okay?"

Monty's gaze was fixed on his front door, the need to be inside and away from all this mess consuming him. He reached for the door handle before she was at a complete stop, but he paused and looked over at her as she put the car in park.

"Don't lose sleep over it. My father and I have butted heads over worse things. But I'd like you to know I'm not putting up a fight because I don't like you. I'm sure if you ever become a mother one day, you'll be an amazing one."

"That's kind."

"I mean it," Monty told her. "But you can't parent me."

She let out a soft laugh. "You're sweet. And kind, which I'm not sure I deserve, but I promise I'll do my best to fix it."

He didn't bother arguing with her again. They both knew damn well how stubborn Rod was, and if Poppy wanted to waste her time fighting a losing battle, that was on her. "Take care," he said, opening the door, "and thank you for the ride."

She looked like she wanted more from him—more validation, maybe, or a little more reassurance. He couldn't give that to her. He was too damn tired.

He headed into his house and kicked his shoes off as the door was closing. He stripped down to boxers and a T-shirt before flopping onto his sofa and grabbing the blanket thrown over the top.

It wasn't as heavy as he liked. He wanted to be wrapped up and weighted down. Maybe kissed a little. He didn't even need love that came with that sort of thing. He wanted it, but he wasn't willing to compromise on his fear of becoming like this father. So he'd settle for having a warm body from time to time—someone who helped him feel alive.

But right now, he had no one. He'd struck out date after date on the apps, and he was starting to think that maybe the planets and stars were sending him a message. Cruel, perhaps, but not everyone was meant for any version of happily ever after.

Hell, not everyone was even meant for a happily for now.

He could accept it.

Even if it killed him a little to do so.